Casino scandal in D.C.

Massachusetts‘ Mashpee Wampanoag tribe continues to fight on against a Trump administration decertification of their status, in a case that’s sticking to the White House like a tar baby. Whose market share would be most impinged by a Mashpee casino? Twin River Holdings, that’s who. And who is Twin River’s lobbyist? American Conservative Union Chairman Matthew Schlapp. His wife, Mercedes Schlapp, just so happens to work for the Donald Trump reelection campaign, having moved over from director of strategic communications at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Incestuous much? As Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi—an opponent of casinos—writes, the stripping of the Wampanoags of their 321-acre reservation “takes a well-orchestrated, highly concentrated assault on power.”