American Oversight

By DAN McGRATHCounsel, American Oversight Last year, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt created a fund to pay for his legal defense  while he battled to stay in office in the face of more than a dozen ethics investigations and complaints. After Pruitt left the administration, reports surfaced that his lawyer had — without consulting agency […]

By AUSTIN EVERS and SETH FROTMAN Last week, the U.S. Department of Education’s student lending arm, the Office of Federal Student Aid, radically changed the landscape of its planned billion-dollar contract to reshape student loan servicing in a move that tips the scales for Navient, one of the nation’s largest student loan servicers. By altering […]

Former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks appeared at a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, refusing to answer even the simplest questions about her time working for the president. White House lawyers claimed that Hicks had “absolute immunity” from talking to Congress, and even her appearance on Capitol Hill wasn’t certain […]

Today, Democracy Forward and American Oversight filed suit against Secretary of State Michael Pompeo for refusing to address President Donald Trump’s unlawful seizure of an interpreter’s notes during a private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017. Pompeo’s failure to preserve and recover these records violates the Federal Records Act, which requires his department […]

American Oversight today sued the Department of Homeland Security to compel the release of senior officials’ communications — including those of former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan — related to the deaths of individuals detained by ICE and Border Patrol. At least seven migrant children have died while in the custody of […]

As scrutiny of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s personal finances and her family’s shipping company grows, American Oversight has uncovered documents bolstering the February report on her office’s coordination with the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, her husband. In just the past week, Chao has been the subject of both a Politico report about […]

Like many norms in the Trump era, the prohibition on federal employees engaging in political activity while at work has been routinely tested by the administration, and one of the most prominent offenders over the past two years has been White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. On Thursday, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) recommended that […]

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s actions on behalf of her family’s shipping company included a private photo session with her father at the Department of Transportation as well as a past speaking engagement, as revealed in new documents obtained by American Oversight. Last week, the New York Times published a report detailing extensive contacts between Secretary […]

This week, American Oversight filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests with the State Department for records of outside influence on American foreign policy and information about a high-level appointee. The confirmation process of Brian Bulatao for a senior State Department position was stalled for nearly a year while the department refused to cooperate with […]

Publish Date: May 30, 2019 This spring, in a lawsuit brought by American Oversight, a federal judge rejected a Trump administration argument for withholding communications with Congress about Affordable Care Act sabotage. Now, the administration is appealing that decision. In early 2017, as the administration and congressional Republicans made what was ultimately a failed attempt […]

The Koch-funded group Concerned Veterans for America — which pushes for privatization of the Veterans Health Administration — has been around for less than a decade, but the full weight of its influence within the Trump administration is evident not just in federal policy but also in thousands of pages of public records. Documents obtained […]

The post News Roundup: Elaine Chao’s Stocks, Trump’s Handwritten Notes, and the Administration’s Communications with the NRA appeared first on American Oversight. Syndication Source

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Secretary Betsy DeVos’ Department of Education has been heavily criticized for its lax oversight of for-profit higher education, and on Wednesday it will face two new challenges to its governance of the industry: a House Oversight Committee hearing, and a new lawsuit from American Oversight and the National Student Legal Defense Network. On Wednesday afternoon, […]

With so much attention trained on tackling federal misconduct in the Trump administration, corruption at the state and local levels has flourished and often gone unchecked. But addressing the corruption and threats to democracy in state government is just as urgent. On Monday, American Oversight announced its State Accountability Project, aimed at filling the void […]

Three members of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club continually exercised high-level influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs’ top officials throughout 2017 and 2018. But new evidence uncovered by American Oversight suggests that the full extent of their involvement may not yet have come to light, thanks to high-ranking officials having used personal email accounts […]

American Oversight today announced the launch of its State Accountability Project, a new initiative to expose government corruption at the state and local level — starting with a series of public records requests aimed at uncovering voter-suppression activities in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Already, we have filed nearly 50 public records requests with state and […]

As investigations swirl around the White House, and as the Trump administration escalates its fight with Congress, the president’s belief that the rules do not apply to him has been thrown into stark relief. From his mixing of business with public service to his resistance to congressional investigations — including of his financial history, of […]

President Donald Trump’s Twitter habits frequently lead to raised eyebrows, but this week the president took to his favorite medium to voice opposition to an obscure piece of legislation working its way through Congress. The topic of the bill — granting rights to a American Indian tribe that wants to build a casino in Massachusetts […]

Publish Date: May 6, 2019 American Oversight filed two lawsuits today, seeking records from multiple federal agencies of communications with and about two casino magnates and major Trump donors whose businesses have likely benefited from the current administration’s decisions: Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn. In November, American Oversight began investigating how much sway Adelson, who […]