Mediaboss Marketing

Congressional Democrats want the head of the General Services Administration to tell them why she is holding up the transition to President-elect Joe Biden. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption

Congressional Democrats want the head of the General Services Administration to tell them why she is holding up the transition to President-elect Joe Biden.

Congressional Democrats, angered by the Trump administration's refusal to begin the formal transition process to President-elect Joe Biden, are demanding a briefing on the matter from the head of the General Services Administration on Tuesday.

In a letter to GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, the Democrats say they can't wait another week, as the GSA has offered. The GSA said the deputy administrator would provide a briefing to lawmakers on Nov. 30.

The lawmakers, including the chairs of the House Appropriations and House Oversight and Reform committees, wrote on Monday: "We cannot wait yet another week to obtain basic information about your refusal to make the ascertainment determination. Every additional day that is wasted is a day that the safety, health, and well-being of the American people is imperiled as the incoming Biden-Harris Administration is blocked from fully preparing for the coronavirus pandemic, our nation's dire economic crisis, and our national security."

The 1963 Presidential Transition Act requires the head of the GSA to "ascertain," or determine, the winner of the presidential election, which Murphy has refused so far to do. Her denial means that Biden cannot access government office space or receive some $9.9 million to pay salaries to his transition personnel, and his team can't officially meet with members of the Trump administration.

Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, as well as prominent health and national security experts, say the delayed start to the transition imperils national security and will harm the incoming Biden administration's ability to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 250,000 Americans.

Visit link:
Democrats Insist On Hearing From GSA Head On Delayed Transition : Biden Transition Updates - NPR

House Democrats are demanding answers and documents from a private prison company running an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Georgia thats come under fire for allegedly failing to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and allowing women to undergo sterilizations without consent.

Reps. Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney, chairs of the House Homeland Security and Oversight committees, respectively, subpoenaed LaSalle Corrections, which manages the Irwin County Detention Center, according to Politico.

A nurse alleged in September that several women held in the Irwin County center were sterilized without consent. She also alleged that immigrant detainees were put in danger of contracting COVID-19 because visiting guidelines were routinely ignored.

The House committees launched investigations in September, but LaSalle said its contract with ICE barred it from sharing documents without the agencys consent. The private firm refused to provide a copy of its contract, according to Thompson and Maloney.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations taking place at their facility, LaSalle has stonewalled our Committees since we began our investigation in September, Thompson and Maloney said in a joint statement. They have provided us no documents, refused to share their contract with ICE, and have consistently fed us conflicting information. Their claim that they need approval from ICE to communicate with Congress is baseless. By refusing to provide even the most basic information about the treatment and care provided at taxpayer expense to women detained at ICDC, LaSalle is actively obstructing the Committees efforts to examine the troubling allegations and get answers to the American people.

According to medical records of four women and interviews with attorneys, Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist linked to the facility, performed several unwanted surgeries including hysterectomies and other procedures jeopardizing immigrant womens ability to have children, the Associated Press reported. The APs review found Amin had conducted surgeries on at least eight women, but the AP did not find evidence of mass hysterectomies that nurse Dawn Wooten had alleged occurred at the center.

Immigration authorities later told AP that they stopped sending detained women to Amin.

In September, ICE Acting Director Tony Pham said: If there is any truth to these allegations, it is my commitment to make the corrections necessary to ensure we continue to prioritize the health, welfare and safety of ICE detainees.

LaSalle at the time said it strongly refutes these allegations and any implications of misconduct.

Related Content:

Continue reading here:
House Democrats demand answers on alleged medical abuse, lack of COVID protections at ICE detention facility - MassLive.com

House Democrats are gearing up for what could be their final high-profile investigation of the Trump administration: getting the president to admit he lost the election.

Democrats have followed President-elect Joe BidenJoe BidenTrump says he'll leave White House if Biden declared winner of Electoral College The Memo: Biden faces tough road on pledge to heal nation US records 2,300 COVID-19 deaths as pandemic rises with holidays MOREs lead in dismissing President TrumpDonald John TrumpVenezuela judge orders prison time for 6 American oil executives Trump says he'll leave White House if Biden declared winner of Electoral College The Memo: Biden faces tough road on pledge to heal nation MOREs long-shot lawsuits contesting the election results, but their patience is wearing thin.

Nearly three weeks after the election, and two weeks after the race was called, congressional Democrats are starting to dig into their oversight toolbox and warn that Trumps post-election actions are a fundamental threat to democracy.

The chairs of the House Oversight and Appropriations committees Reps. Carolyn MaloneyCarolyn Bosher MaloneyHouse Democrats subpoena private prison operator in forced hysterectomy case Overnight Health Care: Biden team to begin getting COVID briefings | Fauci says he would 'absolutely' serve on Biden's COVID task force | Major glove factories close after thousands test positive for COVID-19 House Oversight panel asks Purdue Pharma's Sackler family to testify over opioid crisis MORE (D-N.Y.) and Nita LoweyNita Sue LoweySpending deal clears obstacle in shutdown fight GSA offers to brief Congress next week on presidential transition Biden aide: First Cabinet picks will be announced Tuesday, GSA holdup preventing background checks MORE (D-N.Y.) demanded in a letter Thursday that the head of the General Services Administration (GSA) brief lawmakers by Monday on why the agency has yet to allow the presidential transition begin through a process known as ascertainment. They also threatened to haul in the GSA administrator, along with her deputy, chief of staff and general counsel, for a public hearing.

Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiGovernors take heat for violating their own coronavirus restrictions Spending deal clears obstacle in shutdown fight Ocasio-Cortez, Cruz trade jabs over COVID-19 relief: People 'going hungry as you tweet from' vacation MORE (D-Calif.) said Democrats were trying to maintain a unifying post-election environment but that the transition delay prodded them to take action.

She emphasized that the committees were demanding only a briefing at this point rather than immediately requesting GSA officials to testify in a public hearing.

It was really trying to be unifying. Let's take our time. Let's give them a chance. And that's why we don't have a hearing. We're just having a briefing, Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol on Friday.

She also said she sees an expanded role for the House in the presidential transition if Trump digs in on his refusal to concede.

Im not one to show my hand, but, nonetheless, were ready. Were ready, Pelosi said.

Biden has been gradually upping the pressure on Trump to acknowledge defeat. A few days after the race was called by The Associated Press and all the major broadcast and cable news networks, Biden told reporters that were going to do exactly what wed be doing if he had conceded and said wed won, which we have, so theres nothing really changing.

But as more days have passed, Biden has warned that obstructing the transition process could result in more deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic and undermine democracy.

Its hard to fathom how this man thinks, Biden said this week. Im confident he knows he hasnt won and cant win, and well be sworn in on Jan. 20. Its just outrageous what hes doing.

While House Democrats are starting small for now, they arent ruling out subpoenas or even a lawsuit the same kinds of steps theyve taken with previous Trump oversight probes since winning back the chamber in the 2018 midterms.

House Democrats first oversight actions on the presidential transition come as a handful of GOP lawmakers are starting to publicly urge Trump to concede and stop alleging voter fraud unless he has evidence.

The Trump campaigns legal efforts to overturn results in closely contested states have fallen short, but in recent days, the president has also appeared to pressure state and local GOP election officials in Georgia and Michigan as he seeks to block or delay the certification process.

Sen. Mitt RomneyWillard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyBiden teams to meet with Trump administration agencies Paul Ryan calls for Trump to accept results: 'The election is over' Trump transition order follows chorus of GOP criticism MORE (R-Utah) said that it is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president, while Sen. Ben SasseBen SasseTrump transition order follows chorus of GOP criticism The Memo: Trump election loss roils right Whoopi Goldberg blasts Republicans not speaking against Trump: 'This is an attempted coup' MORE (R-Neb.) said that obviously Rudy [Giuliani] and his buddies should not pressure electors to ignore their certification obligations under the statute.

And on Friday, Sen. Lamar AlexanderAndrew (Lamar) Lamar AlexanderThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump holds his last turkey pardon ceremony The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by the UAE Embassy in Washington, DC - Trump OKs transition; Biden taps Treasury, State experience The Memo: Trump election loss roils right MORE (R-Tenn.) called for Biden to start receiving resources for the transition.

States are expected to finish certifying their results in the coming weeks ahead of the Electoral College meeting on Dec. 14. A few weeks later, on Jan. 6, Congress formally counts and certifies the votes cast by the Electoral College.

In Thursdays letter, leaders of the House Oversight and Appropriations committees asked that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy provide an explanation of why she hadnt signed off on a document that would officially recognize Biden as president-elect and unlock funding for activities involved in the transition.

Your actions in blocking transition activities required under the law are having grave effects, including undermining the orderly transfer of power, impairing the incoming Administrations ability to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, hampering its ability to address our nations dire economic crisis, and endangering our national security, they wrote. We have been extremely patient, but we can wait no longer.

Rep. Gerry ConnollyGerald (Gerry) Edward ConnollyGSA offers to brief Congress next week on presidential transition Democrats gear up for last oversight showdown with Trump Biden campaign pushes GSA chief to approve transition MORE (D-Va.), who chairs an Oversight subcommittee and signed on to the letter, called the Trump administrations refusal to start the transition extraordinarily reckless and playing with fire.

Its not OK. And what if it's more than his just being peevish? We need to be focused on that. And we can't let that go. And we have to protect the will of the people. And if they're not going to do it, then we have to do it, Connolly said.

In a democracy, ultimately, at the end of the day, we respect we don't have to like the results of a certified election that is not in doubt, he added.

The Biden transition team is starting to take matters into its own hands without the customary resourcessuch as government funding or intelligence briefings.

Bidens team is soliciting funds from small-dollar donors, as well as major contributors, to offset the absence of government funding.

We want to be clear: the Biden-Harris transition team will continue to steadily move forward. But, without ascertainment, we need to fund the transition ourselves, and that's why we're reaching out to you today, the transition team wrote in a fundraising email to supporters on Friday.

See the original post here:
Democrats gear up for last oversight showdown with Trump | TheHill - The Hill

While a term like people of color might ring hollow or even confused, immigrants across generations share at the very least the experience of building a life in a foreign country. They must, in other words, disaggregate and then reorganize into an even broader movement that could build on existing, like-minded grass-roots organizations, such as those that emerged from the Bernie Sanders campaign in Nevada or immigrant labor organizations throughout New York and California, and develop a spirit of solidarity that puts less weight on questions of belonging and citizenship for these nebulously and conditionally defined groups and more on the experiences, as working-class immigrants, they share both in America and their homelands.

Too much of the messaging toward these groups is aimed at the upwardly ascendant second- and third-generation immigrants who worry about questions of representation within elite institutions. If Democrats want to combat charges of socialism, which are perhaps especially effective on immigrants who fled Communist or socialist countries, they must stop believing that an immigrant shows up in America and immediately begins worrying, say, about how many Asian or Latino actors have been cast in the latest comic book movie.

This, of course, does not mean that the Democratic Party should entirely abandon its anti-racist message. Part of the effort must include a much-needed clarification between the needs of Black Americans and Latino and Asian immigrants; that would end the confusing and harmful conflation between two groups whose interests and actions are often at odds with one another.

Nor should we succumb to the temptation to wipe away all distinctions. Some part of every immigrant will still identify with their home country, through language, food and culture. The path forward is to create coalitions that make sense, not only for the immigrants themselves but also in their relationships with both working-class Black and white Americans.

Such a strategy would require the upwardly mobile second-generation immigrants the people most likely to be tasked with broadcasting this message out toward the public to do something that might feel counterintuitive or even contradictory. But we must abandon the broad style of diversity politics that designates us as people of color. Those categories might help us navigate the academy and the workplace, but they only resonate with a small, generally wealthy portion of our population.

The late historian Noel Ignatiev argued that racism in America could be solved only when white people committed treason against the white race when they recognized that the antagonists in their lives werent Black people, but rather the wealthy class that used racism to divide workers whose interests should be aligned.

In a similar spirit, those of us who have assimilated into the professional class must commit treason against people of color and help build a coalition of working-class immigrants, from Guatemalan workers in fish processing plants and Bangladeshi cabdrivers to Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant workers and Mexican farm workers.

Link:
People of Color Do Not Belong to the Democratic Party - The New York Times

Jonathan Davis has been imploring the government for years to either charge him with a crime, move forward with its forfeiture case against him or return his more than $4 million in seized assets.

The Dallas-area businessman finally got his wish, but not the outcome he had hoped for. A federal grand jury in Dallas indicted him last week, more than three years after agents seized his assets, and he now faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

The 13-count indictment accuses Davis of making false or misleading statements about his Garland heating and air-conditioning trade school to the government. He is charged with multiple counts of wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft. The now-defunct Retail Ready Career Center received about $70 million in G.I. Bill money, making it one of the biggest recipients for a trade school.

Davis lawyer, Derek Staub, says the indictment amounts to allegations of civil regulatory violations, not crimes, and that three years of investigation yielded no evidence of wrongdoing.

This whole indictment stems from them saying that we werent forthcoming on an application, Staub said. They are just flat-out wrong.

But the U.S. attorneys office said Davis scammed the VA out of more than $71 million in veterans benefits.

The defendant allegedly lied to multiple governmental agencies, said office spokeswoman Erin Dooley. We are confident the evidence will prove our case. To undermine the VA is to insult the sacrifices of military veterans nationwide.

Those comments set the stage for what is likely to be a hotly-contested case. Davis, 43, voluntarily surrendered on Nov. 23. He pleaded not guilty the same day and was released pending trial. He faces up to 184 years in prison if convicted, the U.S. attorneys office said.

Although authorities claim Davis lied about his schools financial condition, he hasnt been accused of scamming student veterans out of an education, unlike other schools targeted by the feds in recent years. In those G.I. Bill fraud cases, prosecutors successfully proved that educational services were either not provided or were significantly less than advertised. Other cases involved fake students and sham or fly-by-night schools.

Lawmakers in Washington D.C. have debated giving the Veterans Affairs department more power to crack down on predatory for-profit schools that receive G.I. Bill funding and take advantage of veterans. Critics say oversight is lacking, and the VA is under pressure to do more to combat fraud and crack down on predatory schools targeting veterans.

The Nov. 18 indictment doesnt accuse Retail Ready of defrauding students. Staub said hes not aware of any student complaints and that on the contrary, Davis students love him. The schools graduation rate was 89%, and it had a placement rate of 81% in its final year, the company has said in court records.

The criminal allegations against Davis differ from whats alleged in the civil forfeiture suit, Staub said. He said federal officials initially claimed his client violated regulations by enrolling too many veterans. This indictment is not what has been threatened for the past three years, he said.

Staub said he believes the government rushed the indictment together at the last minute to prevent a judge from eventually dismissing the forfeiture lawsuit.

The indictment says that from May 2013 to December 2019, Davis made false statements to obtain VA approval for Retail Ready to receive G.I. Bill payments on behalf of students, and that he fraudulently persuaded veterans to enroll in his trade school.

Staub said he doesnt understand how the feds could claim the alleged scheme continued through 2019 since the school has been closed since the September 2017 raid.

How theyre saying that were still out there doing it blows my mind, he said.

Davis also is accused of lying to an accountant, resulting in a false and misleading Retail Ready financial statement. And officials say he sent false financial statements to the Texas Workforce Commission and to the Texas Veterans Commission.

Jack Ternan, another defense lawyer, said the purpose of accurate financial statements is to assure the government that a school will be able to operate. He said his client did so successfully.

They werent harmed in any way even if those things were inaccurate, Ternan said.

The indictment also says Davis misrepresented his students career prospects, and that he falsely certified to the TWC that he had no criminal cases pending against him. Hes also accused of falsely stating that Retail Ready had operated as an educational institution over a certain time.

Davis previously told The Dallas Morning News that the feds forced his school to close its doors for good, stranding many of his out-of-state students. He has filed multiple legal challenges to the civil forfeiture action that were unsuccessful. And he sued the government in September 2019 on behalf of Retail Ready, claiming, among other things, a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, who is presiding over the forfeiture case, has denied Davis attempts to toss the lawsuit but said in a ruling last month that he would entertain another motion to dismiss in 30 days. Starr wrote that the governments delay in bringing criminal charges did not yet implicate Fifth Amendment due-process concerns.

But he added that the constitutional dynamics in forfeiture cases are in constant flux, and the balance could be different 30 days from now. The forfeiture case remains on hold until the criminal proceedings conclude.

Retail Ready, which opened in the summer of 2014, offered boot-camp style classes, where it took six weeks rather than six months for students to become HVAC technicians. Classes ran from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Students came from all over the country and some from abroad.

Davis charged the VA between $18,000 and $21,000 for each student to attend, the indictment says.

The school provided students with housing assistance at local hotels that included meals and transportation. Retail Ready trained more than 2,500 people, some of whom went on to jobs that paid more than $75,000 annually, the company has said. More than 90% of its students were veterans, school officials said, most of whom needed financial aid.

But the governments forfeiture lawsuit claims Retail Ready violated the 85-15 rule, which prohibits the VA from paying more than 85% of student enrollment costs. The rule is intended to cut down on fraud by preventing schools from only recruiting veterans in order to maximize G.I. Bill funding, according to the forfeiture lawsuit.

Government lawyers also claim in the forfeiture suit that Retail Ready awarded scholarships to students not based on financial need but to artificially meet the 15% requirement. The lead investigator has spoken with former Retail Ready employees and other insiders with knowledge of the facts, court records say.

About 300 students were enrolled when agents raided the school in 2017. The government seized all of Davis bank accounts, and his $2.3 million Dallas house is also part of the forfeiture action, court records show. So are a Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley and other luxury cars.

The schools student recruitment practices also have come under fire.

The forfeiture lawsuit alleges that Davis sister formed two companies that posted fake entry-level jobs on multiple job boards. When people responded, the companies sold those leads to Retail Ready for recruitment, according to the lawsuit.

VA regulations prohibit the use of false or misleading advertising or enrollment practices, federal authorities said. The forfeiture suit also said Retail Ready exceeded enrollment limitations and improperly paid bonuses to admissions staff.

In response, Retail Readys lawyers said the school tried to comply with numerous federal regulations and that any inaccuracies were honest mistakes.

Staub said that when he first met with the prosecutor a couple of years ago, his PowerPoint basically said You made too much money too quickly.

Read the original post:
Garland trade school owner charged with bilking VA out of $70 million - The Dallas Morning News