Rachel Maddow on Tuesday examined the latest “weirdness” from President Donald Trump and his administration, arguing that the litany of apparent scandals would have typically ruined any other administration.
The MS NOW, formerly known as MSNBC, host began with FBI Director Kash Patel, whose 27-year-old girlfriend Alexis Wilkins has apparently been given a full-time security detail in an unprecedented use of the agency’s resources and taxpayer dollars, according to two people who spoke to MS NOW.
“The FBI has never before had a taxpayer-funded security detail for an FBI official’s girlfriend, but that’s what we’re paying for now. The girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel has members of the FBI’s SWAT team protecting her as if they’re private bodyguards,” Maddow said.
“But they are paid for by you,” she reiterated.
Maddow noted that Patel has even tried to increase the maximum monetary value of gifts that he is legally allowed to accept in his position, citing comments from Joseph Tirrell, director of the Departmental Ethics Office, a division within the U.S. Department of Justice.
“I got a call from the general counsel at the F.B.I. about changing exceptions to the gift rules because his boss, Kash Patel, felt like he should be able to accept more expensive gifts,” he told the New York Times in an article published Sunday, citing a phone call in July.
Tirrell continued, “I reminded him that his client was not Mr. Patel, but the United States.”
Maddow also noted that Trump is demanding $230 million from the Department of Justice for expenses incurred while defending himself against federal criminal investigations and that his mass-deportation policy has begun affecting efforts to combat child sex trafficking.
She cited a New York Times article from Sunday stating special agents at Homeland Security Investigations, who had uncovered online videos earlier this year of violent child sexual abuse, were ordered to focus on arresting undocumented workers instead.
The paper cited one person with knowledge of the case but said the incident “reflects a broader pattern,” as apparent swaths of HSI agents who investigate child trafficking and exploitation cases in several major cities have been pulled into immigration work.
The administration has apparently also been “in talks” with Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who echoed his lie that the 2020 election was rigged — and is now seeking $50 million for what he claims was a wrongful prosecution, reported Bloomberg.
Maddow ended with the news that Paul Ingrassia, who withdrew his Trump nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel after admitting in a leaked text message that he had a “Nazi streak,” will be a deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration.
“GSA is in charge of federal real estate,” said Maddow. “This usually is not a very high-profile agency, but in this administration, we’ve got the president literally bulldozing the White House and dumping the debris randomly on public golf courses. So, all of a sudden, this previously low-profile agency is right at the heart of Trump weirdness and destruction.”
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