Certain costs of the inauguration are borne by the Federal Government, but there are a lot of parties that happen during an inauguration as well, and those are privately funded. And by privately funded, they mean "donations" made to a "inaugural fund" that aren't openly audited. There's nothing new here, and in theory nothing intrinsically nefarious, but that's true for most projects, and when piles of money are moving around without real oversight, it really shouldn't be a surprise if some of that money goes to more than is represented. It turns out that a number of big money Russian citizens, and Americans with substantial ties to Russian businesses got VIP treatment at some of the inaugural festivities, and made substantial donations to the funding of said festivities. Now this could be your basic influence peddling, but it could also be tied to actual collusion, or attempts at collusion, a sort of "final payoff," for what was probably considered an unlikely win.
It does turn out that the amount raised, compared to the volume and opulence of the festivities raise questions. These things aren't cheap of course, and Obama's inaugural fundraising had been the highest prior to Trump. The real surprise is that Trump apparently raised twice as much money, but had about the same level of festivities. It is interesting to note that this can be seen as just "normal" procedure from these sorts of donors, after all, Russian interests may not have colluded, but be happy with the election results. That could still leave open the possibility of embezzlement of funds, since it seems that the costs of the parties were in the neighborhood of 50% of the the contributions received, but that can be tricky to prove as well, after all, they could have just been poor at making their deals.
Still, the "follow the money" course of investigation is pretty standard, and fifty or so million not really accounted for is likely to leave a trail of some sort.
- Stormy Daniels
- Trump Charity lawsuit by New York Attorney General
- FBI investigation (it keeps being called a Russian Collusion investigation, but I'm pretty sure more to it than that at this point)
- North Korea
- The Space Force
- The Border Wall
- Alien Children Detention/family separation
- Presidential Pardons
- Civil War Monuments
- Muslim Travel Ban
- China Tariffs/Trade
- Canada-G7 Tariffs/Trade
- NAFTA
- Puerto Rico response
- Military Parade in Washington
- World Trade Organization
Survivor White House watch. Scott Pruitt Gone today Pruitt really should have been on this list, he has been in the middle of a number of investigations regarding mis-spending funds, personal travel, and using his influence for favors.
Giuliani still there as Lawyer
John F. Kelly still there as Chief of Staff - 6-29-2018 Trump says "Things Happen."
Jeff Sessions still there as Attorney General
Sarah Huckabee Sanders still there as Press Secretary, rumors continue to be denied.
Mike Pompeo - Secretary of State
John Bolton - National Security Advisor
Marc Short - White House Legislative Affairs Director - no denial of plans regarding his departure prior to the 2018 midterms.
Kirstjen Nielsen - Homeland Security Secretary
Joe Hagin - White House deputy Chief of Staff is resigning.- reported June 19th
Scott Pruitt - EPA Director - Resigned 7-5-2018
Scott Pruitt - EPA Director - Resigned 7-5-2018
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