WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, June 10, 2021

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1/ The Interior Department’s inspector general concluded that U.S. Park Police did not clear the park outside the White House of protesters on June 1, 2020, so Trump could walk to a nearby church for a photo op. Mark Greenblatt instead found that Park Police had the authority to clear the park and surrounding areas so that a contractor could install anti-scale fencing and did not know that Trump would be leaving the White House and crossing Lafayette Park until “mid-to late afternoon” on June 1 – hours after the contractor had arrived to begin installation. Park Police officials said the plan to clear the area was in place before a 2 p.m. meeting that included then-Attorney General William Barr, who “did not mention a potential presidential visit to the park,” according to the report. Barr, however, did urge officials to speed up the clearing process after Trump decided to walk through the area around 6:10 p.m. (NPR / Politico / NBC News / CBS News / ABC News / CNBC / USA Today)

2/ Former White House counsel Don McGahn testified behind closed doors last week about Trump’s attempts to obstruct the Russia investigation. In a transcript of the interview with members of the House Judiciary Committee, McGahn described Trump’s efforts to get him to tell Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Robert Mueller over Trump’s claim that Mueller had a conflict of interest. McGahn refused to go along with Trump’s effort to fire Mueller, believing it could “cause this to spiral out of control.” McGahn also acknowledged that Trump told then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he should resign for having recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said “McGahn’s testimony gives us a fresh look at how dangerously close President Trump brought us to, in Mr. McGahn’s words, the ‘point of no return.’” (New York Times / NBC News / Bloomberg / Washington Post)

3/ The U.S. reportedly lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent unemployment claims over the past year. The bulk of the money – representing as much as 50% of all unemployment money – likely ended in the hands of foreign crime syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere. (Axios)

4/ The Trump Justice Department continued to pursued a CNN reporter’s records for half a year after a federal judge said the argument for access to internal emails was “speculative” and “unanchored in any facts.” The Trump administration also put CNN gene...

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