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Not receiving a certificate of divestiture is not a permissible reason under the law to avoid divesting from stock. In fact, regulations require an employee requesting a certificate to commit in advance to divesting, whether or not OGE grants the request. It is unclear at this point whether Short has participated in any governmental policy decisions that could affect the companies or sectors in which he holds personal financial interests.
Marc Short
Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who was Mr. Pence’s national security adviser, has also testified before the committee. Mr. Kellogg told investigators that as rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Mr. Trump rejected pleas from him as well as from Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the press secretary, to call for an end to the violence. He said Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter and adviser, also attempted to intervene at least twice. Prosecutors have also issued grand jury subpoenas to several people connected to the scheme to create false slates of electors saying that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election in swing states that were actually won by Mr. Biden.
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"Additionally, on several occasions, including since the formation of the coronavirus task force, Mr. Short has worked with legal counsel to implement appropriate recusals." Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Pence, owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of individual stocks in companies doing work related to the Trump administration's pandemic response — holdings that could run afoul of conflict of interest laws. Other high-ranking officials have divested their stock holdings despite very complex financial situations.
What Is Mr. Robert House Up to in Fallout?
The former finance secretary faced backlash during her campaign last year after admitting she would have voted against gay marriage in Scotland when it was made legal a decade ago. However, he could face competition from the party's former finance minister Ms Forbes, who narrowly lost out to Mr Yousaf in last year's leadership election. He also says he wants to "design an approach to net zero that takes people and business with us". Ms Forbes, who narrowly lost out to Humza Yousaf in last year's leadership election, has not confirmed her intention to enter the leadership contest. "She is an intelligent, creative, thoughtful person who has much to contribute to our national life," he says.
With the hopes of having staff that had pulses, House gave the raiders currently occupying the Vegas Strip three options. They became the Chairmen, the Omertas, and the White Glove Society, who would run New Vegas’ three restored casinos. With the date in mind, House began working towards making sure that Las Vegas would survive the war, and just as important—he would survive the war. Using the vast wealth and resources of RobCo, House began outfitting the Lucky 38 so that it could protect Vegas against the brunt of a nuclear assault. He also decided that drastic measures would have to be taken for him to remain alive indefinitely to handle the crisis personally. House had his fleshy, mortal body sealed into a life support device that would keep him alive—relatively and theoretically—forever.
On Jan. 6, some members of the mob of Trump supporters that attacked the Capitol chanted “Hang Mike Pence! ” Mr. Trump reacted approvingly to the chants, effectively saying that Mr. Pence deserved it, according to testimony collected by the House committee. Mark Lotter, Mr. Pence’s former press secretary, will serve as the campaign’s director of strategic communications, the campaign said Tuesday. Kayleigh McEnany, the former spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee and a former CNN contributor, will serve as the campaign’s national press secretary.
Pence Chief Of Staff Owns Stocks That Could Conflict With Coronavirus Response
Scott Amey, general counsel of the government watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said Short's work is clearly covered by conflict of interest laws. In these television interviews, Short discussed personal protective equipment manufacturing, therapeutic pharmaceuticals, public-private partnerships and negotiations over the coronavirus relief package. Some of the technologies we use are necessary for critical functions like security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and to make the site work correctly for browsing and transactions.
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The Justice Department has at times appeared to be lagging behind the House select committee, which has spoken to more than 1,000 witnesses, including some from inside the Trump White House. Much of that testimony has been highlighted at a series of public hearings over the past two months. And he had a front-row seat to the souring relationship between Mr. Pence and Mr. Trump in the days leading up to Jan. 6, when the president leaned on the vice president to overturn the election results and Mr. Pence resisted. Mr. Short informed Mr. Pence’s lead Secret Service agent about the risk on Jan. 5, an episode that he confirmed Wednesday night on CNN, and his warning proved prescient. The next day, rioters descended on the Capitol as Congress met to count the electoral votes confirming Mr. Trump’s defeat, chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and assembling a gallows.
Those who have received the subpoenas have largely been state lawmakers or Republican officials, many of whom put their names on documents attesting to the fact that they were electors for Mr. Trump. On May 1, the Office of Government Ethics took the unusual step of sending a memo out reminding executive branch ethics officials that stocks can pose a conflict of interest. On Fox Business on March 18, he cited 3M, a company in which he owns between $65,002 and $150,000 worth of stock. "A few weeks ago, the vice president took a trip to 3M manufacturing in Minnesota," Short said, referring to The 3M Company as one of the "primary producers" of respirator masks.
Fox said that selling individual stocks is often the only way for government officials like Short to resolve potential conflicts. Recusal from possible conflicts of interest is often difficult in a position like Short's because his responsibilities as a member of the White House's senior staff would be diverse and touch on a wide range of topics and sectors. The application for a certificate of divestiture is in itself an acknowledgement that the likelihood of potential conflicts of interest exist. In order to apply for the certificate, federal employees need to attest that they have possible conflicts of interest that make it necessary to divest, according to Don Fox, a former general counsel and acting director for the Office of Government Ethics. Watchdogs — including the former top lawyer for the Office of Government Ethics, which handles conflicts of interest issues — say that in order to comply with the law, Short needs to divest or recuse himself from issues that may impact his personal financial holdings. Other companies among his holdings, such as CVS, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Walmart and Roche, have been publicly touted by the White House for their work with the federal government on the coronavirus response.
Investigators believe that participation by the former vice president and his inner circle is critical, because Mr. Pence resisted a pressure campaign by former President Donald J. Trump to use his role in presiding over Congress’s official count of electoral votes to try to overturn the 2020 election. The Office of the Vice President did not provide a statement on why Short has not divested potentially conflicting stocks outside the trusts. Without a certificate of divestiture, Short would not qualify to defer capital gains taxes on sales of his stocks, and would be forced to pay these taxes. "Marc Short has followed all applicable ethics laws, and even sought to divest from potential financial conflicts," said Pence spokesman Devin O'Malley.
According to public disclosure forms first obtained by CREW and subsequently verified and reviewed by NPR, Short owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of stock in companies that have been specifically identified or otherwise involved in the federal government's coronavirus response. Public disclosure forms do not show precise values of stock holdings, only ranges. Both of Short's predecessors as chief of staff to Pence — Nick Ayers and Joshua Pitcock — requested and obtained certificates of divestiture. Unlike Short, neither Ayers nor Pitcock appear to have held significant numbers of individual stocks during their time in that office, according to their public disclosure records. Short is a longtime political operative who has served as Pence's chief of staff since March 2019. And on at least two recent occasions, his work has led him to mention companies in which he holds stock.
Owner of luxury lighthouse on 'saddest ever' Grand Designs episode slashes price by £1m in desperate bid to se - Daily Mail
Owner of luxury lighthouse on 'saddest ever' Grand Designs episode slashes price by £1m in desperate bid to se.
Posted: Tue, 01 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
"OGE would not grant a certificate of divestiture covering individual equities because, after such a divestment, the stocks held in irrevocable generation-skipping trusts — established for the benefit of his children over which Mr. Short has no independent control — would remain," O'Malley said. "Seeking a certificate of divestiture is not seeking approval. It's seeking a tax break," Shaub said. "The nonissuance of a certificate of divestiture does not prevent you from divesting. It prevents you from getting a tax break." There is a law that requires executive branch employees to resolve conflicts of interest before participating in any decision — or even deliberations — affecting particular companies or specific industries in which they are invested.
Last month, federal agents stopped Mr. Eastman outside a restaurant in New Mexico and seized his cellphone. That same day, agents also seized electronic devices from another lawyer involved in the fake elector scheme, Jeffrey Clark. Mr. Clark, a former Justice Department official, helped draft a letter to state officials in Georgia falsely stating that the department had evidence of election fraud in the state. Among the lawyers named in the subpoenas are Rudolph W. Giuliani, who helped oversee Mr. Trump’s challenges to the election, and Mr. Eastman, an outside lawyer who drafted several memos encouraging Mr. Trump to use the fake electors as part of the campaign to pressure Mr. Pence to throw him the election. Until now, the only other pro-Trump figure — aside from rioters who were at the Capitol — known to have testified in front of a federal grand jury investigating Jan. 6 was the prominent “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander. Mr. Alexander, acting on a subpoena from prosecutors, answered questions in front of the grand jury for about three hours in late June.
Before he left last year, he had been among the bluntest voices in the president’s circle warning about the grim prospects for House Republicans in the midterm elections. Vice President Mike Pence has chosen Marc Short, who served as President Trump’s legislative affairs director for most of his first two years in office, to be his chief of staff, a person familiar with the announcement said Tuesday. In the past, Short has set the agenda and sent out the White House Situation Room seating chart for the coronavirus task force meetings, according to an April 11 story by The Washington Post. "We meet every morning at nine o'clock," he told CNBC in March, regarding the coronavirus task force. "Ultimately, the responsibility is on the public official to take all necessary steps to make sure they're either free from potential conflicts of interest or to stay away from any issues that could conflict with those personal financial interests," said Fox.
And Tim Murtaugh, who most recently worked in communications for Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, will be director of communications. With Mr. Short’s return, the White House will deepen its roster of seasoned veterans as the president heads into what is expected to be a grueling re-election campaign. Mr. Short also has extensive experience dealing with a divided Congress, and was seen as an establishment voice in the West Wing.
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