TV News LIES

Since Donald Trump took office, the U.S. military has spent nearly $200,000 at the president’s luxury Scotland resort, according to figures and documents the Pentagon provided to the House Oversight Committee.

The spending, which has all occurred since August 2017, paid for the equivalent of hundreds of nights of rooms at the Turnberry resort over approximately three dozen separate stays, the committee said.

The Air Force confirmed last week that its crews had stayed up to 40 times at Trump’s property since 2015, but it has not provided a breakdown of the number of stays since Trump was elected. The figures provided to the House Oversight Committee suggest the vast majority of stays have occurred since Trump took office, raising concerns among Democrats about a conflict of interest.

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Air Force officers who have earned medals for their tours of duty can pick up some more brass with a short pit stop in Southwest Scotland.

As part of its relationship with the Air Force, the Trump Turnberry resort occasionally gifts high-ranking officers a version of its “Pride Pin,” a lapel pin featuring the property’s iconic lighthouse — an honor reserved for VIPs — upon their arrival, according to a resort staffer familiar with the practice.

Rank-and-file members can expect a more basic welcome package in their rooms, featuring goodies like Scottish shortbread.

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The Defense Department is no longer moving forward with three border barrier projects in California and Arizona, according to a court filing Monday.

The move is a reversal of an earlier Pentagon authorization for about 20 miles of fencing, lighting and other border infrastructure that would have used $2.5 billion in funds redirected from a counter-drug fund. That authorization, announced Aug. 27, was based on what was then determined to be "lower-than-expected contract costs." But the Defense Department revealed in the Monday filing that the department would not be able to cover the costs of the project.

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In early Spring of this year, an Air National Guard crew made a routine trip from the U.S. to Kuwait to deliver supplies.

What wasn’t routine was where the crew stopped along the way: President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort, about 50 miles outside Glasgow, Scotland.

Since April, the House Oversight Committee has been investigating why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane made the unusual stay — both en route to the Middle East and on the way back — at the luxury waterside resort, according to several people familiar with the incident. But they have yet to receive any answers from the Pentagon.

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In a letter, Defense Secretary Mark Esper alerted members of the Senate and House Armed Services committees of the plans to proceed with cutting military construction projects in lieu of the wall.

In all, he detailed 11 wall projects that would be completed as a result of the diversion of Pentagon funds. They include new pedestrian fencing and barriers in San Diego, Calif., replacement of vehicle barriers in El Paso, Texas, and new fencing at the border in Yuma, Ariz.

Congressional sources said the full list of cut military projects was slated to be released Wednesday after lawmakers were directly alerted of which ones were located in their districts.

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A military judge on Friday set Jan. 11, 2021, as the start of the joint death-penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four men charged as plotters of the attacks that killed 2,976 people in New York, Washington and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.

The judge, Col. W. Shane Cohen of the Air Force, set the date for the start of the selection of a military jury at the war court compound at the Navy base in Cuba called Camp Justice.

It was included in a 10-page trial scheduling order that set deadlines toward reaching that trial date. The timetable includes a list of materials the prosecutors must provide the defense teams by Oct. 1 as the first step to achieving that start date.

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