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Trump Staffers and Guests Run Up the Tab, Taxpayers Foot the Bill

Find “Trump, Inc.” wherever you get your podcasts. This week’s episode examines the intersection of money, presidential access and security, and the push and pull between government spending and private profits at Mar-a-Lago.

In April 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate and club, for a two-day summit. While Xi and his delegation stayed at a nearby hotel, Trump and his advisers stayed at the peach-colored, waterfront resort.

That evening, Trump and a dozen of his closest advisers hosted Xi and the Chinese delegation in an ornate dining room where they ate Dover sole and New York strip steak. Those sorts of lavish, formal gatherings are expected for a major bilateral summit.

But then there are less formal events. At some point later that evening, a group repaired to Mar-a-Lago’s Library Bar, a wood-paneled study with a portrait of Trump in tennis whites (titled “The Visionary”) hanging nearby. The group asked the bartender to leave the room so it “could speak confidentially,” according to an email written by Mar-a-Lago’s catering director, Brooke Watson.

MAR-A-LAGO’S CATERING DIRECTOR DESCRIBES WHITE HOUSE HAPPY HOUR FOR STATE DEPARTMENT (p. 33)



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The Secret Service guarded the door, according to the email. The bartender wasn’t allowed to return. And members of the group began pouring themselves drinks. No one paid.

Six days later, on April 13, Mar-a-Lago created a bill for those drinks, tallying $838 worth of alcohol plus a 20% service charge. It covered 54 drinks (making for an average price of $18.62 each) of premium liquor: Chopin vodka, Patron and Don Julio Blanco tequilas and Woodford Reserve bourbon. Watson’s email did not specify how many people consumed the alcohol or who the participants were. (It stated that she was told the participants included then-strategist Steve Bannon and then-deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin. Bannon, who has said he stopped drinking years ago, said he didn’t drink at Mar-a-Lago and didn’t recall the episode. Hagin did not respond to requests for comment.)

MAR-A-LAGO’S BILL FOR $1,005.60 FOR ALCOHOL CONSUMED BY WHITE HOUSE AIDES (p. 277)



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The bill was sent to the State Department, which objected to covering it. It was then forwarded to the White House, which paid the tab.

The unusual cocktail hour underscores a unique push and pull in the current administration: Donald Trump’s White House pays a bill and Donald Trump’s club reaps the revenue. (It’s unclear if the White House asked any of those drinking to reimburse the government; the White House declined to comment.)

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Documents Show Government Payments to Trump Businesses



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The premium liquor costs are only the beginning of government spending at Mar-a-Lago that emerges in hundreds of pages of receipts and email correspondence between Trump Organization employees and staffers for the State Department, which oversees presidential diplomatic travel and works with the Secret Service and White House. The emails show that the president’s company refused to agree to what was essentially a bulk-purchase agreement with the federal government, and that it charged the maximum allowable federal rate for hotel rooms. The Trump Organization could be obstinate when it came to rates for, say, function rooms at Mar-a-Lago, a problem that was eased when the president signed a law lifting the maximum “micro-purchase” the government can make.

The emails have been released as part of an ongoing lawsuit between the nonprofit Property of the People, a Washington-based transparency group, and the federal government. Property of the People provided the emails and receipts to ProPublica and we, in turn, have added them to our tracker of government spending at Trump-owned properties for our interactive graphic Paying the President. (The State Department is expected to release an additional 1,800 pages of records as part of the lawsuit, which was filed under the Freedom of Information Act.)

In response to questions from ProPublica, the State Department asked for and received the documents described in this article. State Department officials promised a detailed response, but then declined comment.

The documents reveal the intersection between Trump’s conflicting interests. The emails show that “Mar-a-Lago wanted to have the government money without the government rules,” said Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who served on the congressionally chartered Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A few months after Trump’s inauguration, the State Department proposed a contract that would pay $200,000 for all room costs for federal employees who stay at Mar-a-Lago over the first term of his presidency. But Mar-a-Lago rejected the government’s proposal. Instead, Trump’s resort bills the government the maximum permitted by federal rules: 300% of the government’s per diem rate, which works out to $546 per night.

Mar-a-Lago rejected the proposed flat-fee arrangement, according to the emails, because of concerns the club’s lawyers had about the Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, which governs federal purchases and is overseen by contracting officers. FAR seeks to promote competition and maintain “the public’s trust.”

The emails suggest the Trump Organization was worried that the lack of competitive bidding could run afoul of federal rules, among other concerns. A State Department staffer wrote in May 2017 that Mar-a-Lago’s attorneys brought up federal “small business set-aside” requirements, which set strict rules for sole-source government bids for small businesses. The State Department staffer wrote that Mar-a-Lago’s “concerns are based on their general lack of knowledge on the applicability of the FAR regulations.”

A STATE DEPARTMENT TRAVEL CARD IS CREATED JUST FOR MAR-A-LAGO (p. 16)



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Mar-a-Lago and the Trump Organization did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment.

Since Mar-a-Lago wouldn’t agree to a bulk contract, the State Department had to go to Plan B. When it came to the meeting with China’s president, for example, the agency had to go into some contortions to make Mar-a-Lago’s $546 nightly room rate square with its rules on competitive bidding, given that there are other less expensive hotels nearby. At least 16 staffers stayed at the Hampton Inn in West Palm Beach; at least eight stayed at the nearby Hilton Garden Inn; and four others stayed at the Tideline Ocean Resort & Spa, where the press pool also stayed, according to a hotel manifest obtained through the FOIA lawsuit. The government-negotiated rates at those establishments ranged from $195 to $305 per night.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT NEGOTIATED A MUCH CHEAPER RATE FOR A NEARBY HOTEL FOR THE APRIL 2017 TRIP (p. 128)



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(At least 24 White House and federal staffers stayed at Mar-a-Lago during the Xi visit. They included then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; then-chief of staff Reince Priebus; then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; then-National Economic Council adviser Gary Cohn; and other advisers, past and present, such as Bannon, Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller and Sean Spicer.)

A MANIFEST OF WHERE FEDERAL EMPLOYEES STAYED DURING THE APRIL 2017 MAR-A-LAGO TRIP (p. 126)



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The State Department also broke with protocol regarding taxpayer-funded travel and applied for a Citibank travel card just for Mar-a-Lago visits.

Meanwhile, other problems emerged:

Mar-a-Lago can’t process charges over $10,000, which led to problems when the club split bills and charged the government card for multiple transactions, emails show.




MAR-A-LAGO CAN ONLY CHARGE UP TO $10,000 ON ITS SYSTEMS, SAYS STATE DEPARTMENT (p. 76)



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Mar-a-Lago refused government requests to waive the costs of its “function room” for press and other official meetings in April 2017, leading to a near-violation of a $3,500 government spending cap. Last year, Trump signed a lawthat lifted that cap, known as the “micro-purchase threshold,” from $3,500 to $10,000. The law does not appear to have been aimed at facilitating spending at Mar-a-Lago, but it allows the club to avoid additional government contracting rules when charging sums below $10,000.
In one instance, after the government was charged more than $3,500 for conference space at Mar-a-Lago, it asked the Trump Organization for a 10% discount so that it wouldn’t violate the micro-purchase threshold. Mar-a-Lago relented, but only after months of haggling.




THE STATE DEPARTMENT ASKS MAR-A-LAGO FOR A 10% DISCOUNT ON A MEETING ROOM, TO COMPLY WITH FEDERAL RULES (p. 45)



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In the emails, the director of presidential travel support, Michael Dobbs, frequently described the creation of a charge card unique to Mar-a-Lago as a “headache.”

STATE DEPARTMENT CONTRACTING OFFICER SAYS MAR-A-LAGO IS A ‘HEADACHE’ (p. 430)



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As Steve Schooner, a professor of government contracting law at George Washington University, put it, “The fact that we have a State Department contracting officer saying this is a headache is a reminder that, but for the relationship with President Trump, this would not be a contract the government would be having. That’s a problem.”

Many of the expenses incurred by White House staff are arranged and paid for by the White House’s Office of Administration. These expenses are not required to be made public. The same goes for Secret Service spending to protect the president on such visits. (The Government Accountability Office released a report last month evaluating spending at Mar-a-Lago in February and March 2017 and found that a total of $60,000 was spent at the hotel during four trips; the figure ran to $13.6 million when costs for plane travel, secret service, security and other logistics were included.)

The State Department payments, and its work on behalf of the White House and other traveling staff, are considered public records.

Between 2015 and June of 2018, at least $16.1 million has poured into Trump Organization-managed and branded hotels, golf courses and restaurants from his campaign, Republican organizations and government agencies. Because Trump’s business empire is overseen by a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, he profits from these hotel stays, banquet hall rentals and meals.

Federal spending rules don’t specifically address agency-level spending on alcohol that is directly invoiced to the government, as occurred with the $1,000 bar tab at Mar-a-Lago. The State Department and the White House have had exemptions included in their appropriations legislation to allow for alcohol purchases.

Individual government employees are not permitted to use charge cards for “improper” purposes, such as alcohol, and federal per diem rules allow for charges for breakfast, lunch, dinner and related tips and taxes but specifically exclude alcoholic drinks.

Six government contracting experts said Mar-a-Lago may be violating rules requiring competitive bids. They argue that Mar-a-Lago’s practice of invoicing meeting spaces, hotel stays and meals separately is a way to get around federal spending rules.

“Mar-a-Lago didn’t want to compete, they wanted to sneak around the requirements, and charge much higher prices than the competition,” said Tiefer, who served as deputy general counsel with the House of Representatives for 11 years. “It’s not the first time in history that vendors have tried to get around the rules by charging individual components. This is familiar to every contracting officer. And it’s wrong. It’s not just a technicality. It’s not a game. The only safeguard the public has against the Trumps swallowing up all the government business is at least minimal competition.”

Several experts contend the State Department is exploiting loopholes in government spending rules to facilitate official gatherings at Mar-a-Lago. “It’s one of the biggest fears coming true, that they are bending over backwards to help the Trump Organization,” said Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project On Government Oversight. “I’m frustrated the State Department would exploit the system to bill Uncle Sam and the taxpayers. To have the government bicker to get a 10% discount shows the Trump Organization isn’t putting the American public first. It’s a worst-case scenario when it comes to conflicts of interest, with the president and his children putting themselves and profits ahead of the public.”

“Trump, Inc.” is exploring whether the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is still enforcing consumer financial laws and holding companies accountable. We want to hear from people who work at the agency or left recently (particularly those familiar with enforcement actions, supervisory exams and areas such as payday lending and debt collection). We’re also hoping to hear from consumers and companies who have interacted with the bureau in recent years. Find out more and tell us what you know.

“Trump, Inc.” is a production of WNYC Studios and ProPublica. Support our work by visiting donate.propublica.org or by becoming a supporting member of WNYC. Subscribe here or wherever you get your podcasts.

U.S. Military Stops Releasing Afghanistan War Information

WASHINGTON—Amid a battlefield stalemate in Afghanistan, the U.S. military has stopped releasing information often cited to measure progress in America’s longest war, calling it of little value in fighting the Taliban insurgency.

The move fits a trend of less information being released about the war in recent years, often at the insistence of the Afghan government, which had previously stopped the U.S. military from disclosing the number of Afghans killed in battle as well as overall attrition within the Afghan army.

The latest clampdown also aligns with President Donald Trump’s complaint that the U.S. gives away too much war information, although there is no evidence that this had any influence on the latest decision.

A government watchdog agency that monitors the U.S. war effort, now in its 18th year, said in a report to Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. military command in Kabul is no longer producing “district control data,” which shows the number of Afghan districts — and the percentage of their population — controlled by the government compared to the Taliban.

The last time the command released this information, in January, it showed that Afghan government control was stagnant or slipping. It said the share of the population under Afghan government control or influence — a figure that was largely unchanged from May 2017 to July 2018 at about 65 percent — had dropped in October 2018 to 63.5 percent. The government’s control or influence of districts fell nearly 2 percentage points, to 53.8 percent.

Less than two years ago, a top American commander in Afghanistan called population control “most telling.” Gen. John Nicholson told reporters in November 2017 that he wanted to see the figure, then about two-thirds, increase to at least 80 percent, with the Taliban holding only about 10 percent and the rest contested.

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“And this, we believe, is the critical mass necessary to drive the enemy to irrelevance,” Nicholson said then.

Nicholson’s successor, Gen. Scott Miller, believes there already are enough such assessments available to the public, including one produced by intelligence agencies.

“We are focused on setting the conditions for a political settlement to safeguard our national interests,” Col. David M. Butler, a spokesman for Miller, said in an email exchange Tuesday. “The district stability assessment that was previously provided by DOD was redundant and did little to serve our mission of protecting our citizens and allies.”

The war is at a sensitive juncture, with the Trump administration making a hard push to get peace talks started between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The Taliban recently launched a spring military offensive and have refused to directly talk to Kabul representatives, viewing the government as a U.S. puppet.

In its report, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, said Miller’s command offered a further explanation for no longer producing the “district control” data, asserting there was “uncertainty” in the way the data were produced and saying “the assessments that underlie them are to a degree subjective.”

“The command said they no longer saw decision-making value in these data,” the SIGAR report said. In remarks to reporters last week, John Sopko, the special inspector general, criticized what he called a trend toward less openness by the military authorities who are advising, training and assisting Afghan security forces.

“I don’t think it makes sense,” Sopko said. “The Afghan people know which districts are controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban obviously know which districts they control. Our military knows it. Everybody in Afghanistan knows it. The only people who don’t know what’s going on are the people who are paying for all of this, and that’s the American taxpayer.”

In January, Trump sharply criticized his own administration for disclosing information that he said aids enemy forces.

“Some IG goes over there, who are mostly appointed by President Obama — but we’ll have ours, too — and he goes over there, and they do a report on every single thing that’s happening, and they release it to the public,” Trump told reporters. “What kind of stuff is this? We’re fighting wars, and they’re doing reports and releasing it to the public? Now, the public means the enemy. The enemy reads those reports; they study every line of it.”

Trump then turned to the acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, and said, “I don’t want it to happen anymore, Mr. Secretary.”

The war in Afghanistan is largely forgotten in much of America, as is the enormous, continuing financial cost. This year the Pentagon budget includes $4.9 billion to provide the Afghan army and police with everything from equipment and supplies to salaries and food. That is one piece of a wider array of “reconstruction” assistance the U.S. government has provided since the war began in 2001, totaling $132 billion.

Overall, the U.S. has spent $737 billion on the war and lost more than 2,400 military lives, according to the Pentagon.

Critics Denounce U.S. for Backing Attempted Coup in Venezuela

As the Trump administration enthusiastically endorsed the so-called “military uprising” led by Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido but refused to call it a coup attempt, progressive critics and anti-war voices made clear that is precisely what took place Tuesday as violent clashes erupted throughout the Latin American nation.

“If this isn’t an ‘armed coup,’ then what the hell is?!” the peace group CodePink asked on Twitter after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), one of the most prominent cheerleaders of Guaido’s ongoing attempt to overthrow Venezuela’s elected government, denied that the opposition’s efforts amounted to a coup plot.

National security adviser John Bolton’s echoed Rubio’s insistence that Guaido’s actions—supported by group of heavily armed soldiers—”is not a coup.”

In response, Gerry Condon of Veterans for Peace wrote for Common Dreams, “And night is day.”

“[Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo and Bolton blame the Cubans and the Russians for supporting the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro,” wrote Condon. “They threaten the Russians with consequences, but they save their bitterest bile for the ‘Cuban thugs.’ Thugs? Who are the thugs? Who are the punks? Who are the bullies?  Let me say their names again. Donald Trump. Mike Pence. John Bolton. Mike Pompeo. Elliott Abrams. Marco Rubio.”

Following a day of chaos sparked by the Guaido-led “uprising”—which resulted in dozens of injuries and at least one death—Venezuela’s elected President Nicolas Maduro delivered a speech late Tuesday declaring victory over the “coup-mongering far right.”

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“They failed in their plan. They failed in their call, because the people of Venezuela want peace,” Maduro said.

“I truly believe… that the United States of America has never had a government as deranged as this one,” Maduro added, dismissing Pompeo’s unsubstantiated claim that the Venezuelan president “had an airplane on the tarmac” and was prepared to leave the country before “the Russians” instructed him to stay.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: “It’s been a long time since anyone has seen Maduro. He had an airplane on the tarmac. He was ready to leave this morning as we understand it and the Russians indicated he should stay.” pic.twitter.com/Xrg7LqCX01

— The Hill (@thehill) April 30, 2019

As Maduro said attempts to oust him have been defeated, Guaido called for more street protests on Wednesday and vowed to “continue with more force than ever.”

In a statement, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) joined anti-war voices in denouncing the U.S.-backed coup attempt.

“The DSA stands with the constitutional government of Venezuela against the U.S.-backed coup. The DSA affirms it’s commitment to supporting the right of the Venezuelan people to decide their internal matters through democratic processes.”

Statement on U.S.-backed Venezuelan Coup:

The DSA stands with the constitutional government of Venezuela against the U.S.-backed coup. The DSA affirms it’s commitment to supporting the right of the Venezuelan people to decide their internal matters through democratic processes.

— DSA Venezuela Solidarity (@DsaVenezuela) April 30, 2019

As progressives denounced Guaido’s coup plot, many members of Congress remained silent or—in the case of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—expressed support for the effort to topple Venezuela’s elected government.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) was one of the few members to speak out against the Trump administration’s interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

While condemning Maduro’s government as a “failed regime,” Khanna said in an interview on MSNBC that “Mike Pence shouldn’t be interfering and inciting violence with Guaido”—referring to the U.S. Vice President’s affirmation of support for the coup plotters Tuesday morning.

The Vice President has no place inciting violence in Venezuela. We cannot allow ourselves to contribute toward a civil war abroad. Instead, this is the moment for diplomacy and restraint. pic.twitter.com/A4ZPTPbUDX

— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) April 30, 2019

“What we should be doing is deferring to the Pope to have a negotiated settlement,” Khanna concluded. “It looks like the United States is inching into yet another bloody conflict… The question is: Is this really the United States’ role to get involved in yet another war overseas?”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) also denounced the Trump administration’s support for the ongoing coup attempt.

“We should be encouraging dialogue and free/fair elections in Venezuela—not violence,” Omar tweeted. “I believe U.S. intervention will only destabilize the region more and cause even more suffering.”

Assange Sentenced to 50 Weeks for Bail-Jumping

LONDON—The Latest on the sentencing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (all times local):

11:40 a.m.

A British judge has sentenced WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012.

Judge Deborah Taylor said Wednesday that Assange merited near the maximum sentence of one year because of the seriousness of his offense.

She rejected his claim for leniency based on the nearly seven years he spent in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

The white-haired Assange stood impassively with his hands clasped while the sentence was read. His supporters in the public gallery chanted “Shame on you” at the judge as Assange was led away.

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Assange sought asylum in the South American country’s London embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations.

Earlier, his lawyers argued that he had jumped bail because he was a “desperate man” fearing extradition to the United States.

___

11:35 a.m.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has apologized unreservedly for skipping bail seven years ago and holing up in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Assange sought asylum in the South American country’s London embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations.

The secret spiller faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced at London’s Southwark Crown Court. Summers told a courtroom packed with journalists and WikiLeaks supporters on Wednesday that Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy because “he was living with overwhelming fear of being rendered to the U.S.”

___

9 a.m.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to be sentenced for jumping British bail seven years ago and holing up in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Assange faces a maximum sentence of a year in prison when he is sentenced Wednesday at London’s Southwark Crown Court. A judge at an earlier hearing said the 47-year-old hacker’s offense “merits the maximum sentence.”

The Australian secret-spiller sought asylum in the South American country’s London embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations. He faces a separate legal fight against a U.S. extradition request. American authorities have charged him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system.

Assange was arrested last month after Ecuador revoked his political asylum.

Ocasio-Cortez Came to ‘Knock Down the House’

The day after the 2016 presidential election, filmmaker woke up in her Brooklyn apartment feeling hopeless. The only way out of her funk was to take action, which she did by embarking on the making of a documentary about four grassroots candidates, each with limited experience and resources, running for House seats in the 2018 midterms. Among the surprise winners, as we all know now, was a bartender from the Bronx named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who gave Lears an intimate look at her campaign. The end result is the new documentary “Knock Down the House,” opening Wednesday in select theaters and on Netflix.

“The concept of the film was always [that] it’s not that our democracy is something that exists and works and we have to have faith in it, but precisely that the system doesn’t work and we have to change it,” Lears said in an interview. “As Alexandria says in one of the rallies in the film, we have to rise to the promise, the promise that everyone can be part of the democratic process. And I think that’s what these campaigns are doing.”

The search for candidates led Lears and her husband, writer-editor  to two political action committees Lears spotted on the pages of The Nation: Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress. From there, the filmmaking pair narrowed their scope to focus on grassroots candidates who had pledged not to take any corporate money and who were united on social democratic principles across racial and geographical barriers. By covering the nascent stages of a seismic shift to come months later in the midterms, Lears captured what no filmmaker had before her. Yes, campaigns have been the subjects of many prior films—but not campaigns involving everyday people bouncing back from personal loss or tragedy to seize control of their lives and political destinies. The four women Lears featured—Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush and Paula Jean Swearengin—persisted despite overwhelming odds. As a result, “Knock Down the House” achieves the impossible by actually humanizing political candidates.

As a child growing up in a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx, Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, as she is widely known, commuted 40 minutes to public school in the suburbs. At Boston University, she majored in economics and international relations, graduating cum laude. In 2008, during her second year of college, her father died of lung cancer at the age of 48. During the height of the recession, the family was freighted with emotional as well as economic tragedy. To keep from losing their home, AOC worked two jobs and took on 18-hour shifts in restaurants. In 2016, she toured the country working for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign before getting a call from Brand New Congress, a PAC formed by former Sanders staffers.

“What might surprise a lot of people is that she does come from humble roots, which seems to shock people on the right,” Blotnick said. “I hope the film will just give people a sense of her as a human being.” In the movie, AOC is shown handing out leaflets and greeting voters, listening to their concerns and occasionally fretting with her partner about taking on a Democratic machine candidate like Joe Crowley, an opponent so solid he’s considered a future speaker of the House.

She’s not expected to win. Neither is Vilela, running in Nevada’s Fourth District. Vilela, too, was spurred on by tragedy when her 22-year-old daughter suffered a pulmonary embolism and died because hospital staff refused treatment without proof of insurance. She is shown going door to door and working with tireless young volunteers who seem hopeful beyond reason.

We also meet Bush, from St. Louis, a pastor and nurse who volunteered her service during the Ferguson, Mo., uprising. Her opponent in Missouri’s First District is Lacy Clay, whose family roots in politics go back generations.

“No American should have to beg for something so simple as a clean glass of water,” Swearengin says as she points out all the homes that have been affected by cancer deaths in a West Virginia mountain valley ravaged by coal mining. “If another country came here and blew up our mountain and poisoned our water, we’d go to war.” And so she does, taking on incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin, a staunch defender of the fossil fuel industry. Yes, she’s from a long line of miners, but she cannot ignore the fact that cancer deaths in West Virginia rank third-highest in the nation.

Throughout the filmmaking process, there were, of course, no guarantees that the candidates Lears and Blotnick chose to follow would win. In fact, the filmmakers had every reason to believe they would all lose. It’s no spoiler to say that some do and some don’t, but there was no way Lears and Blotnick could have guessed that AOC would become the star she has.

Since taking office in a historic midterm election that brought a record number of women, people of color and progressives to the chamber, Ocasio-Cortez’s signature cause has become the Green New Deal. While the proposed legislation has been embraced by presidential candidates Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, centrist Democrats like Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, as well as many on the right, have questioned the economics behind it.

“It’s about priorities and it’s about the fact that the country has found the money for things that matter. When the government says military expenditures and bank bailouts are priorities, then that will get funded,” noted Lears, adding some choice words for Pelosi and other members of the Democratic Party. “I think she’s threatened, and I think the whole idea that it’s possible to run congressional campaigns without corporate funding scares a lot of people in the political establishment.”

If AOC represents a left-flank challenge to Pelosi, she represents a Bolshevik uprising to the right, which see her race, gender and ideology as a triple threat. “So much of the commentary is just dismissive and misogynist,” Lears said. “They’re scared of the power she brings to the left, and it’s all of those things—the ideology and her identity, the policy positions and what she represents.”

Running throughout the film—which scored Audience and Festival Favorite Award wins at January’s Sundance Film Festival—as well as through the campaigns it covers is a current of optimism against daunting odds. And while it’s clear that not all those odds will be beaten, Ocasio-Cortez observes before her victory that “for one of us to make it through, a hundred of us have to try.” While enthusiasm is to be encouraged, it can seem hopeless in the wake of collapsing checks and balances and in a time of wanton disregard for the rule of law on the part of government officials.

“We’re living in this historical moment where the policy positions that are considered leftist are also populist and are actually broadly popular among both parties when you do the polling,” said Lears, pointing to Medicare-for-all, the Green New Deal, insurgent candidates and concerns over money in politics as common ground. “The ideological axis in this country—it’s not just the spectrum of left or right. I think the up/down axis is really interesting.”

Blotnick added, “We find hope in people mobilizing to take power. It’s not the system or the set of rules that are going to save us. I think it’s people banding together around common interests and pursuing a better future.”

Wisconsin Gave Foxconn Millions for a Factory and Jobs That Never Came

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to create 25 million jobs over the next decade if he won the presidency. As The Washington Post reported in 2016, he claimed to “be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” In 2018, he announced that Taiwanese technology manufacturer Foxconn’s plans to build a plant near Milwaukee, part of a deal that would bring Wisconsin 13,000 new jobs, were proof that his campaign promises were coming to fruition.

Almost a year later, Valerie Bauerlein reports in The Wall Street Journal, the Mount Pleasant, Wisc., site that was supposed to be building iPhone displays and employing thousands of people lies empty.

At the end of 2018, she writes, “The Taiwanese manufacturing giant, famous as an Apple Inc. supplier, had spent only $99 million, 1% of its pledged investment, according to its latest state filings.”

The promised jobs also have yet to appear. Bauerlein reports that while Foxconn “projected as many as 2,080 in-state employees by the end of 2019,” it had “fewer than 200 at last year’s end, state filings show. The village is still awaiting factory building plans for review.”

Meanwhile, almost 75 homes were demolished to make way for the plant, in addition to hundreds of acres of farmland cleared. City and village taxpayers in Mount Pleasant borrowed nearly $350 million for infrastructure upgrades and to buy land.

According to Bauerlein, the project involved one of the biggest public-incentive deals ever given to an international company, a package valued at over $4 billion.

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Now the town is feeling the strain. “At some point we’re talking about things that are just imaginary,” Nick Demske, a commissioner in Racine County, where the Mount Pleasant plant is located, told the Journal. The town’s debt rating has dropped.

Residents are scared. “Is our village going to go bankrupt? Is our county going to go bankrupt?” Leslie Maj, a former business manager, asked during a public briefing on the project this month. “I’m telling you, we’re afraid.”

As Josh Dzieza reported in The Verge earlier this month, Foxconn is “confusing the hell” out of Wisconsin residents. In just one week in January, Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, “said that the company wouldn’t build a factory, then that whatever Foxconn was building ‘cannot be simply described as a factory,’ then, after a call with Trump, that Foxconn would build a factory after all.”

Dzieza points out that the company has made similar moves in the past, promising factories in Pennsylvania, Brazil and elsewhere “that never materialize.” The difference is that Wisconsin politicians “threw a tremendous amount of money at the company and rushed to acquire land and start building.”

Foxconn believes it is living up to its promises, telling the Journal it “[stands] by the job creation commitments that we have made,” and “we are now looking forward to beginning the next phases of construction … by Summer 2019 with production expected to commence during the fourth quarter of 2020.”

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Gou is heading to the White House to discuss the Wisconsin deal. Foxconn did not comment.

At Least 2 Dead, 4 Hurt in N.C. Campus Shooting

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Two people were killed and four injured Tuesday in a shooting Tuesday on a North Carolina university campus, prompting a lockdown and chaotic scene in North Carolina’s largest city.

UNC Charlotte issued a campus lockdown late Tuesday afternoon, saying shots had been fired.

“Shots reported near kennedy. Run, Hide, Fight. Secure yourself immediately,” the university said in an alert, referring to the school’s Kennedy building on campus.

Mecklenburg Emergency Medical Services Agency said on Twitter that two people were found dead at the scene, two others have life-threatening injuries and two others have injuries that are not life-threatening. They said the numbers could change.

Aerial shots from local television news outlets showed police officers running toward a building, while another view showed students running on a campus sidewalk.

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The university later reported that law enforcement officers were sweeping campus buildings.

It was not immediately clear whether the victims were students or whether a suspect was in custody. School officials couldn’t be reached for immediate comment Tuesday evening.

The campus was to host a concert at the school’s football stadium.

The university has more than 26,500 students and 3,000 faculty and staff.

The Latest Sign of Israel’s Creeping Fascism

What follows is a conversation between Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, and Sharmini Peries of the Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

SHARMINI PERIES It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. Israel claims to be a democratic country, but it appears freedom of speech is not included in that democracy. The government of Israel is expelling the Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir. He has been issued a deportation order to leave the country within two weeks because the Israeli government doesn’t like the reports its been issuing. Joining us then to discuss his situation is Omar Shakir. He is currently based in Israel for the moment and has decided to make one last appeal to the Israeli High Court about his deportation order. It is important for us to actually understand the credibility of the person that they are deporting. Omar Shakir is the Israel and Palestine Director at the Human Rights Watch. He investigates human rights abuses in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza. He has been responsible for many of the factfinding missions about human rights atrocities and getting the word out through Human Right Watch’s reports. He was formerly also Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is based in New York, where he focused on counterterrorism policies, including legal repression of detainees at Guantanamo. He worked on that as well as in 2013-2014 he was [Alan] R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow at Human Rights Watch. He investigated human rights violations in Egypt, including the Rabaa massacre. He’s also a former Fulbright scholar in Syria. Omar holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he co-authored a report on the civilian consequences of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan as a part of his international human rights and conflict-resolution clinic. He also holds an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Affairs and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford. With all that, welcome, Omar, to The Real News Network.

OMAR SHAKIR Thank you for having me.

SHARMINI PERIES Omar, you are making a last attempt here to appeal to Israel’s High Court to prevent Israel from deporting you. What are the chances of that succeeding and why are you doing that?

OMAR SHAKIR We are hopeful it will succeed. We think the decision that was made by Israel’s district court in Jerusalem is new and dangerous in important ways. While of course, Israeli courts have often provided justification for abuses by the government, this is really the first time a court has put its seal on the government’s relentless effort to target advocacy around Palestinian human rights. The reality here is that what the court is essentially saying is, if you call for boycotts of a company because they for example, mistreat workers or discriminate against women, that’s permissible. But if you’re calling for boycotts because they violate the rights of Palestinians, that’s suddenly impermissible. And you can imagine the kind of slippery slope we’re heading down now. Is the next thing that the organizations that criticize or call the West Bank “occupied,” or call it “apartheid,” or whatever it may be— are suddenly those gonna be grounds for denying entry to international advocates? And eventually, increasing pressure on Israeli and Palestinian advocates? So we’re hopeful that the Supreme Court will realize the significant stakes here. It’s bigger than Human Rights Watch. It’s bigger than human rights defenders. It really goes to the ability in Israel today to engage in a certain kind of advocacy and we hope the Supreme Court will reject this decision and we’ll be watching with bated breath.

SHARMINI PERIES Alright. By appealing to the Israeli High Court, aren’t you doing the government a favor in the sense that the Israeli government is in the process of dismantling this court and delegitimizing it. It’s been accusing it of being lefty, too supportive of human rights. And if your appeal actually succeeds, you then reinforce the illusion that Israel has some sort of freedom of speech, and this kind of critique of the government could be done and upheld by the courts.

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OMAR SHAKIR Look, whatever system you’re in, you’ve got to use every tool at your disposal to advance protections for those documenting rights abuse. As I said, this is bigger than just Human Rights Watch. Our access here means our ability to engage victims, partner with Israeli and Palestinian brave rights defenders who are on the ground every day struggling to do this work, and it’s really important to those communities. And that’s why we’ve seen statements of support from a range of Israeli Palestinian rights defenders first and foremost, because they understand not only that this decision could affect them, but that their ability to do work is in part linked to their ability to engage with, have dialogues, partner with international rights organizations. So I think you have to use every outlet available to you because ultimately, I think the ramifications of not doing so are not only further shrinking the space for rights defenders, but ultimately less oversight, less transparency over rights abuse, which inevitably means more rights abuses. If the world can’t stop Israel from somebody documenting rights abuse, how will they ever stop rights abuse in the first place? So you’ve got to use every tool at your disposal. I don’t think we have the luxury of saying, let’s not challenge, let’s try to support one side of an argument. Ultimately, our mission is to concretely protect rights.

SHARMINI PERIES Alright. Omar, true and good thing you’re doing that. What is the reason that the government sites on your deportation order? Why are they asking you to leave?

OMAR SHAKIR So the government’s rationale— it’s been a multi-year effort to muzzle Human Rights Watch. The argument several years ago was about Human Rights Watch being propagandists for the Palestinians, but the current deportation order is based on an accusation that I promote calls for boycotting Israel. When the original deportation order was given a year ago, they focused on my activism years ago as a student at Stanford. But in court, in part because our legal challenge to that decision, we first of all challenged the fact that Israel who proclaims to be a democracy, is deporting a rights defender over their peaceful expression. And we challenged the law that denies entry to people based on calling for boycotts. But the reality here is, much of their argument is focused on my work at Human Rights Watch because the law requires support for boycotts to be active and continuous. And for nearly three years, I’ve been Human Rights Watch’s spokesperson on these issues and neither has Human Rights Watch fully stood by me and not renounced any statement that I’ve made. I’ve been advocating their positions. And in court, the government has basically been saying that Human Rights Watch’s work, even though we don’t take a position on boycotts, by documenting abuses of companies and telling them to stop fueling rights abuse, that itself is boycotts. So the court’s decision that came down a couple of weeks ago, more or less stated that I had been continuously calling for boycotts, including both my work as a student and my current work at Human Rights Watch. But the decision directly states that Human Rights Watch’s advocacy is boycott-promoting activity.

SHARMINI PERIES Hmm. Very interesting. If you appeal to the Israeli High Courts fail, what will the Human Rights Watch do in terms of the reports it’s been issuing on Israel and Palestine?

OMAR SHAKIR Look, unfortunately, in the current day and age, there have been some other countries that have denied us access while Israel has been a place for nearly three decades, we’ve been able to access the West Bank and Israel— of course, not Gaza on a regular basis, especially in the last decade. If Israel takes this course, they’ll be joining a rank of countries like Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, that have barred or expelled Human Rights Watch researchers, but that won’t change our work. We’ll be doing the exact same work, using the exact same tools, covering the exact same subjects, whether I’m in the country or not. Because this work is part of our mission and our mission continues. We don’t let governments opt out of Human Rights Watch oversight by virtue of kicking us out. We will continue to do the exact same work. Of course, it presents difficulties and challenges, but we will certainly not by one millimeter reduce our passion and zest for covering issues in Israel-Palestine, as we do every other country in the Middle East and North Africa, and nearly 100 countries across the world.

SHARMINI PERIES Alright. Omar, I thank you so much for joining us and all the best with your appeal.

OMAR SHAKIR Thank you very much for having me.

SHARMINI PERIES And thank you for joining us here on The Real News Network.

Robert Reich: Trump Is Initiating His Most Dictatorial Move Yet

On Sunday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee threatened to subpoena Attorney General William P. Barr if he refuses to testify this week about the Mueller report.

But a subpoena is unlikely to elicit Barr’s cooperation. “We’re fighting all the subpoenas,” says the president of the United States.

In other words, according to Donald Trump, there is to be no congressional oversight of this administration: No questioning the attorney general about the Mueller report. No questioning a Trump adviser about immigration policy.

No questioning a former White House security director about issuances of security clearances. No questioning anyone about presidential tax returns.

Such a blanket edict fits a dictator of a banana republic, not the president of a constitutional republic founded on separation of powers.

If Congress cannot question the people who are making policy, or obtain critical documents, Congress cannot function as a coequal branch of government.

If Congress cannot get information about the executive branch, there is no longer any separation of powers, as sanctified in the U.S. Constitution.

There is only one power—the power of the president to rule as he wishes. Which is what Trump has sought all along.

The only relevant question is how to stop this dictatorial move.

Presidents before Trump occasionally have argued that complying with a particular subpoena for a particular person or document would infringe upon confidential deliberations within the executive branch.

But no president before Trump has used “executive privilege” as a blanket refusal to cooperate.

“If Mr. Barr does not show up,” the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday, “we will have to use whatever means we can to enforce the subpoena.”

What could the Committee do? Hold Barr in contempt of Congress—under Congress’s inherent power to get the information it needs to carry out its constitutional duties. Congress cannot function without this power.

Under this inherent power, the House can order its own sergeant-at-arms to arrest the offender, subject him to a trial before the full House, and, if judged to be in contempt, jail that person until he appears before the House and brings whatever documentation the House has subpoenaed.

When President Richard Nixon tried to stop key aides from testifying in the Senate Watergate hearings, in 1973, Senator Sam Ervin, chairman of the Watergate select committee, threatened to jail anyone who refused to appear.

Congress hasn’t actually carried through on the threat since 1935—but it could.

Would America really be subject to the wild spectacle of the sergeant-at-arms of the House arresting an Attorney General and possibly placing him in jail?

Probably not. Before that ever occurred, the Trump administration would take the matter to the Supreme Court on an expedited basis.

Sadly, there seems no other way to get Trump to move. Putting the onus on the Trump administration to get the issue to the court as soon as possible is the only way to force Trump into action, and not simply seek to run out the clock before the next election.

What would the court decide? With two Trump appointees now filling nine of the seats, it’s hardly a certainty.

But in a case that grew out of the Teapot Dome scandal in 1927, the court held that the investigative power of Congress is at its peak  when lawmakers look into fraud or maladministration in another government department.

Decades later, when Richard Nixon tried to block the release of incriminating recordings of his discussions with aides, the Supreme Court decided that a claim of executive privilege did not protect information relevant to the investigation of potential crimes.

Trump’s contempt for the inherent power of Congress cannot stand. It is the most dictatorial move he has initiated since becoming president.

Corporate Media’s Open Hostility to Medicare-for-All

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is heating up, and health care is a key issue up for debate. A number of high-profile candidates, including Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren, have endorsed a Medicare for All solution to America’s health care problem. However, the idea is most closely associated with Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has made it a central platform of his election bid.

The United States spends around twice as much on health care as other high-income nations, with inferior results. Worse still, around 45 million Americans, 13.7 percent of the population, have no health care whatsoever. The Medicare for All plan, which aims to create a nationalized health care system like those employed by virtually every other high-income nation, is highly popular among the general public. In late 2018, polls from Reuters and Harris found that at least 70 percent of Americans supported the proposal—including majorities of Republicans.

However, corporate media appear to be almost univocally against the idea, with the flow of doom-mongering stories increasing to a roaring flood as the notion gains more traction among the public.

Ignoring Opinion

Ignoring the many opinion polls showing widespread and increasing support for the plan, CNN (4/24/19) suggests “most Americans” do not want Medicare for All. The New York Times (10/19/18) told us, “Don’t get too excited about Medicare for All.” Evincing no sympathy for the tens of millions without any health care, it invited us to feel instead for the private doctors who would face a “cut in revenue” if the progressive plan were implemented. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel () described it as a “preposterous proposal,” while USA Today (9/20/17) claimed Bernie’s plan is “all wrong for America.”

Invited on NBC’s “Meet the Press” (2/10/19), Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet argued it was a self-defeating notion, claiming what Democrats are really saying to the 180 million people who have private health care “and like it” is that they are going to take their beloved private insurance away from them. (Left unmentioned was the fact that 28 percent of people with employer-sponsored health insurance change plans every 12 months.)

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Many outlets have raised concern about the price of such a measure. Libertarian magazine Reason (11/13/18) claimed it would “cost too much,” while the Wall Street Journal (11/12/18) warned of “the false promise of Medicare for All,” with both arguing that it would slow down the development of new drugs. But a study from the libertarian Mercatus Center accidentally proved Sanders’ plan would actually save the country trillions, with private savings more than offsetting increased public costs. And economist and FAIR contributor Dean Baker found that more government involvement in the pharmaceutical industry would save money and speed up drug development.

Nevertheless, other media outlets have kept up the relentless flow of negativity, dismissing Medicare for All as “too fragile” (Yahoo!, 4/22/19), “politically impractical” (Atlantic, 3/18/19), “fool’s gold” (Fox News, 1/11/19), a “populist bromide” (National Review, 9/11/17) and a “singularly bad idea” (Forbes, 9/28/17).

Lines of Attack

Many different lines of attack have been used to dampen public enthusiasm for a social-democratic health care system based on human need rather than profit. The Hill (1/31/19) used the “this is how Trump wins” argument to warn voters, claiming that Medicare for All is a “terrible” idea championed by “young Bolsheviks” pushing the Democrats to the left, meaning “Donald Trump is looking like a sure winner in 2020.”

One of our favorite genres of stories at FAIR is the “inexplicable Republican best friend” (FAIR.org, 2/26/19), where conservatives offer supposedly good-faith advice on how Democrats must adopt all manner of right-wing positions in order to advance. Writing in the conservative Wall Street Journal (2/12/19), William Galston of the Brookings Institute warned liberals that “Medicare for All is a trap” that will “assure Trump’s re-election.”

Alternatively, Fox News employed the “I am a liberal, but” trope, in which self-styled liberals espouse conservative ideas, to warn readers that nationalized health care is a “pie-in-the-sky idea” (2/2/19), and to claim that Medicare for All would “put the government in charge of making decisions about your health” and your body (1/30/19).

A Conflict of Interests

Brookings is funded in part by private health care donations, from groups like HCA and United Healthcare, a dependency that highlights a serious conflict of interest that is endemic in corporate media reporting on health care (and, indeed, on any major economic or political issue). This system of interlocking and conflicting interests is rarely acknowledged by corporate media, who also rely on medical and pharmaceutical companies for funding through advertising and patronage.

More blatantly still,CNBC (4/16/19) allowed United Healthcare’s CEO David Wichmann to claim that Medicare for All would “destabilize the nation’s health system,” leading to a crisis and a “severe impact on the economy.” At no point did CNBC challenge him, or even mention the glaring conflict of interest Wichmann might have. Indeed, it bolstered his credibility, telling its readers that he “rarely discusses politics,” implying that this was an entirely good-faith warning.In an article headlined “The Fallacy of Medicare for All,” for instance, Fortune magazine’s Bill George (4/24/19)  simultaneously argued that hospitals would be “swamped” with another 189 million customers, and that “half of all hospitals” would be forced to close. George is a Goldman Sachs executive who was formerly CEO of the private medical corporation Medtronic, and also sat on the board of pharmaceutical giant Novartis.

Financial Media Meltdown

Despite the doom-mongering, public support for a publicly financed US health care system continues to increase, and the financial press has moved from concern to panic over the specter of free health care for all. Market Watch (4/23/19) gloomily noted that Medicare for All “looms large” over the industry, Forbes (4/19/19) described it as “unnerving investors,” while Bloomberg (4/16/19) reported that “health stocks are crumbling” as “fears” of Medicare for All are “snowballing.” CNBC’s Trading Nation (4/20/19) claimed that there could be more “pain ahead.” Medicare for All would “crush” us, said Mark Tepper, president and CEO of Strategic Wealth Partners—“us” meaning the for-profit health care industry.

Bloomberg (4/18/19) also warned that “there may be more pain to come” for the “vulnerable.” This was not referring to the pain of tens of millions of vulnerable Americans with no health care at all, but the “pain” of reduced profits for investors in “vulnerable” medical and pharmaceutical corporations, such as United Healthcare, Medtronic and Novartis. Perhaps this explains why there is such stiff opposition from their spokespeople in the media.

Despite all the concern trolling, reading the financial press highlights the fact that corporate media oppose Medicare for All not because of legitimate queries and concerns about its implementation, but because they are owned by investors with stakes in highly profitable medical and pharmaceutical companies—the very same companies that supply them with millions of dollars each year in advertising. With so many candidates endorsing Medicare for All, it seems the 2020 election will force America to decide between the pain of tens of millions without adequate health care and the pain of wealthy traders losing investment opportunities in the for-profit health care industry.