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Money for Political Appointments? Public Citizen Demands Release of Report on Corruption in Trump Transition
Public Citizen sent a letter to Trump transition co-chairs Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, asking that the transition team’s internal report on influential Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn be made public.
According to numerous published reports, transition team lawyers have conducted an investigation of Epshteyn and the allegations that he demanded payment from individuals under possible consideration for political appointments by Mr. Trump.
The letter, sent by Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, contends that “If Mr. Epshteyn’s influence was shaped by inappropriate financial considerations – either positively by anyone making payment or adversely by anyone refusing – the American people have a right to know.”
Commenting on the matter, Robert Weissman said: “If a pay-for-play operation has corrupted the political appointment process in the Trump transition, as seems to be the case, the full facts must be disclosed to the American people. If one of Mr. Trump’s close advisors has been compromised by personal monetary considerations, then the personnel selection process itself has been compromised.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Watchdog Demands Trump Release Report on Probe of 'Pay-for-Play' Scheme
Public Citizen's co-leader argues that if such an operation "has corrupted the political appointment process in the Trump transition, as seems to be the case, the full facts must be disclosed to the American people."
Nov 27, 2024
The watchdog Public Citizen on Wednesday demanded that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team release a report from an internal investigation into allegations that aide Boris Epshteyn asked potential nominees to pay him monthly consulting fees in exchange for pushing for them to get jobs in the next administration.
"If a pay-for-play operation has corrupted the political appointment process in the Trump transition, as seems to be the case, the full facts must be disclosed to the American people," said Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman in a statement. "If one of Mr. Trump's close advisers has been compromised by personal monetary considerations, then the personnel selection process itself has been compromised."
In a letter to Trump transition co-chairs Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, Weissman and Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert noted that "media accounts indicate that the internal report discovered at least two specific incidents where Mr. Epshteyn made inappropriate demands for payment, so the concerns appear far beyond speculative."
Multiple outlets, including Just the News and CNN, reported on the existence of the internal review on Monday.
"One of those who was pitched by Epshteyn for both a consulting contract and an investment opportunity was Scott Bessent, the hedge fund manager named Friday night by Trump as his nominee for Treasury secretary. Bessent rejected the overtures and eventually, when asked, reported concerns about them to the Trump transition team, including Vice President-elect JD Vance," Just the News detailed. "Trump late last week ordered an internal inquiry into the consulting arrangements of Ephsteyn and other contractors to be conducted by lawyer David Warrington with the results to be delivered to his incoming Chief of Staff Susie Wiles."
Just the News continued:
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, a retired Navy SEAL who previously hired Epshteyn for consulting on an unsuccessful Senate candidacy in 2022, reported to the transition team in a sworn statement that he had an uncomfortable conversation this month with Epshteyn when he inquired about whether he should apply for the job of Navy secretary. "It is too early for that, let's talk business," Greitens quoted Epshteyn as telling him.
"Mr. Epshteyn's overall tone and behavior gave me the impression of an implicit expectation to engage in business dealings with him before he would advocate for or suggest my appointment to the president," Greitens wrote in a statement that was submitted Friday to the Trump transition office and obtained by Just the News. "This created a sense of unease and pressure on my part."
Greitens immediately alerted his lawyer to the concerns, who arranged for the statement to be sent to Warrington, the lawyer named by Trump and Wiles to probe the issue, according to interviews and documents.
While
CNN reported that the claims "prompted those looking into the matter to make an initial recommendation that Epshteyn should be removed from Trump's proximity and that he should not be employed or paid by Trump entities," the aide broadly denied the alleged behavior.
"I am honored to work for President Trump and with his team," Epshteyn said in a statement. "These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from Making America Great Again."
In a statement to both outlets, Trump spokesperson Steve Cheung said that "as is standard practice, a broad review of the campaign's consulting agreements has been conducted and completed, including as to Boris, among others. We are now moving ahead together as a team to help President Trump Make America Great Again."
Trump himself told Just the News that "I suppose every president has people around them who try to make money off them on the outside. It's a shame but it happens."
"But no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money. They should only be here to Make America Great Again," he added. "No one can promise any endorsement or nomination except me. I make these decisions on my own, period."
Weissman and Gilbert wrote Wednesday: "No doubt Mr. Trump makes his own decisions on personnel. But advisers frame decisions, push for candidates they like, make the case against those they disfavor, and sometimes act as gatekeepers influencing who gets consideration at all. No one doubts that close advisers are impactful."
"The American people have a right to know the facts your internal review has found," the watchdog leaders concluded.
The probe into Epshteyn is part of a flood of ethics problems with Trump's transition team and future administration. Another issue has been a delay in signing transition agreements with the Biden administration. Wiles announced Tuesday that the team finally signed a memorandum of understanding with President Joe Biden's White House.
Wiles also signaled that rather than signing a separate agreement with the General Services Administration to access federal funding, government office space, and cybersecurity support, Trump's transition team will run a privately funded operation. Politicoreported that the team did not respond to a question about another agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that enables the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to run background checks and start processing security clearances for Cabinet nominees.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has criticized the delays in the transition process that is laid out in federal law, said Tuesday that "this announcement fails to answer key questions about national security threats and FBI vetting of nominees, and increases concerns about corruption. There appear to be serious gaps between the Trump transition's ethics agreement and the letter of the law."
While Wiles said the team will disclose its funders and not take foreign money, Warren added that "the reliance on private donors to fund the transition is nothing more than a ploy for well-connected Trump insiders to line their pockets while pretending to save taxpayers money."
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Musk Wants to Abolish Consumer Agency That Has Been a 'Model of Efficiency'
"This is systemic corruption at a grand and intolerable scale," one advocate said of the billionaire's call to "delete" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Nov 27, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump's billionaire appointment to help lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency said Tuesday that he wants to eliminate an agency that one consumer advocate described as "a model of efficiency and cost-effectiveness."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns, that he wants to "delete" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has returned nearly $20 billion to members of the U.S. public in the form of monetary compensation, canceled debt, and other relief since its creation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
"There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies," Musk declared.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, countered in a statement that the CFPB "was created specifically because none of the overlapping financial regulatory agencies prioritized consumer protection."
"But there's no reason to think facts or evidence have anything to do with Musk's views," said Weissman. "Asking the world's richest person, with a direct interest in a wide range of business lines, to run a project to review the federal government's overall operations is absurd and fundamentally corrupt—and this issue highlights exactly why."
Weissman noted that Musk has "reportedly obtained money transmitter licenses for X in more than three dozen states and still appears determined to turn X into an 'everything app' based around a payment service," an effort that "would be subject to regulation by the CFPB."
"In fact, the CFPB has just finalized a rule to supervise large tech companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps," he continued. "In short, Musk is calling for elimination of the consumer protection regulator over a business line he seems poised to enter... This is systemic corruption at a grand and intolerable scale."
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) also spoke out in defense of the consumer bureau.
"You want to talk about efficiency? For every $1 spent funding the CFPB, more than $4 have been put back in working people's pockets," the CPC wrote on social media. "It's only 'inefficient' to predatory corporations and billionaires with conflicts of interest."
The CFPB has been a target of Republican lawmakers and their corporate allies since its inception in 2011.
During Trump's first White House term, he attempted to gut the bureau from the inside by installing an opponent of the agency, Mick Mulvaney, to lead it. Mulvaney later backed a failed effort to challenge the constitutionality of the CFPB's funding structure.
But the CFPB has been active in defending consumers and combating corporate abuses under the leadership of Rohit Chopra, a consumer champion picked by President Joe Biden to lead the bureau.
Under Chopra, the American Economic Liberties Project noted in a recent report, "the CFPB has returned billions of Americans' hard-earned money to their bank accounts; fought back against Wall Street and Big Tech's discriminatory and anti-competitive behavior; ensured violating the law can no longer be written off as just a 'cost of doing business'; shuttered corporate scams; and restored financial freedom to millions of Americans held hostage by the credit reporting cartel."
"This is a test for MAGA types and the populist right to see whether they allow themselves to be lied to flagrantly by elites trying to manipulate them."
Musk's call to eliminate the agency came after fellow Trump-supporting billionaire Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, claimed in an appearance on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast that the CFPB's primary purpose is to "terrorize financial institutions."
Andreessen went on to falsely describe the CFPB as Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) "personal agency that she gets to control" and suggest the bureau is involved in efforts to "debank" people over their political views.
But observers pointed out that Chopra has explicitly condemned politically motivated debanking and worked to prevent companies from unlawfully denying consumers access to financial accounts and services.
"This is a test for MAGA types and the populist right to see whether they allow themselves to be lied to flagrantly by elites trying to manipulate them," Drop Site's Ryan Grim wrote in response to Andreessen's comments. "The CFPB put out a legitimately good rule that went after banks over debanking users based on political views. Yes, a populist left-wing CFPB head stood up for the rights of conservatives."
"Now VCs and Musk, who don't like the CFPB for other reasons, are straight up lying to whip people into a frenzy and defang the CFPB," Grim added. "The message: They think you are stupid and can't read and are going to make your life worse in order to enrich themselves."
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Health Professionals Warn of 'Extremist' Trump Pick for NIH
"He will set American health, innovation, and science back for a generation," said one virologist of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
Nov 27, 2024
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a physician and Stanford University professor who shot to prominence during the pandemic due to his heterodox views around Covid lockdowns, is President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the National Institutes of Health.
In announcing his selection, Trump wrote that Bhattacharya and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, will work together to "Make America Healthy Again."
However, Bhattacharya's nomination was met by alarm from some health professionals who warned that the views he expressed during the pandemic make him a poor choice to run the globe's premier medical research agency.
"Despite his mild manners, Bhattacharya is a self-interested extremist who gives cover to anti-vaxxers and promotes policies that will kill people. He will set American health, innovation, and science back for a generation. He's not here to reform NIH. He's here to destroy it," wrote the virologist Dr. Angela Rasmussen on X.
Biomedical scientist and public health communicator Dr. Lucky Tran wrote: "Please google Great Barrington Declaration. If it had been implemented, millions more people would have died at the start of the pandemic. Now, one of its architects will lead the NIH (if confirmed), the largest funder of biomedical research in the world," wrote biomedical scientist and public health communicator Dr. Lucky Tran.
Another doctor, Alastair McAlpine, echoed these sentiments, writing that Bhattacharya is a "terrible" choice for head of NIH.
Bhattacharya is known for co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration, a treatise published in October 2020 that advocated for a "focused protection" approach to the pandemic.
"The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk," Bhattacharya and his co-authors wrote.
The document was named after the Massachusetts town where the three authored and signed the proposal. That work took place on the campus of a libertarian think tank, the American Institute for Economic Research.
The proposal caught the attention of Trump's White House in 2020. Trump, for his part, minimized the threat of the virus, chafed against lockdowns during the pandemic.
Public health groups criticized Bhattacharya and his co-authors, arguing that the proposal would threaten vulnerable individuals, according to reporting a the time. Then-NIH director Dr. Francis Collins, also denounced the approach in an October 2020 interview with The Washington Post: "This is a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It's dangerous. It fits into the political views of certain parts of our confused political establishment."
"What I worry about with this is it's being presented as if it’s a major alternative view that's held by large numbers of experts in the scientific community. That is not true," he said.
Now, four years later, Bhattacharya has been tapped to fill Collins' former seat.
Bhattacharya has also expressed an interest in shaking up NIH itself. "I would restructure the NIH to allow there to be many more centers of power, so that you couldn't have a small number of scientific bureaucrats, dominating a field for a very long time," Bhattacharya said in a January 2024 interview with the Post.
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