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.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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