Trump's sons and scores of others receive document requests from House committee

David Knowles

Editor

,

Yahoo News•March 4, 2019

House panel issues 81 document requests in Trump obstruction investigation

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee investigating President Trump over allegations of obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power issued document requests Monday to his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The document requests sent to Trump’s kin are among 81 subpoenas issued by the House panel. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, announced the request for documents Monday and gave the recipients two weeks to comply with the request.

“Over the last several years, President Trump has evaded accountability for his near-daily attacks on our basic legal, ethical and constitutional rules and norms,” Nadler said in a statement. “Investigating these threats to the rule of law is an obligation of Congress and a a core function of the House Judiciary Committee.”

Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Jared Kushner. (Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP)

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Some of the other recipients are well-known names, including American Media Inc., the owner of the National Enquirer, and its CEO, David Pecker; former White House counsel Don McGahn; Trump’s 2020 campaign chief Brad Parscale; former Attorney General Jeff Sessions; and Trump advisers and former associates including Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski and Sam Nunberg. Julian Assange of Wikileaks is on the list, as well as Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the recently indicted Roger Stone.

Others are relatively unknown to the public. Here is the full list of who received a document request on Monday:

1. 1. Alan Garten – general counsel for the Trump Organization

   2. Alexander Nix — former chief of Cambridge Analytica

   3. Allen Weisselberg — chief financial officer for the Trump Organization

   4. American Media Inc

   5. Anatoli Samochornov — translator who attended June 2016 Trump Tower meeting

   6. Andrew Intrater — head of investment company Columbus Nova

   7. Annie Donaldson — former deputy White House counsel

   8. Brad Parscale

   9. Brittany Kaiser — former Cambridge Analytica executive

   10. Cambridge Analytica

   11. Carter Page

   12. Columbus Nova

   13. Concord Management and Consulting

   14. Corey Lewandowski

   15. David Pecker

   16. Department of Justice

   17. Don McGahn

   18. Donald J Trump Revocable Trust

   19. Donald Trump Jr.

   20. Dylan Howard — vice president American Media Inc.

   21. Eric Trump

   22. Erik Prince

   23. Federal Bureau of Investigation

   24. Felix Sater

   25. Flynn Intel Group

   26. General Services Administration

   27. George Nader — Lebanese-American businessman

   28. George Papadopoulos

   29. Hope Hicks

   30. Irakly Kaveladze — Attended 2016 Trump Tower meeting

   31. Jared Kushner

   32. Jason Maloni — former Paul Manafort spokesman

   33. Jay Sekulow

   34. Jeff Sessions

   35. Jerome Corsi

   36. John Szobocsan — associate of Peter Smith

   37. Julian Assange

   38. Julian David Wheatland — CEO, Cambridge Analytica

   39. Keith Davidson — former lawyer for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal

   40. KT McFarland

   41. Mark Corallo — former spokesman for Trump legal team

   42. Matt Tait

   43. Matthew Calamari — longtime bodyguard to Trump

   44. Michael Caputo

   45. Michael Cohen

   46. Michael Flynn

   47. Michael Flynn Jr

   48. Paul Erickson — Republican operative and boyfriend to Maria Butina

   49. Paul Manafort

   50. Peter Smith (Estate)

   51. Randy Credico

   52. Reince Priebus

   53. Rhona Graff — Executive assistant to Trump

   54. Rinat Akhmetshin — Russian-American lobbyist who attended June 2016 Trump Tower meeting

   55. Rob Goldstone

   56. Roger Stone

   57. Ronald Lieberman

   58. Sam Nunberg

   59. SCL Group Limited — parent company of Cambridge Analytica

   60. Sean Spicer

   61. Sheri Dillon — tax attorney for Trump

   62. Stefan Passantino — former White House deputy counsel

   63. Steve Bannon

   64. Ted Malloch — London-based academic with ties to Nigel Farage

   65. The White House

   66. Trump Campaign

   67. Trump Foundation

   68. Trump Organization

   69. Trump Transition

   70. Viktor Vekselberg — Russian businessman

   71. Wikileaks

   72. 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee

   73. Christopher Bancroft Burnham — businessman with ties to Russia

   74. Frontier Services Group — Africa-focused security company run by Erik Prince

   75. J.D. Gordon — National security adviser to Trump

   76. Kushner Companies

   77. NRA

   78. Rick Gates

   79. Tom Barrack

   80. Tom Bossert — former Homeland Security adviser

   81.Tony Fabrizio — Republican pollster

Asked Monday whether he would cooperate with the Judiciary Committee document requests to the White House, his presidential campaign and businesses, the president replied: “I cooperate all the time with everybody.”

Having retaken control of the House of Representatives following the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats have shown little hesitation about exercising their oversight role. Last week, the new chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., marked the opening of testimony by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen with a rebuke for the Republicans who once controlled it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the days of this committee protecting the president at all costs are over,” Cummings said.

With Democrats now able to subpoena records and testimony from Trump’s family members and business associates, the president has done his best to portray the investigations as partisan overreach.

Above is from:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/investigating-trump-democrats-issue-subpoenas-to-the-presidents-sons-and-78-others-183200167.html?.tsrc=jtc_news_index

Are we sinking?

Chicago is sinking. Here's what that means for Lake Michigan and the Midwest

By Tony Briscoe, Chicago Tribune

16 hrs ago

© ASSOCIATED PRESS Ice forms along the shore of Lake Michigan before sunrise, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, in Chicago. The painfully cold weather system that put much of the Midwest into a historic deep freeze was expected to ease Thursday, though temperatures still tumbled to record lows in some places. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

CHICAGO - The sightlines at Wrigley Field, the panorama from Navy Pier, the vantage points at the Adler Planetarium observatory - all structures built more than 100 years ago - are at least 4 inches lower now.

In the northern United States and Canada, areas that once were depressed under the tremendous weight of a massive ice sheet are springing back up while others are sinking. The Chicago area and parts of southern Lake Michigan, where glaciers disappeared 10,000 years ago, are sinking about 4 to 8 inches each century.

One or 2 millimeters a year might not seem like a lot, but "over a decade that's a centimeter. Over 50 years, now, you're talking several inches," said Daniel Roman, chief geodesist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "It's a slow process, but it's a persistent one."

While Chicago's dipping is gradual, this dynamic could eventually redefine flood plains and work against household sewer pipes that slope downward to the sewer main.

The greatest impact of this imperceptible phenomenon likely won't be inland, however. The contour separating the part of the continent that is rising from that which is falling bisects the Great Lakes.

In Lake Michigan, that line passes from Death's Door at Green Bay in Wisconsin to Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan, signaling that the far northern end is rising while the rest of the lake is lowering. Over time, that has created a tilting effect, generally translating into higher lake levels for the southern end of the lakes and lower watermarks for the northern shorelines.

Assuming Lake Michigan's overall water level stays the same, Chicago's lakefront will be about 4 inches higher in the next century. The slow-motion, seesaw effect is also happening in other cities on the southern end of the lakes: Cleveland could see a 4-inch swell in Lake Erie's levels and Milwaukee is projected to see a rise of 5 1/2 more inches. Places such as Canada's Hudson Bay, which was covered by glaciers up to 9,800 feet thick, are rising up to 3 feet per century.

While Earth's surface may appear to be rigid, it actually reacts similarly to a tube of toothpaste that's pressed in the middle. When pressure is applied to the planet's lining, known as the crust, that energy is transferred to the gelatinous layer of smoldering rocks called the mantle. The mantle, which behaves like a liquid, caves under the weight and moves to neighboring areas that bulge.

When the hefty ice sheet melted and the pressure was lifted, the mantle began to flow back to areas where it had thinned out.

Chicago, on the fringe of the last glacial intrusion, rebounded for a time after the glaciers disappeared. But now the city is slowly submerging because more of the mantle is returning to Canada, where the thickest part of the ice sheet bore down on the landscape.

"We can still see the land moving now even though the ice came off Chicago 10,000 years ago," said Seth Stein, professor of geological sciences at Northwestern University.

This shift will also affect the movement of water between the lakes. In Lake Superior, the eastern end that lets out into lakes Michigan and Huron is rising, while the far western edge is slumping. Researchers suggest that could slow Superior's outflow while causing lake levels to surge 10 inches per century near Duluth, Minn.

"If you're tilting one direction, the water flows might change direction or water might accumulate in a way different than you expected in the past," NOAA's Roman said. "That's important for on-land and near-shore environments. You might get more water, but not where you want it."

How that will magnify changing water levels is hard to say. In the past six years, Lake Michigan's water levels have fluctuated wildly, hitting a record low before rising 3 feet to well above the historic average.

Ron Watson, a 73-year-old Naperville retiree, has seen the dramatic swings over the years from his two-story home across the street from Lake Michigan in New Buffalo, Mich. He saw the record-high lake level in 1986, but he has been even more disturbed by the recent unprecedented rise seen between 2013 and 2014, during which houses have been condemned and beaches have been swallowed up.

Neighbors have been concerned that increased precipitation from climate change is one driver. Lakefront development also has exacerbated beach erosion.

And the subtle sinking from the last ice age is contributing to all of these, Watson said.

"That's only going to aggravate the situation," Watson said. "The reason I say I'd be concerned is because if you've ever lived on the shoreline, it's inches of water we're worried about, not feet of water. When lake levels are high, all it takes is inches."

© Staff/Chicago Tribune/TNS Infographic on glaciers. Chicago Tribune 2019