DES MOINES — Troy Price, the beleaguered chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, resigned Wednesday, about a week after overseeing the chaotic Iowa caucuses that embarrassed the state and national party and left Democrats open to accusations of incompetence by President Trump’s reelection campaign.
The Iowa Democratic Party failed to report any results from its first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses Feb. 3 until the next afternoon. When it did report them, they were filled with errors. Even once the party released what it said were full results, errors remained in the tabulations, and the campaigns of the two victors, former mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have both asked for a partial recanvass of the results.
Price, 39, has been the public face of the debacle, as he has struggled to offer reassuring explanations about the integrity of the caucus reporting process and final results.
“While it is my desire to stay in this role and see this process through to completion, I do believe it is time for the Iowa Democratic Party to begin looking forward, and my presence in my current role makes that more difficult,’’ Price wrote in a letter to party officials.
The Democratic National Committee and some Iowa Democratic Party leaders have pointed fingers at Price for not doing more to ensure that changes to the caucus process this year, such as the use of a new results-reporting app, were fully tested and clear to the precinct leaders and many others involved in running the process.
new york times
Data sought on Secret Service payments to Trump company
The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday asked the Secret Service to provide a full accounting of its payments to President Trump’s private company after The Washington Post revealed that the Secret Service had been charged up to $650 per night for rooms at Trump clubs.
In a letter to the Secret Service, signed by chair Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, and Representative Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, the committee asks for any records of payments to Trump properties, and copies of any contracts between the Secret Service and Trump clubs.
Last week, the Post reported that the Secret Service had been charged up to $650 per night for rooms at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., and charged $17,000 a month for a cottage that agents used at Trump’s Bedminster, N.J., club. Trump still owns his companies. These payments show that he has an unprecedented business relationship with the government.
The letter said those charges ‘‘stand in stark contrast’’ to the Trump Organization’s public statements. Trump’s son, Eric, who runs the company day-to-day, had previously said the company charged government employees at a steep discount.
WASHINGTON POST
Woman acquitted of trespassing at Mar-a-Lago
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida jury acquitted a Chinese woman Wednesday of trespassing at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after she testified she didn’t understand a security guard who told her to leave.
Jurors did find Jing Lu, 56, guilty of resisting a police officer without violence during her Dec. 18 arrest. The incident marked the second time in 2019 that a Chinese national was charged with illicitly entering Trump’s Florida resort.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
