Free Republic

The Department of Justice is prepared to seek indictments against multiple figures in former president Donald Trump’s orbit and may yet bring additional charges against the ex-president in the coming weeks, The Independent has learned. According to sources familiar with the matter, the department has made preparations to bring what is known as a “superseding indictment” — a second set of charges against an already-indicted defendant that could include more serious crimes — against the ex-president in the Southern District of Florida. But prosecutors may also choose to bring additional charges against Mr Trump in a different venue, depending on...

Scarborough, Maine -- [...] In recent years, many top-selling brands - including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics - have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group - and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the U.S. commercial gun industry today. Never heard of it? You're not alone. Even within gun circles, the Freedom Group is something of an enigma. Its rise has been so swift that it has become the subject of wild speculation and grassy-knoll conspiracy...

President Trump plans to assign a New York billionaire to lead a broad review of American intelligence agencies, according to administration officials, an effort that members of the intelligence community fear could curtail their independence and reduce the flow of information that contradicts the president’s worldview. The possible role for Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has met fierce resistance among intelligence officials already on edge because of the criticism the intelligence community has received from Mr. Trump during the campaign and since he became president. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump blamed leaks from the intelligence community for...

Cheers. For some reason the libs weren’t so outraged when Obaama served $399 bottles of wine at his taxpayer-funded state dinner … … but Libs today were “stunned” and “outraged” that popular conservative Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ordered a $350 bottle of wine for dinner in New York. TPM reported, via Ann Althouse: When [Professor Feinberg] saw the label on the bottle of Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru Ryan’s table had ordered, she quickly looked it up on the wine list and saw that it sold for an eye-popping $350, the most expensive wine in the house along with one...

MOBILE, Ala. -- Ken Feinberg has repeatedly told oil spill claimants that they have two options if they disagree with decisions of his Gulf Coast Claims Facility: file an appeal with the U.S. Coast Guard, or sue BP PLC in court. A Florida business owner has pursued a third option: sue Feinberg. John Mavrogiannis, owner of Pinellas Marine Salvage Inc. in Tarpon Spring, Fla., has filed a lawsuit in Florida Circuit Court in Pinellas County, accusing Feinberg and the claims operation of gross negligence and fraud. Neither Feinberg nor his spokeswoman could be reached for comment Monday. Brian Donovan, Mavrogiannis’s...

Seventeen big banks getting bailouts from taxpayers made "ill-advised" overpayments to executives in late 2008 and early 2009, but they can't be forced to pay them back, U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg said on Friday. In his final act before he moves on to oversee payments from a fund that oil company BP Plc has set up to compensate oil-spill victims, Feinberg said he was urging banks to voluntarily adopt policies so that such pay practices could never happen again. "There were 17 companies where the payments that were made during this window of about five months ... were ill-advised,"...

NEW ORLEANS -- The federal administrator of a $20 billion Gulf oil spill compensation fund says the wages earned by people working on BP's cleanup will be deducted from their claims against the company. Kenneth Feinberg told The Associated Press on Sunday the fund is designed to compensate fishermen and others for their lost income. If BP PLC is already paying someone to help skim oil and perform other cleanup work, those wages will be subtracted from the amount they're eligible to claim from the fund.

WASHINGTON - Workers who lost income because of the BP oil spill can be compensated under a $20 billion victims' fund even if oil hasn't washed up near their business, says the official chosen to oversee distribution of the money. "Physical presence of oil should not and will not be the only requirement," said Kenneth Feinberg, the fund's administrator, on Fox News Sunday. In judging whether an applicant qualifies for compensation, Feinberg said he and his staff will determine "are you losing business this year because you can't take charter fishermen out to fish, you can't take a charter boat...

"Rev. Edwards, with a black and gold Bible in hand, said it's time for President Obama to come to small towns like Pointe a la Hache and hear firsthand from the men and women who are scraping by, angry with the bureaucracy that is preventing the resources from flowing. He is still seething from a meeting last week with Kenneth Feinberg, the Washington, D.C. attorney President Obama appointed to oversee the $20 billion fund BP established to assist victims of the disaster. "This guy sounds like BP all the way," said Edwards, who didn't like what he said was Feinberg's...

Here is video of Kenneth Feinberg – head of the “Oil Spill Compensation Fund” – saying people in the Gulf Region can file a claim with the Government and receive “emergency payments” without providing “the type of corroboration that would normally be provided.” Feinberg said they only need to provide “basic information,” which he did not explain. He was asked if, by taking the funds, people were giving up their right to sue BP. Feinberg said “Absolutely not.” In no way are people giving up their right to sue BP by taking the “emergency funds.” Exit Question: How long do...

With pictures of oil-drenched birds, blackened beaches, and marshlands invaded with oil streaming across our televisions every day, it is easy to become angry and demand retribution from the cause of the disaster. Unfortunately, it is also easy for unscrupulous politicians to take that anger and turn it to their political advantage. History is replete with incidents of real popular anger leading to monstrous outcomes of tyranny. Yesterday the USA wrote a new anecdote in that awful book. There is no doubt that the oil spill produced by the Deepwater Horizon rig and BP is a disaster of monumental ecological...

Kenneth Feinberg must be a big fan of Albert Camus. Every job he takes involves some sort of existential quality. He made his mark doling out compensation to the families of 9-11 victims, a job that entailed deciding whether or which life had more monetary value: that of a janitor or a banker? As the Obama administration’s pay czar, Feinberg spent most of last year determining what executives at bailed out banks and auto companies should be paid. “In our society, I’ve found that compensation is a surrogate for worth,’’ Feinberg said at a recent speech at the Wharton School....

BEVERLY HILLS, CA (Reuters) - U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg sees early signs some Wall Street firms are voluntarily toughening up on the way they pay executives, but he cautions it remains to be seen whether such behavior becomes permanent. Feinberg, who still supervises pay practices at five firms that received money under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), told Reuters these signs include increasing the amount of salary paid in the form of stock and tying individual performance to company performance. "It's too early to tell," Feinberg told Reuters on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference....

Emboldened by the passage of health care legislation, the Obama administration will set its sights on a new target - regulating how much money you can make. Recipients of federal bailout money already face regulations designed to rein in "excessive" corporate salaries. Since the administration has proclaimed this first step a success, it is only a matter of time before it seeks broader control over private-sector compensation. The administration gave itself a pat on the back for a job well done after "only" 16 of 104 senior corporate executives quit when their salaries fell under the pay czar's knife. The...

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and his department have been sued by Judicial Watch as a result of the government's abject failure to abide by the law, specifically the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), concerning the Toxic Assets Relief Program and Obama administration "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg. Last November, Judidial Watch submitted an FOIA request multiple documents concerning meetings involving Feinberg, special master for executive compensation under TARP; AIG Chairman Robert Benmosche, and New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley. As the Obama administration’s “pay czar,” Feinberg is responsible for setting compensation guidelines for the seven largest firms, including AIG,...

So, why care if the “Pay Czar” is going to soak some rich bankers? (Besides the fact that it’s unconstitutional.) I think this is only the beginning. As Obama’s policies either stop the economy from recovering, or even make it worse, there will be increasing calls for government assistance. As a response, the government will offer more and more “recovery” programs to “fix” what they have broken. As with any government “assistance,” it will come with strings attached. When you put together the rhetoric and the actions, I think it’s safe to assume that they left would like to extend...

The Obama administration's pay czar is limiting the cash compensation for executives at companies that received the largest taxpayer bailouts to $500,000. The 25th through the 100th top earners at Citigroup, GMAC, American International Group and General Motors also must take more than half their compensation in stock, and at least half must be delayed for three or more years, said Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury Department's Special Master for Executive Compensation.

Even as federal employees' salaries are growing robustly, the president's pay czar Kenneth Feinberg has imposed new limits on executive compensation at AIG, Citigroup, General Motors, and GMAC, all recipients of government bailouts. Salaries will be limited to $500,000 in cash, and bonuses will be tied to "real achievement of objective goals." Chris Edwards at CATO—who has done quite a lot of independent analysis of federal pay—puts this story in context and adds some juicy details from his own data. Most remarkably, there are fully 383,000 federal workers earning six-figure salaries and 22,000 earning salaries of over $170,000. And these...

The Obama administration's pay czar, Ken Feinberg, will release new rulings Friday morning on the pay packages for some of the highest-paid employees at six companies receiving what the administration deems "exceptional assistance" from the government. Share Not much has changed in terms of pay since the banking meltdown. The rulings will cover 2009 compensation for the 26th to 100th highest-paid employees at six companies: AIG, Citigroup, GM, Chrysler, and the automakers' respective financing arms -- GMAC and Chrysler Financial. Feinberg will impose a $500,000 salary cap on these employees unless "good cause" can be proven, a source familiar with...

In a London preview of Wall Street's bonus nightmare, more than 1,000 investment bankers have quit Royal Bank of Scotland to work at rivals due to curbs on their paychecks, according to people familiar with the situation. Wall Street banks fear top talent would flee en masse for greener pastures if Uncle Sam's pay czar, Ken Feinberg, and Congress try to put more ceilings on bonuses and pay at financial firms. In the UK, the rules are modeled after US actions to curb pay at firms bailed out by the government.RBS will soon be about 84-percent owned by the British...