The White House Is Looking Pretty Swampy These Days

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Here’s a quick tour through the Donald Trump swamp today:

Jared Kushner, who has no evident qualification aside from being married to the boss’s daughter, has been named to head up a new White House Office of American Innovation, which will have “sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises — such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction — by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions.” I guess that bringing peace to the Middle East wasn’t enough to keep Kushner busy.

Trump pal Carl Icahn is working on a plan to change the rule that governs the way corn-based ethanol is mixed into gasoline. Icahn is also the majority stakeholder in CVR Energy, which would have saved more than $200 million last year under Icahn’s proposed change.

Rep. Devin Nunes, one of Trump’s most loyal spear carriers, announced last week that there “might” have been “incidental” surveillance of some folks “close” to Donald Trump. But where did his bombshell come from? It turns out that Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds. So his “source” is most likely the White House itself. Maybe even Trump himself. It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has done something like this.

I guess that’s it for today. The day is young, though, so you never know.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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