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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'Like a coup', says Robert Reich
Rachael Revesz 36 mins ago
Robert Reich ... was quick to react ...
Ivanka into the White House? Its like a coup, and the dictators family is moving into the palace as it prepares to the loot the country ...
"Doesnt the Trump administration have enough ethics problems? Arent there already enough conflicts of interest to sink a ship?" he wrote.
Ms Trumps lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, told Politico that the 35-year-old will be given government communication devices and will be provided classified security clearance ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ivanka-trump-west-wing-office-white-house-coup-labor-secretary-robert-reich-bill-clinton-gerald-ford-a7641236.html
Eliot Rosewater
(31,112 posts)departments that would hold them accountable.
And the tparty and republican voters are cheering it on, Ryan and Trump and team will take their Soc Sec and Medicare, and they will cheer it on.
Watch
wordpix
(18,652 posts) They once found the idea of a president under FBI investigation intolerable. But now most of the GOP is silent
By Joan Walsh Twitter
Just six months ago, Republicans found it unthinkable that a president might enter the White House under the cloud of an FBI investigation. Can this country afford to have a president under investigation by the FBI? Senator Marco Rubio, campaigning for Donald Trump, asked about Hillary Clinton in September. Think of the trauma that would do to this country. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, then head of the Republican National Committee, took it further: This alone should be disqualifying for anyone seeking the presidency, a job that is supposed to begin each morning with a top secret intelligence briefing. Trump himself insisted Clintons FBI troubles should keep her from getting even a low level security clearance. House Speaker Paul Ryan went so far as to ask Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to halt the daily briefings Clinton received as a presidential nominee.
On Monday, FBI director James Comey confirmed that since July, his agency has been investigating alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials in the hack and dissemination of Democratic Party campaign materials. The GOP response is predictably hypocritical and pathetic. Trump himself spent Monday morning preemptively rebutting Comey and insisting the real story is the leaking of classified information. In the House Intelligence Committee, GOP members heard their marching orders, and began pushing Comey to discuss leaks about his investigation rather than the spectacular news that he was confirming an investigation existed.
Benghazi-gate uber-prober Representative Trey Gowdy was particularly strident, blaming the leaks on former Obama administration intelligence officials. We should note that Gowdys infamous Benghazi committee didnt just leak; it spewed damaging as well as false information about Clintons role in the 2012 Libya attack indiscriminately around the capitol. One thing you and I agree on is the felonious dissemination of classified material most definitely is a crime, Gowdy told Comey with a straight face, but the FBI director refused to even confirm that assertion. Maybe Comey is investigating Gowdys handling of classified informationwho can say?
Committee chair Devin Nunes had already told Fox News Sunday that the leak of former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynns Russia conversations to the media is the one crime we know thats been committed. On Monday, Nunes joined Gowdy in urging more attention to intelligence community leaks, but he also gave the day its headline, telling Comey: There is a big, gray cloud that youve now put over people who have very important work to do to lead this country. And so the faster you can get to the bottom of this, its going to be better for all Americans.
Id quarrel with the first part of Nuness claimit isnt Comey but Trump campaign associates like former manager Paul Manafort, foreign policy advisor Carter Page and the awful Roger Stone, along with short term staffers like Flynn, who put the cloud over the Trump administration, by their own associations with Russia and/or their lies about them. Id agree on the second part, though: the faster Comey can get to the bottom of Trumps ties to Russia, the better for all Americans.
But what congressional leaders can we trust to make sure US intelligence agencies really do thatand will any of them include Republicans? Paul Ryan told reporters I dont think we learned anything new from Comey on Monday. Really? Not only did the FBI director confirm the Trump-Russia investigation existed, he told the committee there was no evidence to prove Trumps delusional Twitter claim that President Obama had put tapps on his phone at Trump Tower. You have to wonder what Ryan would consider new. I can tell you one thing: His standards for evidence and scandal will change if Trump cant muscle through Ryans cruel Obamacare repeal bill and his Dickensian budget and tax cuts.
Right now Republicans like Ryan are cynically using Trump to enact an agenda so unpopular they cannot sell it on their own. Trump wooed the white, working-class voters Ryan and Mitt Romney repelled in 2012, with their elite brand of self-dealing country club politics. So Ryan needs him. But if Trump cant work political magic around Ryans awful policy agenda, that could change.
Were told to expect the Senate to do a better job probing the Trump-Russia links. And certainly Senators Lindsey Graham, Richard Burr and John McCain have sounded more exercised about the alleged intervention into the election than most GOP House members. But their concern is not shared throughout the caucus. Texas Senator John Cornyn told MSNBCs Morning Joe on Tuesday morning that hes not terribly concerned about Comeys revelations. He thinks that when former director of national security James Clapper told a Sunday show he saw no evidence of collusion between Trump officials and Russiathat ought to have closed the case, even though the current FBI director has said under oath in a Congressional committee hearing that the investigation is still ongoing. Thats the kind of selective reasoning youd expect from Trey Gowdy.
Meanwhile, Trump huddled with House Republicans Tuesday morning trying to sell Ryancare to its critics (hes still not calling it Trumpcare). Ryan said Trump knocked the cover off the ball, sounding like a proud father, but other House reports were less kind. Trump took no questions, discussed no policy details and warned dissidents they would be be ripe for a primary if they didnt back the bill. Since members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are pretty well insulated from primary challengesindeed, theyd be more likely primaried if they supported the billits not clear Trumps intervention will pay off.
No one should want James Comey, or other intelligence agency leaders, to wield the power he currently does. His decision to publicly reveal in late October that the FBI was taking a new look at Clintons emails, after they were discovered on Anthony Weiners laptop, arguably threw the election to Trump. Ironically, that decision was said to be at least partly motivated by leaks from the right flank of the FBI to Rudy Giuliani and others about the new emails (they turned out, predictably, to be duplicates). Republicans were not at all concerned about intelligence agency leakers back then; they were outraged that a president might enter the White House under FBI scrutiny. Now theyve opportunistically switched sides. With Democrats a minority in both houses, GOP leaders have effectively forfeited Congresss ability to investigate and rein in the investigators. Were at the mercy of leakers with an agenda. Thats no way to deal with allegations of foreign interference into American democracy, but its the way were stuck with until more Republicans find a conscience.
dhol82
(9,353 posts)Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)A man who seemingly by happenstance wanders in places of great power, and then proceeds to audaciously milk his situation to his own benefit for all its worth without any regards to morals, ethics, values, norms or laws.
tblue37
(65,391 posts)lame54
(35,292 posts)it was right there
SFnomad
(3,473 posts)Hekate
(90,708 posts)C_U_L8R
(45,002 posts)U.S. Code § 3110 - Employment of relatives; restrictions
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3110
mnhtnbb
(31,391 posts)The article says she will not be paid.
And, presumably, the argument would be that she is therefor not employed and not subject to that particular
law preventing/restricting employment of relatives.
Obviously they are trying to skirt the intent of the law.
Maybe Kellyanne is tired of having all the office "wife" duties and Ivanka plans to step up and share.
C_U_L8R
(45,002 posts)And none of the accountability.
Of course she's merchandising her privileged position and profiting. This is bullshit.
mnhtnbb
(31,391 posts)bullshit and this is just par for the course.
SFnomad
(3,473 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)put the Palins to shame....
Glimmer of Hope
(5,823 posts)covered all her bases.
EleanorR
(2,393 posts)Glimmer of Hope
(5,823 posts)Grammy23
(5,810 posts)Something about this just doesn't feel or smell right. I said on another thread that tRump does whatever he wants to do and just waits out anyone who objects. He said some time ago that he had a job for Ivanka in the White House that was greeted with less than enthusiasm. So he let it drop for a while. And now it is just matter of factly announced she will have an office and a security clearance. He is just daring someone to challenge this appointment.
Girard442
(6,075 posts)Oh hell, while we're having fun, let's make her one of the Joint Chiefs and give her the launch codes too.
liberalmuse
(18,672 posts)Except Lucretia was an abused pawn. Not so sure about Ivanka not being complicit in the Orange Borgia's crimes.
VOX
(22,976 posts)Republicans would need trebuchets to fling their mountains of rage-poop. And impeachment proceedings would already be underway.
jalan48
(13,869 posts)Trump's like the kid who hates school so much he does everything he can to get kicked out.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)Trump transition team...
tblue37
(65,391 posts)OldHippieChick
(2,434 posts)She already has influence w/out needing an office or security clearance. Daddy and Hubby undoubtedly tell her anything she wants to know. Do they need her close by to rein him in when he starts drooling? Are they really thinking it is "their" country now? Which is it? Or is it something other than a choice between greed and mental illness?
LiberalArkie
(15,716 posts)Trump hears from the others. I think it started as a game, but they now realize they are in a real life situation.
kimbutgar
(21,155 posts)lark
(23,102 posts)Sister girl wants her independence and information to collude with Russia all by herself without daddy's help.
volstork
(5,401 posts)It IS a coup.
ck4829
(35,077 posts)CrispyQ
(36,470 posts)Shaun King, a senior justice writer and activist, simply called the news disturbing
Preparing us for her presidential run in four years, perhaps? They will tout how they are not misogynists, after all, see? Laugh, but they've given us Reagan, W & now Trump.
Corgigal
(9,291 posts)Has another new location to run a wire.
BOO...
SunSeeker
(51,559 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,173 posts)Look for the dissolution of all to support the Trump claim to the throne
DJT sticks mostly, and who needs to repeat it, white men, but I think
mostly white central, eastern European descendant, like himself. One
doesn't hear the term much anymore - WASP.
Ccarmona
(1,180 posts)The coup will be complete.
The new Order of Succession:
Oldest Daughter
Dumb Ass Son #1
Dumb Ass Son #2
Baron
That other girl that hangs around.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)oldcynic
(385 posts)Celebrate the glass ceiling broken. Equality achieved. Isn't it exciting?