{"id":12535,"date":"2018-05-21T18:38:36","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T22:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/a-weekends-worth-of-outrages\/"},"modified":"2018-05-21T18:38:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T22:38:36","slug":"a-weekends-worth-of-outrages","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/fr\/articles\/a-weekends-worth-of-outrages\/","title":{"rendered":"A Weekend’s Worth of Outrages"},"template":"","class_list":["post-12535","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article_type-blog-post"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"","featured_image":null,"article_type":1103,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"1\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":8577}"],"related_issues":[134,136,143,149,2065,2066,2082],"related_work":false,"location":null},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"The political and ethical outrages emanating from President Trump\u2019s White House are coming so fast these days that it can be tough to keep up. Here\u2019s a re-cap from the weekend.\r\n\r\nIn a blizzard of tweets beginning on Saturday,<\/strong> the president escalated his war on the FBI and career officials at the Department of Justice who he claims are bent on destroying him and his administration.\r\n\r\nThe capstone was a Sunday message in which Trump used the social media platform to \u201chearby demand\u201d that Justice Department leaders \u201clook into whether or not the FBI\/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!\u201d\r\n\r\nTrump offered no evidence of the department\u2019s supposed political motivation; his Twitter outburst followed published reports that a longtime U.S. intelligence source exploited contacts with three Trump advisers to assist Justice Department investigators looking into Russian interference in the election and the Trump campaign\u2019s possible involvement in it.\r\n\r\nTrump has been complaining for months that the investigation, now headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d On Saturday, he tweeted that \u201cIf the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal.\u201d\r\n\r\nCharlie Sykes, a conservative Republican and prominent Trump critic, said the president\u2019s latest attack is part of a campaign of \u201cslow motion obstruction of justice\u201d by Trump and his most passionate allies in the GOP.\r\n\r\nDeputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Mueller investigation, promptly announced that the Justice Department\u2019s inspector general will look into Trump\u2019s complaint.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,\u201d Rosenstein said.\r\n\r\nRosenstein\u2019s announcement is widely viewed in Washington as an attempt to hold off a more direct confrontation between the Justice Department and the White House. The president has repeatedly threatened to fire Rosenstein and replace him with someone willing to shut down the Mueller investigation.\r\n\r\nSally Yates, Rosenstein\u2019s predecessor as deputy attorney general, told MSNBC that Trump\u2019s order \u201ctakes his all-out assault on the rule of law to a new level.\u201d\r\n\r\n***\r\n\r\nThe Russian government <\/strong>apparently wasn\u2019t alone among foreign powers in its willingness to meddle in U.S. politics and help Trump gain the White House.\r\n\r\nThe New York Times reported on Saturday that a few months before the 2016 election, George Nader, a man claiming to represent the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, met with Donald Trump Jr. to offer those countries\u2019 help to the Trump campaign.\r\n\r\nThe meeting purportedly was arranged by Eric Prince, founder of the paramilitary private security company Blackwater. It also included a social media entrepreneur, Joel Zamel, who was hawking a multimillion dollar plan to use social media to assist Trump\u2019s campaign.\r\n\r\n\u201cDonald Trump Jr. responded approvingly, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting,\u201d the Times reported, \u201cand after those initial offers of help, Mr. Nader was quickly embraced as a close ally by Trump campaign advisers.\u201d The newspaper said Nader met frequently with Jared Kushner, Trump\u2019s son-in-law, and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who became the president\u2019s first national security adviser but was fired after just a few weeks on the job.\r\n\r\n\u201cAfter Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Nader paid Mr. Zamel a large sum of money, described by one associate as up to $2 million,\u201d the Times reported. \u201cThere are conflicting accounts of the reason for the payment, but among other things, a company linked to Mr. Zamel provided Mr. Nader with an elaborate presentation about the significance of social media campaigning to Mr. Trump\u2019s victory.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe president clearly was stung by the Times report; his weekend tweets included several attacks on the story. \u201cThings are really getting ridiculous. The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World\u2019s most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World!\u201d\r\n\r\n***\r\n\r\nThe Washington Post<\/strong> has been a thorn in Trump\u2019s side at least since he announced his presidential campaign in 2015. One of its reporters, David A. Fahrenthold, won journalism\u2019s highest honor, the Pulitizer Prize, for stories including unearthing the infamous \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d tape in which Trump is heard bragging about grabbing women\u2019s genitals.\r\n\r\nTrump is famous for striking hard at those who strike him. So, it\u2019s no surprise to find that he recently called on Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the U.S. Postal Service\u2019s delivery charges for packages shipped by Amazon.com. The online retail giant is owned by Jeff Bezos, who also happens to own the Post.\r\n\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7lrWOJIUt8k&ab_channel=CNN[\/embed]\r\n

Washington Post Senior Editor Marc Fisher discussed the president's feud with his newspaper and Amazon.com<\/strong><\/p>\r\nThe newspaper reported Friday that three anonymous sources have confirmed that Trump pressed Brennan to double fees charged Amazon and other retailers. The postmaster has resisted the president\u2019s requests, telling Trump that the service\u2019s charges to Amazon are part of a contract with the retailer that is very profitable for USPS.\r\n\r\nAmazon reportedly spends more than $21 billion annually on shipping; an estimated 40 percent of its U.S. deliveries are made through USPS.\r\n\r\nThe Post said its sources agree that \u201cBrennan and Trump have met at the White House about the matter several times, beginning in 2017, and most recently four months ago\u2026 The meetings have never appeared on Trump\u2019s public schedule.\u201d\r\n\r\nBrennan is a Postal Service careerist, having begun 32 years ago as a letter carrier. She has been postmaster general since 2014. The job is not a presidential appointment; Brennan was hired by and reports to the Postal Service\u2019s Board of Governors.\r\n\r\nBezos, whose holdings also include a space company, has shrugged off past Trump attacks. \u201cFinally trashed by @realDonaldTrump,\u201d he tweeted after a 2015 complaint by candidate Trump that the Post is providing a tax shelter for Amazon. \u201cWill still reserve him a seat on the Blue Origin rocket. #sendDonaldtospace.\u201d"}}]},"yoast_head":"\nA Weekend’s Worth of Outrages - Common Cause<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/fr\/articles\/a-weekends-worth-of-outrages\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Weekend’s Worth of Outrages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/fr\/articles\/a-weekends-worth-of-outrages\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Cause\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CommonCause\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/CC-Share-Graphic-Main9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CommonCause\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/a-weekends-worth-of-outrages\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/a-weekends-worth-of-outrages\/\",\"name\":\"A Weekend’s Worth of Outrages - 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