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Why Was George Nader Allowed Into the White House?

The political operative was accused of importing photographs of nude boys “engaged in a variety of sexual acts.” The 1985 charges were dismissed after key evidence was thrown out.

A political operative who frequented the White House in the early days of President Trump’s administration, George Nader, was indicted in 1985 on charges of importing to the United States obscene material, including photos of nude boys “engaged in a variety of sexual acts,” according to publicly available court records. Nader pleaded not guilty, and the charges against him were ultimately dismissed several months after evidence seized from Nader’s home was thrown out on procedural grounds. “Mr. Nader vigorously denies the allegations now, as he did then,” a lawyer representing Nader said.

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BEN CARSON, JARED KUSHNER, AND THE NEW RULES OF CORRUPTION

Corruption tends to come in two flavors: the sort that doesn’t take work and the sort that does. Flying first class is easy; circumventing the law to obtain a $31,000 dining-room set is hard. And then there is Jared Kushner.

Most Americans follow the news only superficially, and for that they should be envied and, probably, imitated. They might miss a lot of stories that matter, but they also miss thousands of stories that don’t, like most in each week’s Trump-related flood. It’s hard to sort through all the noise. This week alone, we learned that HUD officials (seemingly under pressure) spent $31,000 on a new dining set for Ben Carson, that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke keeps bending ethics rules on travel, that E.P.A. chief Scott Pruitt has been flying first class on the public’s dime and spending thousands of dollars in short periods of time, that H.R. McMaster is reportedly on his way out, that Trump is imposing major tariffs on imports of steel, that Trump supports gun restrictions or maybe doesn’t, that White House communications director Hope Hicks will be quitting (announced a day after testifying before Congress), that Jared Kushner lost his top-secret security clearance, that Trump wants John Kelly to pushIvanka and Jared out of the White House, and that Jared Kushner’s family business received major loans from lenders who’d been meeting regularly with Kushner at the White House. Is all this good or bad for the White House? What’s worth noticing in the big picture? Let us sigh and begin.

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Yes, Stormy Daniels is a real issue