welcome to trumpland
the face of the failed american state
december 10, 2018
"On some great and glorious day..."
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
HL Mencken July 1920
Trump
American traitor
Economy raider
Vote suppressor
Minority oppressor
Truth-ambivalent
Nazi-equivalent
Democracy hating
Media berating
Mafia don
Two-bit con
Egomaniacal turd
Don’t believe a single word
Donald Trump's Absentee Presidency
by douglas9 - demo underground
Trump Doesn't Comfort or Celebrate the Nation Very Well
And the absence is broader. Trump can’t readily cheer the nation in moments of triumph (championship sports teams boycott his White House). He doesn’t tenderly comfort the nation in times of tragedy (he tosses paper towels to hurricane victims, and does a double fist pump on the anniversary of 9-11). He doesn’t read books, talk movies or go to the theater, and is unwelcome at even the Kennedy Center Honors over which presidents have presided for nearly 40 years. This reality is striking, and sad: When it comes to those personal rituals of the modern presidency that Americans have long since taken for granted, Donald J. Trump is the man who isn’t there.
He plays no games of touch football on the lawn at Mar-a-Lago, a la the Kennedys in Palm Beach or Hyannis Port. No family rounds of speed golf or horseshoes, and no mountain biking, as with the Bushes at Kennebunkport or Crawford. No horseback riding or brush-clearing, as with Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the mountains above Santa Barbara. No snorkeling, as with Obama and his girls at Oahu’s Hanauma Bay. He doesn’t toast his own English muffins like Jerry Ford. No romping with Buddy the dog or Socks the cat, those pet denizens of the Clinton years. Even that loneliest of loners Richard Nixon enjoyed bowling in the White House alley, and liked to hit the beach in wingtips, sometimes with his wife Pat by his side.
No, Trump does none of this. Perhaps the most striking image of him with his family came last winter, when he charged up the steps of Air Force One in a rainstorm in West Palm Beach, an umbrella shielding his own head, with Barron and his wife, Melania, scrambling wet and unprotected behind him to get in the door of the plane. In Israel, in Italy, in Florida and on the White House lawn itself, Melania has repeatedly appeared to pull her own hand away when the president reached out to hold it.
Trump doesn’t eat out in any restaurants except his own. Not for him a plebian trip to Ray’s Hell Burger, the Arlington institution where Barack Obama took Russian president Dmitri Medvedev in 2010 for a burger with cheddar, hot peppers and sautéed onions and mushrooms. Nor a visit to Filomena, the homey Italian kitchen in Georgetown, where Bill Clinton memorably chowed down with Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany. No date nights with Melania at the Bombay Club or the Blue Duck Tavern.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/trump-doesnt-comfort-or-celebrate-nation-very-well/572914/
the illegitimate president
"the MUSINGS OF A FOOL, they are all lies but he thinks you are too stupid not to know that"
12/10/2018
*Trump is reaching new heights of self-delusion — and his desperate flailing is clear for all to see
Trump has ended a newsy week with a barrage of what by even his own standards are pretty down-is-up and untrue statements.
*‘Pissident Trump says payments to women were 'private transaction,' not criminal offense
WASHINGTON - Pissident Donald Trump on Monday dismissed payments to alleged mistresses just before the 2016 presidential election as "a simple private transaction," disputing c ... (USA Today)
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*Trump Town: Tracking White House staffers, Cabinet members and political appointees across the government
*COLLUSION IN PLAIN SIGHT ANALYZING RUSSIAN ATTACKS ON OUR DEMOCRACY – AND TRUMP'S INVOLVEMENT(HTTPS://THEMOSCOWPROJECT.ORG/)
*trump-russia scandal(ARCHIVES)
Through The Looking Glass With Trump
He Unloads a Barrage of Tweets Out of Fantasy Land
By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport New York Editor
12/10/18
Trump has ended a newsy week with a barrage of what by even his own standards are pretty down-is-up and untrue statements.
For a president increasingly isolated and facing a growing number of challenges from the world, politics and incoming investigations, there is a distinct reflection of self-delusion and an air of desperate flailing strong enough for all to sense. It’s a sign that we all should strap in for more as these investigations come closer to him.
Indeed, “The White House is adopting what one official termed a ‘shrugged shoulders’ strategy for adverse news, calculating that most GOP base voters will believe whatever the president tells them to believe,” according to one Washington Post report.
In just a few days, Trump:
As a result, over the last weeks, the president has found himself almost without friends at international meetings, facing disruptive job churn at the White House, competing demands and a rising tide of problems.
We know that the announced tariffs against China are not working as had been expected by the White House and that the Middle East is hanging on by a thread with U.S. support for Saudi Arabia resulting in widespread starvation among Yemenis caught in a proxy war. We know our allies are unsure of their place with official Washington, and that autocrats worldwide are taking note that they can escape from punishment for human rights abuses by buying a few American airplanes, as does Saudi Arabia,
At the center, of course, is the Russia election-influence investigation. Mueller has given some new hints this week, but most of the investigation’s scope and importance remains hidden. It is up to us to knit together what details are known.
Axios.com offered that information “we already now know is highly damning and highly detailed. The scary thing for Trump — Mueller knows a helluva lot more than we now know.” It’s worth keeping in mind as we hear concern about one detail or another.
Said Axios: We now know, for example, that several Russian officials reached out to a half-dozen Republicans close to Trump and his campaign, including his eldest son, his closest adviser, his lawyer, and his campaign manager. We know that Russia offered in those chats campaign assistance — “synergy,” they called it. We know now of no one around Trump who alerted the FBI of this effort to subvert our elections.
We know that 12 Russian intelligence officers were indicted for hacking the DNC and releasing material for the purpose of hurting the Clinton campaign via WikiLeaks. We know that Trump associates Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi attempted — successfully, in some instances — to get in touch with WikiLeaks and that they are under investigation for whether they had advance knowledge. We know Donald Trump, Jr. and others met with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.
We now know Trump was negotiating a Trump Tower in Moscow during the presidential campaign — and hid this from the public and lied about it. We now know Mueller believes, based on his court filing, the “Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government.”
We know every arm of the U.S. intelligence concluded Russia sought to systematically influence the election outcome. We now know Trump officials continued talking with the Russians during the post-election transition, with Jared Kushner and Jeff Sessions failing initially to disclose any contacts with Russians. We now know Jared Kushner suggested a secret backchannel with the Russians.
And we now know Trump fired FBI director James Comey, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and White House counsel Don McGahn in part over their handling of the probe. Meanwhile, Manafort and Cohen are headed for jail.
I wonder if the fountain needs a rest and regroup time.
For a president increasingly isolated and facing a growing number of challenges from the world, politics and incoming investigations, there is a distinct reflection of self-delusion and an air of desperate flailing strong enough for all to sense. It’s a sign that we all should strap in for more as these investigations come closer to him.
Indeed, “The White House is adopting what one official termed a ‘shrugged shoulders’ strategy for adverse news, calculating that most GOP base voters will believe whatever the president tells them to believe,” according to one Washington Post report.
In just a few days, Trump:
- Blamed rioting protests in Paris on failed efforts to address climate change, and claimed that protesters were calling for Trump to intervene. Um, no – on all counts. The protests are aimed at a fuel tax, and there were no calls for Trump to save France. The French foreign minister asked that Trump stop tweeting about France.
- Claimed that the prosecutorial sentencing reports for Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, and Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer, “cleared” Trump of any possible “collusion” charges. Actually, those court filings identified Trump as directing the scheme to pay hush-money settlements to two women for their silence about sex, in violation of campaign finance laws, and opened new avenues for Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III to pursue earlier, and more avenues of contacts with Russians with his campaign. “Prosecutors investigating President Trump and his team draw a portrait of a candidate who personally directed an illegal scheme to manipulate the 2016 election and whose advisers had more contact with Russia than Trump has ever acknowledged,” said The New York Times, and up to 14 Russian contacts per The Washington Post.
- Blasted former James Comey Jr. for his testimony to House Republican-majority committees as lies. “Leakin’ James Comey must have set a record for who lied the most to Congress in one day. His Friday testimony was so untruthful! This whole deal is a Rigged Fraud headed up by dishonest people who would do anything so that I could not become President. They are now exposed!” No, Comey’s testimony actually suggested the FBI had started to investigate four Americans who did not include the president.
- After declaring success in meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping over the tariffs issues, Trump declared himself “a tariff man” in favor of retaining tariffs, triggering a 1,700-point turndown in the stock market.
- Insisted again that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman was blameless in the assassination of writer Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey despite CIA findings to the opposite, which irked even key Republican senators.
- By contrast, Trump remained silent about reported Republican voter fraud in a North Carolina congressional race, about a monthly jobs report that fell substantially short of expectations and played up his dismissal of Chief of Staff John F. Kelly Jr. as being Kelly’s idea. Better yet, the would-be replacement, Nick Ayers, told him he didn’t want the job beyond a couple of months.
- Meanwhile, Trump said he still wants to meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un despite evidence that no progress has been made towards nuclear disarmament, in accordance with what Trump said that they had agreed.
- He even credited a non-existent Wall for having stopped an immigrant caravan rather than a combination of interminable waiting for asylum seekers at ports of entry and adverse court rulings challenging his policies. Nevertheless, he continued to press for money for the wall even if it means a partial government shutdown.
As a result, over the last weeks, the president has found himself almost without friends at international meetings, facing disruptive job churn at the White House, competing demands and a rising tide of problems.
We know that the announced tariffs against China are not working as had been expected by the White House and that the Middle East is hanging on by a thread with U.S. support for Saudi Arabia resulting in widespread starvation among Yemenis caught in a proxy war. We know our allies are unsure of their place with official Washington, and that autocrats worldwide are taking note that they can escape from punishment for human rights abuses by buying a few American airplanes, as does Saudi Arabia,
At the center, of course, is the Russia election-influence investigation. Mueller has given some new hints this week, but most of the investigation’s scope and importance remains hidden. It is up to us to knit together what details are known.
Axios.com offered that information “we already now know is highly damning and highly detailed. The scary thing for Trump — Mueller knows a helluva lot more than we now know.” It’s worth keeping in mind as we hear concern about one detail or another.
Said Axios: We now know, for example, that several Russian officials reached out to a half-dozen Republicans close to Trump and his campaign, including his eldest son, his closest adviser, his lawyer, and his campaign manager. We know that Russia offered in those chats campaign assistance — “synergy,” they called it. We know now of no one around Trump who alerted the FBI of this effort to subvert our elections.
We know that 12 Russian intelligence officers were indicted for hacking the DNC and releasing material for the purpose of hurting the Clinton campaign via WikiLeaks. We know that Trump associates Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi attempted — successfully, in some instances — to get in touch with WikiLeaks and that they are under investigation for whether they had advance knowledge. We know Donald Trump, Jr. and others met with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.
We now know Trump was negotiating a Trump Tower in Moscow during the presidential campaign — and hid this from the public and lied about it. We now know Mueller believes, based on his court filing, the “Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government.”
We know every arm of the U.S. intelligence concluded Russia sought to systematically influence the election outcome. We now know Trump officials continued talking with the Russians during the post-election transition, with Jared Kushner and Jeff Sessions failing initially to disclose any contacts with Russians. We now know Jared Kushner suggested a secret backchannel with the Russians.
And we now know Trump fired FBI director James Comey, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and White House counsel Don McGahn in part over their handling of the probe. Meanwhile, Manafort and Cohen are headed for jail.
I wonder if the fountain needs a rest and regroup time.
Trump On Coming Debt Crisis: ‘I Won’t Be Here’ When It Blows Up
The president thinks the balancing of the nation’s books is going to, ultimately, be a future president’s problem.
Asawin Suebsaeng, Lachlan Markay - daily beast
12.05.18 10:32 AM ET
Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s aides and advisers have tried to convince him of the importance of tackling the national debt.
Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn’t have to worry about the money owed to America’s creditors—currently about $21 trillion—because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable.
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office.
“Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt.
The episode illustrates the extent of the president’s ambivalence towards tackling an issue that has previously animated the Republican Party from the days of Ronald Reagan to the presidency of Barack Obama.
But for those who have worked with Trump, it was par for the course. Several people close to the president, both within and outside his administration, confirmed that the national debt has never bothered him in a truly meaningful way, despite his public lip service. “I never once heard him talk about the debt,” one former senior White House official attested.
Marc Short, who until recently worked for Trump as his legislative affairs director, said he believed the president recognized "the threat that debt poses" and he pointed to Trump's concern "about rising interest rates" as evidence of his concern over the matter.
Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn’t have to worry about the money owed to America’s creditors—currently about $21 trillion—because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable.
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office.
“Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt.
The episode illustrates the extent of the president’s ambivalence towards tackling an issue that has previously animated the Republican Party from the days of Ronald Reagan to the presidency of Barack Obama.
But for those who have worked with Trump, it was par for the course. Several people close to the president, both within and outside his administration, confirmed that the national debt has never bothered him in a truly meaningful way, despite his public lip service. “I never once heard him talk about the debt,” one former senior White House official attested.
Marc Short, who until recently worked for Trump as his legislative affairs director, said he believed the president recognized "the threat that debt poses" and he pointed to Trump's concern "about rising interest rates" as evidence of his concern over the matter.
General Motors’ cuts are proof of Trump’s working class double cross
Trump is powerless to stop GM as it prepares for a cooling economy and braces for the death of the gas-powered car
BOB HENNELLY - salon
DECEMBER 2, 2018 1:00PM (UTC)
President Trump’s iron clad campaign promise that auto layoffs would cease has evaporated into hot air. At his rustbelt rallies Trump insisted that if he won the election the auto industry would so fear him that they would not only end layoffs of American workers, but bring back the factories they had built overseas.
Late last month, General Motors announced it would slash its salaried workers by 15 percent and terminate one in four of its executives. The “reset” will be felt well beyond the company’s Oshawa plant in Ontario, Lordstown, Ohio, Detroit and Warren, Michigan and White Marsh, Maryland GM targeted for layoffs.
Earlier this year, the ink was barely dry on Trump and GOP’s obscene $1.5 trillion dollar corporate tax cut when Wisconsin based motorcycle maker Harley Davidson took its tax windfall and announced the layoff of 350 workers here in the U.S.. At the same time the company raised its dividend, executed a stock buy-back scheme, and went ahead with plans to build a plant in Thailand.
In 2016, Trump insisted that blue collar Americans would no longer be the victim of this kind of unpatriotic self-dealing global capitalists. The common people had their champion.
Back on Oct. 31 2016 at the Deltaplex Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan candidate Trump electrified the massive crowd with his promise to slap a 35 percent tax on any American multi-national that moved manufacturing out of the U.S. and then tried to bring the products they produced off-shore back into the our country.
“And, just the fact that we will do that, would do that, they’ll never move,” he said to a roaring crowd. “They are going to stay in Michigan. Nobody ever told them that.”
This pitch caught fire in cities, towns and villages desperate for economic opportunity that had been devastated by the free trader policies of Presidents Clinton and Bush. These were the 70 counties that went for Obama twice but where his “hope” grew moldy and his recovery never took root and still hasn’t.
Two years later, after all of Trump’s 2016 chest-beating, millions are still idle and the worsening opioid epidemic continues to take a deadly toll in communities where there’s nothing better to do but feed your addiction.
The ice caps continue to melt and the sea level rises. Even as the global dashboard blinks hazards ahead, dealing with it remains like dieting, something we’ll get around too.
The student debt ticker just keeps ticking ever upward as the smog from the California wildfires just drifts eastward. The world’s still a geo-political mess as U.S. post-9/11 robo-military spending approaches $6 trillion and the civilian body count keeps mounting, as Trump pushes to spend even more.
His strategic vision is myopically focused on the next news cycle grateful for visitors like Governor Andrew Cuomo who lent the politically wounded president some much needed Presidential legitimacy by jaw boning about a building version of the Hudson River Rail Tunnel Chris Christie killed.
In December 2018 Trump, the once fiery populist avenger in ascent, has shrunk in stature. He’s now a self-obsessed narcissist, unable to stay focused long enough to keep his ‘no-collusion’ story straight, never mind capable of compelling American multi-nationals to put American workers ahead of their own globalist pursuit of ever greater profits.
When GM CEO Mary Barra described the cost-cutting she said it was part of the company’s “transformation to be highly agile, resilient and profitable” which would insure it had “the flexibility to invest in the future and stayed “in front of changing market conditions and customer preferences” for GM’s “long-term success.”
Forget the $85 billion from both U.S. and Canadian taxpayers to save GM and the other automakers from bankruptcy in the wake of the Great Collapse. Just like with the predatory banks, all that government intervention was like a ‘band and release’ conservation program. We nursed the vultures back to health, only to release them back into the wilds of the untamed global market looking for fresh prey.
This is the same old self-dealing GM chronicled by Michael Moore in his essential documentary 1989 “Roger and Me.”
As Moore reminds us, this is the same corporation that went to Republican Governor Rick Snyder in 2014 to quietly complain about the how Flint’s contaminated public water supply, a consequence of Snyder inspired cost cutting, was “causing corrosion issues for its Flint engine plant.”
“A few months after Governor Snyder removed Flint from the clean fresh water we had been drinking for decades, the brass from General Motors went to him and complained that the Flint River water was causing their car parts to corrode when being washed on the assembly line,” recounts Moore. “The Governor was appalled to hear that GM property was being damaged, so he jumped through a number of hoops and quietly spent $440,000 to hook GM back up to the Lake Huron water, while keeping the rest of Flint on the Flint River water. Which means that while the children in Flint were drinking lead-filled water, there was one — and only one — address in Flint that got clean water: the GM factory.”
What Trump and his hires have been doing since he took the oath of office is doing whatever they can to destroy the American labor movement. He’s tried to use executive orders to force unions out of the Federal workplace, frozen Federal worker pay, tried to roll back Obama-era wage and hour protections, gut worker safety and environmental regulations, and advance a “right-to-work” agenda that makes it as hard as possible for workers to organize in their own self-interest.
Based on the mid-term results it maybe a growing number of workers now have his number. Let’s hope their vision is even clearer for 2020.
Late last month, General Motors announced it would slash its salaried workers by 15 percent and terminate one in four of its executives. The “reset” will be felt well beyond the company’s Oshawa plant in Ontario, Lordstown, Ohio, Detroit and Warren, Michigan and White Marsh, Maryland GM targeted for layoffs.
Earlier this year, the ink was barely dry on Trump and GOP’s obscene $1.5 trillion dollar corporate tax cut when Wisconsin based motorcycle maker Harley Davidson took its tax windfall and announced the layoff of 350 workers here in the U.S.. At the same time the company raised its dividend, executed a stock buy-back scheme, and went ahead with plans to build a plant in Thailand.
In 2016, Trump insisted that blue collar Americans would no longer be the victim of this kind of unpatriotic self-dealing global capitalists. The common people had their champion.
Back on Oct. 31 2016 at the Deltaplex Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan candidate Trump electrified the massive crowd with his promise to slap a 35 percent tax on any American multi-national that moved manufacturing out of the U.S. and then tried to bring the products they produced off-shore back into the our country.
“And, just the fact that we will do that, would do that, they’ll never move,” he said to a roaring crowd. “They are going to stay in Michigan. Nobody ever told them that.”
This pitch caught fire in cities, towns and villages desperate for economic opportunity that had been devastated by the free trader policies of Presidents Clinton and Bush. These were the 70 counties that went for Obama twice but where his “hope” grew moldy and his recovery never took root and still hasn’t.
Two years later, after all of Trump’s 2016 chest-beating, millions are still idle and the worsening opioid epidemic continues to take a deadly toll in communities where there’s nothing better to do but feed your addiction.
The ice caps continue to melt and the sea level rises. Even as the global dashboard blinks hazards ahead, dealing with it remains like dieting, something we’ll get around too.
The student debt ticker just keeps ticking ever upward as the smog from the California wildfires just drifts eastward. The world’s still a geo-political mess as U.S. post-9/11 robo-military spending approaches $6 trillion and the civilian body count keeps mounting, as Trump pushes to spend even more.
His strategic vision is myopically focused on the next news cycle grateful for visitors like Governor Andrew Cuomo who lent the politically wounded president some much needed Presidential legitimacy by jaw boning about a building version of the Hudson River Rail Tunnel Chris Christie killed.
In December 2018 Trump, the once fiery populist avenger in ascent, has shrunk in stature. He’s now a self-obsessed narcissist, unable to stay focused long enough to keep his ‘no-collusion’ story straight, never mind capable of compelling American multi-nationals to put American workers ahead of their own globalist pursuit of ever greater profits.
When GM CEO Mary Barra described the cost-cutting she said it was part of the company’s “transformation to be highly agile, resilient and profitable” which would insure it had “the flexibility to invest in the future and stayed “in front of changing market conditions and customer preferences” for GM’s “long-term success.”
Forget the $85 billion from both U.S. and Canadian taxpayers to save GM and the other automakers from bankruptcy in the wake of the Great Collapse. Just like with the predatory banks, all that government intervention was like a ‘band and release’ conservation program. We nursed the vultures back to health, only to release them back into the wilds of the untamed global market looking for fresh prey.
This is the same old self-dealing GM chronicled by Michael Moore in his essential documentary 1989 “Roger and Me.”
As Moore reminds us, this is the same corporation that went to Republican Governor Rick Snyder in 2014 to quietly complain about the how Flint’s contaminated public water supply, a consequence of Snyder inspired cost cutting, was “causing corrosion issues for its Flint engine plant.”
“A few months after Governor Snyder removed Flint from the clean fresh water we had been drinking for decades, the brass from General Motors went to him and complained that the Flint River water was causing their car parts to corrode when being washed on the assembly line,” recounts Moore. “The Governor was appalled to hear that GM property was being damaged, so he jumped through a number of hoops and quietly spent $440,000 to hook GM back up to the Lake Huron water, while keeping the rest of Flint on the Flint River water. Which means that while the children in Flint were drinking lead-filled water, there was one — and only one — address in Flint that got clean water: the GM factory.”
What Trump and his hires have been doing since he took the oath of office is doing whatever they can to destroy the American labor movement. He’s tried to use executive orders to force unions out of the Federal workplace, frozen Federal worker pay, tried to roll back Obama-era wage and hour protections, gut worker safety and environmental regulations, and advance a “right-to-work” agenda that makes it as hard as possible for workers to organize in their own self-interest.
Based on the mid-term results it maybe a growing number of workers now have his number. Let’s hope their vision is even clearer for 2020.
the liar in charge!!!
Trump didn’t know the GOP tax bill incentivizes business to offshore jobs
"The president is not one to take responsibility for his own issues."
REBEKAH ENTRALGO - thinkprogress
NOV 29, 2018, 10:47 AM
President Donald Trump was apparently unaware that a provision in his biggest legislative accomplishment encourages corporations to offshore jobs.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) spoke with Trump Wednesday night about the closure of at least five General Motors plants, including one assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and filled him in on how the GOP tax bill is partly to blame.
“I reached him last night, he said he wanted to help, I said the first thing you could do is you could take away that tax provision in his tax bill that gives a company a 50 percent off coupon on their taxes,” Brown told CNN’s New Day Thursday. “If you’re producing in Lordstown you pay a 21 percent tax rate, if you move to Mexico you pay a 10.5 percent tax rate, and I told the president to get rid of that tax break that encourages jobs to move overseas.”
The president apparently did not know that was in the tax bill.
It’s difficult to believe that Trump didn’t know a significant result of the GOP tax bill would be a worsening of offshore tax dodging — especially when his own Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said it would. A report in April suggested corporations may be incentivized under the legislation to offshore “tangible assets” like factories and offices, and yes, jobs.
“By locating more tangible assets abroad, a corporation is able to reduce the amount of foreign income that is categorized as GILTI (Global Intangible Low Taxed Income),” the report stated. “Similarly, by locating fewer tangible assets in the United States, a corporation can increase the amount of U.S. income that can be deducted as FDII (Foreign-Derived Intangible Income). Together, the provisions may increase corporations’ incentive to locate tangible assets abroad.”
Those findings echoed previous analysis from non-partisan agencies like like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which found the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would make offshore tax dodging even worse than it was before. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities similarly found that the plan is “likely to lead to more outsourcing of U.S. jobs and a larger trade deficit” due to its tax cuts for overseas profits.
Brown had reportedly reached out to the president earlier in the year when the first phase of layoffs at Lordstown occurred, but nothing was done. Now, with a key 2020 re-election campaign on the horizon and a mountain of bad press, Trump seems intent on saving face with voters in the key purple state of Ohio.
Brown told CNN that Trump subsequently expressed an interest in signing onto his American Jobs, American Cars Act that would eliminate the incentive for corporations to move jobs overseas and provide consumers with a $3,500 price deduction on a purchase or five-year lease of a new, American-made car.
“He said he wants to fix it, I take him at his word,” Brown said. “I’m working with his trade representative and we’re going to go to town on it in the next few weeks.”
Only time will tell if the president will follow through on his word to work with Brown, who is exploring a run for president in 2020. Earlier in the week Trump blamed Brown, but not Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, for the GM closures.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) spoke with Trump Wednesday night about the closure of at least five General Motors plants, including one assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and filled him in on how the GOP tax bill is partly to blame.
“I reached him last night, he said he wanted to help, I said the first thing you could do is you could take away that tax provision in his tax bill that gives a company a 50 percent off coupon on their taxes,” Brown told CNN’s New Day Thursday. “If you’re producing in Lordstown you pay a 21 percent tax rate, if you move to Mexico you pay a 10.5 percent tax rate, and I told the president to get rid of that tax break that encourages jobs to move overseas.”
The president apparently did not know that was in the tax bill.
It’s difficult to believe that Trump didn’t know a significant result of the GOP tax bill would be a worsening of offshore tax dodging — especially when his own Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said it would. A report in April suggested corporations may be incentivized under the legislation to offshore “tangible assets” like factories and offices, and yes, jobs.
“By locating more tangible assets abroad, a corporation is able to reduce the amount of foreign income that is categorized as GILTI (Global Intangible Low Taxed Income),” the report stated. “Similarly, by locating fewer tangible assets in the United States, a corporation can increase the amount of U.S. income that can be deducted as FDII (Foreign-Derived Intangible Income). Together, the provisions may increase corporations’ incentive to locate tangible assets abroad.”
Those findings echoed previous analysis from non-partisan agencies like like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which found the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would make offshore tax dodging even worse than it was before. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities similarly found that the plan is “likely to lead to more outsourcing of U.S. jobs and a larger trade deficit” due to its tax cuts for overseas profits.
Brown had reportedly reached out to the president earlier in the year when the first phase of layoffs at Lordstown occurred, but nothing was done. Now, with a key 2020 re-election campaign on the horizon and a mountain of bad press, Trump seems intent on saving face with voters in the key purple state of Ohio.
Brown told CNN that Trump subsequently expressed an interest in signing onto his American Jobs, American Cars Act that would eliminate the incentive for corporations to move jobs overseas and provide consumers with a $3,500 price deduction on a purchase or five-year lease of a new, American-made car.
“He said he wants to fix it, I take him at his word,” Brown said. “I’m working with his trade representative and we’re going to go to town on it in the next few weeks.”
Only time will tell if the president will follow through on his word to work with Brown, who is exploring a run for president in 2020. Earlier in the week Trump blamed Brown, but not Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, for the GM closures.
Here’s the bizarre story behind Trump’s bungled attempt to build a high-rise in Moscow
Travis Gettys - raw story
29 NOV 2018 AT 10:43 ET
Pissident Donald Trump may have endangered his presidency and American democracy with his business dealings in Russia — but he has nothing to show for it.
His longtime attorney revealed Thursday in federal court that he had lied to Congress by saying the Trump Tower Moscow deal fell apart in January 2016, and admitted the project remained under negotiation until June 2016.
Trump signed a letter of intent in October 2015, after launching his improbably successful presidential campaign, but the back story for the project shows how the president aligned himself with sketchy characters to pursue the ill-fated project.
The former real estate developer and reality TV star spent decades cultivating relationships in Russia, but he never actually built anything there, and The Atlantic‘s Julia Ioffe tried to find out why in a September 2017 investigative report.
What she found, in short, is that Trump isn’t nearly as good a businessman as he likes to brag.
“Trump wants everything and he’s dealing with the Russians, who aren’t stupid,” said one Western real estate investor in Moscow. “If you want everything from the Russians, they’re not going to give it to you. Trump’s way of negotiating is to ask for every f*cking thing. The Russians have a different philosophy of negotiation: He who asks is the weak party.”
Other big-name hotel brands have built in Moscow, but they actually run those businesses in addition to licensing their names — which was all Trump offered.
“Trump wants a fee for branding and doesn’t put money in, so most developers’ in Moscow responses are, ‘So what the f*ck do we need him for?’” said a person familiar with the licensing negotiations.
Donald Trump Jr. summed up the complex back story by admitting Russia “really is a scary place.”
The younger Trump told a trade publication in 2008, when he revealed “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” that Trump Organization was concerned about the payoffs necessary to do business in Russia, where corruption is rampant and bribes are necessary.
“Moscow is like New York in many ways, just way more corrupt,” said one Western real estate developer in Russia, who asked for anonymity to avoid upsetting his foreign partners. “To pull a building out of the ground, you need so many permits, so many authorizations — the mind reels. And all of it is so corrupt, it’s insane.”
Ioffe, who was born in Moscow and came to the U.S. with her parents at 7, said the Trump Organization would have needed a capable and connected local partner to obtain all the necessary permits.
Trump worked with Aras Agalarov — whose son was involved in arranging the campaign meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer — in 2013, but that deal fell apart over a scandal in Kyrgyzstan and amid Russian economic woes.
The future president instead relied on Felix Sater, a Russian-American convicted felon with mob ties who also worked as an FBI informant.
Sater started traveling to Moscow on Trump’s behalf in 2004, and three years later also started advising the self-described Donald Trump of Russia, Sergei Polonsky, over the objections of the developer’s lieutenants.
“I would never hire somebody like that,” said Alexey Kunitsin, who was then chairman of the board at Polonsky’s company. “You can’t trust him in any way, not in a professional setting, not in a personal setting — you could see it very clearly. He was telling constant crazy stories, wild fantasies about all the people he knew. He was not a balanced dude. He’s very emotional and gets into conflicts very easily.”
Sater gained a reputation as a “bullsh*tter” and raised suspicions with his colorful tales of profligate spending, and Moscow developers didn’t trust him or take him seriously.
Those developers also didn’t trust Trump, who was an outsider without the necessary political protection to do business in Moscow.
Sater seems to have hoped that might change after Trump announced his presidential campaign, according to emails recently obtained by the New York Times that show him bragging to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen that he had lined up financing for Trump Tower from VTB — a bank under U.S. sanctions.
“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater said in one email, and Trump signed a non-binding letter of attempt in fall 2015 to pursue the project.
However, that deal too went nowhere because Sater lacked the right connections and because Russia’s economy was still staggering under U.S. sanctions imposed the year before.
Cohen tried to revive the project in 2016 by trying to contact the players Sater had bragged about but instead sent an email to a top Putin lieutenant using his general email listed on the Kremlin website, and the official declined to respond.
Moscow developers described Cohen’s action as more of a rookie mistake than evidence of high-level contacts — and they told The Atlantic it shows why Trump never got anything built in Russia.
“That is like the stupidest, most absurd thing ever,” said one Western real estate developer. “The Russians that (Trump) associates with, I would never do business with. I’ve been involved with Russia for 25 years.”
The developer offered a withering criticism of Trump’s business acumen, given his famous name that’s become synonymous with a certain type of luxury.
“A genuine developer could’ve done a lot with that brand,” the developer said.
His longtime attorney revealed Thursday in federal court that he had lied to Congress by saying the Trump Tower Moscow deal fell apart in January 2016, and admitted the project remained under negotiation until June 2016.
Trump signed a letter of intent in October 2015, after launching his improbably successful presidential campaign, but the back story for the project shows how the president aligned himself with sketchy characters to pursue the ill-fated project.
The former real estate developer and reality TV star spent decades cultivating relationships in Russia, but he never actually built anything there, and The Atlantic‘s Julia Ioffe tried to find out why in a September 2017 investigative report.
What she found, in short, is that Trump isn’t nearly as good a businessman as he likes to brag.
“Trump wants everything and he’s dealing with the Russians, who aren’t stupid,” said one Western real estate investor in Moscow. “If you want everything from the Russians, they’re not going to give it to you. Trump’s way of negotiating is to ask for every f*cking thing. The Russians have a different philosophy of negotiation: He who asks is the weak party.”
Other big-name hotel brands have built in Moscow, but they actually run those businesses in addition to licensing their names — which was all Trump offered.
“Trump wants a fee for branding and doesn’t put money in, so most developers’ in Moscow responses are, ‘So what the f*ck do we need him for?’” said a person familiar with the licensing negotiations.
Donald Trump Jr. summed up the complex back story by admitting Russia “really is a scary place.”
The younger Trump told a trade publication in 2008, when he revealed “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” that Trump Organization was concerned about the payoffs necessary to do business in Russia, where corruption is rampant and bribes are necessary.
“Moscow is like New York in many ways, just way more corrupt,” said one Western real estate developer in Russia, who asked for anonymity to avoid upsetting his foreign partners. “To pull a building out of the ground, you need so many permits, so many authorizations — the mind reels. And all of it is so corrupt, it’s insane.”
Ioffe, who was born in Moscow and came to the U.S. with her parents at 7, said the Trump Organization would have needed a capable and connected local partner to obtain all the necessary permits.
Trump worked with Aras Agalarov — whose son was involved in arranging the campaign meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer — in 2013, but that deal fell apart over a scandal in Kyrgyzstan and amid Russian economic woes.
The future president instead relied on Felix Sater, a Russian-American convicted felon with mob ties who also worked as an FBI informant.
Sater started traveling to Moscow on Trump’s behalf in 2004, and three years later also started advising the self-described Donald Trump of Russia, Sergei Polonsky, over the objections of the developer’s lieutenants.
“I would never hire somebody like that,” said Alexey Kunitsin, who was then chairman of the board at Polonsky’s company. “You can’t trust him in any way, not in a professional setting, not in a personal setting — you could see it very clearly. He was telling constant crazy stories, wild fantasies about all the people he knew. He was not a balanced dude. He’s very emotional and gets into conflicts very easily.”
Sater gained a reputation as a “bullsh*tter” and raised suspicions with his colorful tales of profligate spending, and Moscow developers didn’t trust him or take him seriously.
Those developers also didn’t trust Trump, who was an outsider without the necessary political protection to do business in Moscow.
Sater seems to have hoped that might change after Trump announced his presidential campaign, according to emails recently obtained by the New York Times that show him bragging to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen that he had lined up financing for Trump Tower from VTB — a bank under U.S. sanctions.
“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater said in one email, and Trump signed a non-binding letter of attempt in fall 2015 to pursue the project.
However, that deal too went nowhere because Sater lacked the right connections and because Russia’s economy was still staggering under U.S. sanctions imposed the year before.
Cohen tried to revive the project in 2016 by trying to contact the players Sater had bragged about but instead sent an email to a top Putin lieutenant using his general email listed on the Kremlin website, and the official declined to respond.
Moscow developers described Cohen’s action as more of a rookie mistake than evidence of high-level contacts — and they told The Atlantic it shows why Trump never got anything built in Russia.
“That is like the stupidest, most absurd thing ever,” said one Western real estate developer. “The Russians that (Trump) associates with, I would never do business with. I’ve been involved with Russia for 25 years.”
The developer offered a withering criticism of Trump’s business acumen, given his famous name that’s become synonymous with a certain type of luxury.
“A genuine developer could’ve done a lot with that brand,” the developer said.
Cowardice is the real source of Donald Trump’s perpetual lying and narcissistic insensitivity to others
By Michael Winship, Common Dreams - COMMENTARY - raw story
27 NOV 2018 AT 15:38 ET
Our president is a coward.
This may not come as news to you.
But as we cascade toward the latter half of his first and, God hope it, only term, Donald Trump’s craven fearfulness is worth a reminder simply because of its vast continuing implications for our country and the world.
Of course, there’s the surface narcissistic indifference and insensitivity to others, in particular his disregard for members of the military and veterans, despite his many tweeted proclamations of support and gratitude.
This disrespect was made manifest in early November during the 100th anniversary celebrations of the armistice that ended World War I. His well-known fear of wet head kept him indoors, a no show both on one of the days he was in France and later at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Panic at the prospect of a bad hair day apparently took precedence over Veterans’ Day.
Not since the first month of his administration has Trump made a visit to pay his respects at Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies of America’s war dead are returned home. According to Bob Woodward in his book, Fear, the commander-in-chief was “clearly rattled” by that one experience and won’t go back. Duty and sacrifice just aren’t his thing.
And although he loudly has supported more defense spending, unlike his predecessors, it’s no surprise that Trump has yet to visit any of our troops deployed abroad in combat zones. “In modern times, we expect presidents to do that much more than in the old days when travel was more difficult,”historian Michael Beschloss told The Washington Post. “When Trump doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting the expectation, it makes people wonder why.”
Despite his self-professed “unbelievably busy schedule,” (including 154 visits to golf resorts, mostly his own, since Inauguration Day), the president now says that a visit will happen, although no date has been set. Yet Josh Dawsey and Paul Sonne at The Post quote a former White House official: “He’s never been interested in going. He’s afraid of those situations. He’s afraid people want to kill him.”
Acting out his timorous bully tendencies, Trump has lashed out at those possessing the courage he lacks, insulting Gold Star families, the late senator and former POW John McCain and recently, retired Navy SEAL and Special Operations commander Bill McRaven.
So, as opposed as you and I may be to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else our armed forces are placed in harm’s way—including the Mexican border, where their presence is political, gratuitous and unlawful—there’s no denying that the commander-in-chief’s graceless apathy, even antipathy, have done nothing but create ill will.
Worse and scarier, according to The New York Times, “[T]op Defense Department officials say that Mr. Trump has not fully grasped the role of the troops he commands, nor the responsibility that he has to lead them and protect them from politics.”
Beyond his personal cowardice (including his seeming, non-Apprentice-like inability to fire anyone face-to-face), an overall paranoia about the world beyond his bubble leaves him ignorant and unwilling to face inconvenient truths. That’s why conspiracy theories are so reassuring to Trump and his followers – there’s always some larger force at work that makes it easy to shirk responsibility and blame someone –anyone – else.
It’s part of what keeps him from confronting the awful and incontrovertible reality of climate change, his administration trying to bury on the day after Thanksgiving that stunning, 1656-page assessment from thirteen federal agencies. As per The Times, “The report puts the most precise price tags to date on the cost to the United States economy of projected climate impacts: $141 billion from heat-related deaths, $118 billion from sea level rise and $32 billion from infrastructure damage by the end of the century, among others.”
Trump’s response? “I don’t believe it.”
Look, too, at his refusal to listen to the tape of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey. “It’s a suffering tape, it’s a terrible tape,” Trump told Fox’s Chris Wallace. “I’ve been fully briefed on it. There’s no reason for me to hear it.”
That denial is a singular metaphor for the president’s gutless inability to confront Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or his father Saudi King Salman over the killing – or any of Saudi Arabia’s grotesque and cruel violations of human rights. Despite overwhelming evidence presented to him by the intelligence community, “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” was Trump’s response when asked if the crown prince was complicit in Khashoggi’s death. It was an answer eerily reminiscent of his “very fine people on both sides” comments in the wake of the fatal neo-Nazi riot in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Much of his cowardice is egged on by avarice and amoral political calculation, as our chief executive evaluates everything by price and values nothing by standards of common sense, common decency or the greater common good. Living in a constant greed-fueled state of fear and suspicion, Trump sidles up to dictators abroad. He only attacks our democratic allies, who sensibly, so far, have valued the length and durability of our friendships over the short-term ravings of an uninformed and intolerant autocrat.
Like his fellow totalitarian Putin and others, he brooks no dissent or opposition and views the facts as daggers pointed straight at his heart. Trump is so afraid to face the truth that he makes up lies to comfort himself, fabrications that give him an excuse to take no action—or to take actions so heinous we’ll be trying to recover from them for decades to come.
This may not come as news to you.
But as we cascade toward the latter half of his first and, God hope it, only term, Donald Trump’s craven fearfulness is worth a reminder simply because of its vast continuing implications for our country and the world.
Of course, there’s the surface narcissistic indifference and insensitivity to others, in particular his disregard for members of the military and veterans, despite his many tweeted proclamations of support and gratitude.
This disrespect was made manifest in early November during the 100th anniversary celebrations of the armistice that ended World War I. His well-known fear of wet head kept him indoors, a no show both on one of the days he was in France and later at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Panic at the prospect of a bad hair day apparently took precedence over Veterans’ Day.
Not since the first month of his administration has Trump made a visit to pay his respects at Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies of America’s war dead are returned home. According to Bob Woodward in his book, Fear, the commander-in-chief was “clearly rattled” by that one experience and won’t go back. Duty and sacrifice just aren’t his thing.
And although he loudly has supported more defense spending, unlike his predecessors, it’s no surprise that Trump has yet to visit any of our troops deployed abroad in combat zones. “In modern times, we expect presidents to do that much more than in the old days when travel was more difficult,”historian Michael Beschloss told The Washington Post. “When Trump doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting the expectation, it makes people wonder why.”
Despite his self-professed “unbelievably busy schedule,” (including 154 visits to golf resorts, mostly his own, since Inauguration Day), the president now says that a visit will happen, although no date has been set. Yet Josh Dawsey and Paul Sonne at The Post quote a former White House official: “He’s never been interested in going. He’s afraid of those situations. He’s afraid people want to kill him.”
Acting out his timorous bully tendencies, Trump has lashed out at those possessing the courage he lacks, insulting Gold Star families, the late senator and former POW John McCain and recently, retired Navy SEAL and Special Operations commander Bill McRaven.
So, as opposed as you and I may be to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else our armed forces are placed in harm’s way—including the Mexican border, where their presence is political, gratuitous and unlawful—there’s no denying that the commander-in-chief’s graceless apathy, even antipathy, have done nothing but create ill will.
Worse and scarier, according to The New York Times, “[T]op Defense Department officials say that Mr. Trump has not fully grasped the role of the troops he commands, nor the responsibility that he has to lead them and protect them from politics.”
Beyond his personal cowardice (including his seeming, non-Apprentice-like inability to fire anyone face-to-face), an overall paranoia about the world beyond his bubble leaves him ignorant and unwilling to face inconvenient truths. That’s why conspiracy theories are so reassuring to Trump and his followers – there’s always some larger force at work that makes it easy to shirk responsibility and blame someone –anyone – else.
It’s part of what keeps him from confronting the awful and incontrovertible reality of climate change, his administration trying to bury on the day after Thanksgiving that stunning, 1656-page assessment from thirteen federal agencies. As per The Times, “The report puts the most precise price tags to date on the cost to the United States economy of projected climate impacts: $141 billion from heat-related deaths, $118 billion from sea level rise and $32 billion from infrastructure damage by the end of the century, among others.”
Trump’s response? “I don’t believe it.”
Look, too, at his refusal to listen to the tape of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey. “It’s a suffering tape, it’s a terrible tape,” Trump told Fox’s Chris Wallace. “I’ve been fully briefed on it. There’s no reason for me to hear it.”
That denial is a singular metaphor for the president’s gutless inability to confront Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or his father Saudi King Salman over the killing – or any of Saudi Arabia’s grotesque and cruel violations of human rights. Despite overwhelming evidence presented to him by the intelligence community, “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” was Trump’s response when asked if the crown prince was complicit in Khashoggi’s death. It was an answer eerily reminiscent of his “very fine people on both sides” comments in the wake of the fatal neo-Nazi riot in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Much of his cowardice is egged on by avarice and amoral political calculation, as our chief executive evaluates everything by price and values nothing by standards of common sense, common decency or the greater common good. Living in a constant greed-fueled state of fear and suspicion, Trump sidles up to dictators abroad. He only attacks our democratic allies, who sensibly, so far, have valued the length and durability of our friendships over the short-term ravings of an uninformed and intolerant autocrat.
Like his fellow totalitarian Putin and others, he brooks no dissent or opposition and views the facts as daggers pointed straight at his heart. Trump is so afraid to face the truth that he makes up lies to comfort himself, fabrications that give him an excuse to take no action—or to take actions so heinous we’ll be trying to recover from them for decades to come.
he's a liar, what do you expect???
Trump inflated importance of Saudi arms sales to US job market, report says
Saudi Arabia needs the US far more than the other way round, report argues amid crisis over murder of Jamal Khashoggi
Julian Borger in Washington
the guardian
Tue 20 Nov 2018 02.51 EST
US arms sales to Saudi Arabia give Washington extensive leverage on Riyadh, while accounting for fewer than 20,000 US jobs a year – less than a twentieth of the employment boost Donald Trump has claimed – according to a new report.
Trump has repeatedly cited the importance of Saudi arms sales to the US economy as a reason not to cut the supply of weapons in response to the murder of the Saudi writer and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.
The president has frequently estimated the total extent of defence sales to the Saudi regime at $110bn, and variously said they would generate 450,000, 500,000 or 600,000 jobs.
According to a report by the Centre for International Policy thinktank in Washington, those figures are hugely inflated. The report, US Military Support for Saudi Arabia and the War in Yemen, argues that Saudi Arabia needs the US far more than the other way round, and the administration is underplaying its hand, if it wants to rein in Riyadh in Yemen – or punish the monarchy for Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Observers of the Trump White House argue that there are other factors in play behind Trump’s staunch defence of the Saudi monarchy, and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in particular. Saudi support is critical to the administration’s priority in the Middle East, exerting extreme pressure on Iran in the wake of Trump’s scrapping of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. There is also a personal financial motive. Saudi block bookings have helped boost otherwise flagging revenues at Trump’s hotel in New York.
The actual value of US arms sales to Riyadh since Trump took office is $14.5bn, the report says.
Even that figure refers to “letters of offer and acceptance” for new weaponry and support equipment, which is just one step in a longer process involved in arms transactions. It does not represent actual signed contracts. All of the major sales in the pipeline were initiated by the Obama administration, which was seeking to appease Saudi Arabia to counterbalance the Iran nuclear deal.
The report’s author, William Hartung, said it was difficult to pin a precise number of jobs to that volume of sales.
“If we take a generous approach and include all jobs created in direct assembly and production of components, along with the jobs induced by the spending of wages by workers employed in assembly or component production, the $2.5bn in annual arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia would create 17,500 jobs in any given year,” Hartung wrote, pointing out that it was a tiny fraction of 1% of the 160 million US workforce.
In defending his support of Riyadh, Trump has suggested that other arms suppliers like Russia or China would quickly take any business turned down by the US. But Hartung argued that Saudi armed forces are so dependent on US hardware it would be very hard to them to change suppliers selling totally incompatible equipment.
“The preponderance of US equipment used by Saudi forces also makes it difficult for another supplier like Russia or China to replace the United States as a major supplier to Riyadh,” the report said. “It would take decades for the Kingdom to wean itself from dependence on US equipment, training and support, and new equipment might not be easily interoperable with US-supplied systems.”
Trump has repeatedly cited the importance of Saudi arms sales to the US economy as a reason not to cut the supply of weapons in response to the murder of the Saudi writer and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.
The president has frequently estimated the total extent of defence sales to the Saudi regime at $110bn, and variously said they would generate 450,000, 500,000 or 600,000 jobs.
According to a report by the Centre for International Policy thinktank in Washington, those figures are hugely inflated. The report, US Military Support for Saudi Arabia and the War in Yemen, argues that Saudi Arabia needs the US far more than the other way round, and the administration is underplaying its hand, if it wants to rein in Riyadh in Yemen – or punish the monarchy for Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Observers of the Trump White House argue that there are other factors in play behind Trump’s staunch defence of the Saudi monarchy, and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in particular. Saudi support is critical to the administration’s priority in the Middle East, exerting extreme pressure on Iran in the wake of Trump’s scrapping of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. There is also a personal financial motive. Saudi block bookings have helped boost otherwise flagging revenues at Trump’s hotel in New York.
The actual value of US arms sales to Riyadh since Trump took office is $14.5bn, the report says.
Even that figure refers to “letters of offer and acceptance” for new weaponry and support equipment, which is just one step in a longer process involved in arms transactions. It does not represent actual signed contracts. All of the major sales in the pipeline were initiated by the Obama administration, which was seeking to appease Saudi Arabia to counterbalance the Iran nuclear deal.
The report’s author, William Hartung, said it was difficult to pin a precise number of jobs to that volume of sales.
“If we take a generous approach and include all jobs created in direct assembly and production of components, along with the jobs induced by the spending of wages by workers employed in assembly or component production, the $2.5bn in annual arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia would create 17,500 jobs in any given year,” Hartung wrote, pointing out that it was a tiny fraction of 1% of the 160 million US workforce.
In defending his support of Riyadh, Trump has suggested that other arms suppliers like Russia or China would quickly take any business turned down by the US. But Hartung argued that Saudi armed forces are so dependent on US hardware it would be very hard to them to change suppliers selling totally incompatible equipment.
“The preponderance of US equipment used by Saudi forces also makes it difficult for another supplier like Russia or China to replace the United States as a major supplier to Riyadh,” the report said. “It would take decades for the Kingdom to wean itself from dependence on US equipment, training and support, and new equipment might not be easily interoperable with US-supplied systems.”
Trump suggests Republicans lost because people put on disguises to vote illegally
This is not The Onion. Unfortunately, it is very real.
FRANK DALE - thinkprogress
NOV 14, 2018, 4:32 PM
President Donald Trump has made a series of bizarre claims about voter fraud over the years, but his latest might take the cake.
Despite receiving nearly three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Trump insisted that he would have won the popular vote if not for millions of illegal ballots which didn’t exist.
As president, Trump continues to claim that Democrats are trying to “steal” elections in Florida by attempting to ensure that all proper votes are counted, and he floated the wildly dictatorial notion of holding an entirely new election after mail-in and provisional ballots put Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic Senator-elect, over the top for good in the Arizona Senate race.
So we already knew the president of the United States had little to no grasp of the realities of elections and vote-counting well before he spoke with the conservative Daily Caller on Wednesday at the White House.
But buried among his numerous lies about Florida’s still-too-close-to call elections, Trump made an illuminating remark regarding his thought-process on voter fraud.
“The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes. When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again.”
The leader of the free world, who has thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal, then explained how Froot Loops means we should have voter ID.
“If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID. They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing.”
So to recap, Donald Trump believes people wear secret disguises so that they can vote illegally, and are asked for photo identification when buying a box of Cocoa Puffs.
This is not the first time Trump has indicated he has no idea how grocery stores work. At a July rally in Florida, the president also mentioned grocery shopping to make a case for voter ID.
An exhaustive ThinkProgress investigation reveals that you do not, in fact, need photo identification in order to buy cereal. Cash is still a widely accepted form of payment across the United States, and many stores do not ask for photo identification when using a credit or debit card.
Trump has previously claimed, without evidence, that “the same person votes many times,” but this appears to be the first time the president of the United States has invoked costumes to explain his theory on voter fraud.
Trump’s voter ID proposal is one of many ideas Republicans have introduced as a means to stop the imaginary scourge of voter fraud and/or breakfast fraud.
The president disbanded his own voter fraud commission after it was unable to find any evidence to substantiate his claims of irregularities in the 2016 election.
The White House also admitted it had found no evidence of voter fraud in a January court filing.
The “expert witness” brought forward by failed Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach (R), the vice chair of Trump’s defunct voter fraud commission, also admitted there was no evidence of voter fraud in a lawsuit filed over the voter ID law that Kobach oversaw while he served as Kansas’s Secretary of State. The trial turned out to be a disaster for the Trump-endorsed Kansas Republican, who was held in contempt of court for disobeying the judge’s orders, ordered to attend remedial classes for failing to comprehend basic legal concepts, and criticized for plagiarizing the ACLU, before his law was ultimately struck down.
As ThinkProgress has explained, voter fraud is extremely rare.
Shark attacks and lightning strikes are more common occurrences than instances of voter fraud in which a person impersonates another voter and casts a fraudulent ballot under their name. There were just four documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Two were Trump supporters who voted for Trump twice, one was a Republican who voted for her dead husband, and the fourth was an election worker in Florida who tampered with absentee ballots.
Despite receiving nearly three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Trump insisted that he would have won the popular vote if not for millions of illegal ballots which didn’t exist.
As president, Trump continues to claim that Democrats are trying to “steal” elections in Florida by attempting to ensure that all proper votes are counted, and he floated the wildly dictatorial notion of holding an entirely new election after mail-in and provisional ballots put Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic Senator-elect, over the top for good in the Arizona Senate race.
So we already knew the president of the United States had little to no grasp of the realities of elections and vote-counting well before he spoke with the conservative Daily Caller on Wednesday at the White House.
But buried among his numerous lies about Florida’s still-too-close-to call elections, Trump made an illuminating remark regarding his thought-process on voter fraud.
“The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes. When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again.”
The leader of the free world, who has thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal, then explained how Froot Loops means we should have voter ID.
“If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID. They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing.”
So to recap, Donald Trump believes people wear secret disguises so that they can vote illegally, and are asked for photo identification when buying a box of Cocoa Puffs.
This is not the first time Trump has indicated he has no idea how grocery stores work. At a July rally in Florida, the president also mentioned grocery shopping to make a case for voter ID.
An exhaustive ThinkProgress investigation reveals that you do not, in fact, need photo identification in order to buy cereal. Cash is still a widely accepted form of payment across the United States, and many stores do not ask for photo identification when using a credit or debit card.
Trump has previously claimed, without evidence, that “the same person votes many times,” but this appears to be the first time the president of the United States has invoked costumes to explain his theory on voter fraud.
Trump’s voter ID proposal is one of many ideas Republicans have introduced as a means to stop the imaginary scourge of voter fraud and/or breakfast fraud.
The president disbanded his own voter fraud commission after it was unable to find any evidence to substantiate his claims of irregularities in the 2016 election.
The White House also admitted it had found no evidence of voter fraud in a January court filing.
The “expert witness” brought forward by failed Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach (R), the vice chair of Trump’s defunct voter fraud commission, also admitted there was no evidence of voter fraud in a lawsuit filed over the voter ID law that Kobach oversaw while he served as Kansas’s Secretary of State. The trial turned out to be a disaster for the Trump-endorsed Kansas Republican, who was held in contempt of court for disobeying the judge’s orders, ordered to attend remedial classes for failing to comprehend basic legal concepts, and criticized for plagiarizing the ACLU, before his law was ultimately struck down.
As ThinkProgress has explained, voter fraud is extremely rare.
Shark attacks and lightning strikes are more common occurrences than instances of voter fraud in which a person impersonates another voter and casts a fraudulent ballot under their name. There were just four documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Two were Trump supporters who voted for Trump twice, one was a Republican who voted for her dead husband, and the fourth was an election worker in Florida who tampered with absentee ballots.
Revealed: Donald Trump’s plan to build housing and luxury villas on Ayrshire farmland
MARTYN MCLAUGHLIN - the scotsman
Published: 06:00
Updated: 10:08
Sunday 11 November 2018
The Trump Organisation is planning to build swathes of housing and luxury villas on hundreds of acres of land next to its loss-making Turnberry resort, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
The firm, owned by US president Donald Trump, is urging officials to greenlight the major development across a vast tract of farmland in the remote corner of South Ayrshire.
Neither the Trump Organisation nor Trump Turnberry have made public the controversial plans, but Trump’s second son, Eric, has been personally overseeing the project for the past ten months.
Ralph Porciani, general manager of Trump Turnberry, told Scotland on Sunday the Trump Organisation was “excited” by the plans to develop the land, which he said was used only for “the odd bit of cattle grazing.”
Trump has previously boasted of having the right to build “at least a thousand houses” at Turnberry, and while Porciani expressed hope the venture would be “welcomed,” the 72-year-old may yet become embroiled in another battle with authorities in his mother’s homeland.
South Ayrshire Council’s planning service caution that Trump’s housing plan would result in the loss of “prime agricultural land” and have “significant visual impacts.” It also says the benefits of expanding Turnberry’s accommodation are “unsubstantiated.” However, a final decision has yet to be made.
While Trump’s purchase of the world-renowned golf course and hotel in April 2014 attracted international media coverage, less well known is the fact he simultaneously acquired a sprawling expanse of land to the north and east of the historic links course.
Spanning around 200 acres along the rugged Firth of Clyde coastline, it consists of agricultural land, outbuildings, and a disused runway which formed part of RAF Turnberry during both World Wars.
Now, the Trump Organisation has enlisted Covell Matthews, an Aberdeen-based architectural practice, in the hope of convincing the local authority to let the land be used for what it called a “logical extension” to Turnberry.
It promised that if two adjoining sites are included in the council’s new local development plan (LDP2) - a planning framework which decrees which sites will be developed, and which will be protected - Trump’s company will seek full planning permission for the housing and villas shortly after LDP2 is adopted, which could be as soon as late 2019.
Under the Trump Organisation’s proposals, some 87 houses would be built, extending the southern boundary of Maidens, a small coastal village with just 262 dwellings.
Correspondence sent to the council by Covell Matthews, obtained by Scotland on Sunday via the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004, states that the properties would reflect “a continuation of the town’s quaint spirit.” The houses would vary in size and type, and feature “large private gardens.”
Another letter sent by Covell Matthews in support of the extension to the Turnberry resort, located east of the A719, states: “The proposed site represents a logical extension to Trump Turnberry’s current hotel and leisure complex, expanding out from the existing villas whilst maintaining a connection to the golf courses.
“The vision for the site is to develop more villas to support the operations of the hotel and provide customers with alternative accommodation options.”
In both letters, Covell Matthews point to the Trump Organisation’s “excellent track record of investment in the area,” and claim that the undisclosed number of new villas would “create an obvious requirement for Trump Turnberry to employ more staff, which would be very positive for the area.”
Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, Porciani, who has been general manager at Turnberry for 15 years, said previous owners of the resort had tried and failed to develop the land, but he expected the Trump Organisation would prevail.
“What Eric [Trump] has done in the last year is zone the land out that he thinks is the best fit for, it and basically notify the council that it’s our plan to do it,” he said.
“We’ve still got at least 12 months of renovations to do at our villas, the spa, and leisure club, and then we need to add on some more venues. That’ll take us another 12 months, so it’ll probably be at the end of that [period] that we actually start to do more in depth meetings and plans.
“But definitely, does Turnberry want to it? 100 per cent yes. The Trump Organisation have it in their radar and are quite excited.”
He added: “It’s land that used for the odd bit of cattle grazing. We rent the land out to a farmer so he maintains it, it just sits there ticking over. I’d hope it would be welcomed and we would be able to do it, because I think it’;d bring a lot to the area.
“You look at some of the amazing golf courses in the Home Counties which have nice housing around them. I think it would add on an amazing opportunity for people in the area to move closer to Turnberry if they wanted to do that. It’s not often great housing in Turnberry comes up for sale.”
In a June 2016 interview with Reuters, Trump boasted that he had the right to create a major housing development at Turnberry, but stressed his focus was on politics.
He described his network of golf courses as “not really golf investments,” but “development deals,” explaining: “I have the right to build thousands of homes on the various properties I own, and I haven’t wanted to build them because frankly I’ve been busy doing other things, like running for president.
“It’s pretty simple. My golf holdings are really investments in thousands, many thousands of housing units and hotels. At some point the company will do them. Hopefully, I won’t because I will be president, but we’re in no rush to do them.”
In the interview, which coincided with the grand reopening of Turnberry after a major refurbishment, Trump added: “I would have the right to build at least a thousand houses on Turnberry, if I wanted to, again, if I wanted to. Right now I am doing something far more important than building houses.”
However, Trump’s presumption appears misplaced, at least in light of the criticism reserved by South Ayrshire Council’s planning service for his plans to make some of the biggest changes to Turnberry in its 112 year history.
It said the “large scale proposed development” for housing would result in the “loss of prime agricultural land and likely significant visual impacts,” adding that the landscape is “highly sensitive to new development.”
It described the land proposed for the luxury villas as an “extremely large” and “insensitive” site suggestion, with “poorly defined boundaries.” It added: “Potential for economic development but any benefits unsubstantiated.”
However, with the proposed LDP2 yet to be finalised, Trump’s plans remain very much on the table.
A spokeswoman for the council said: “As we have no settled position in terms of a proposed plan at this point, nothing has been definitely included or excluded at this time.”
Since taking over Turnberry - a four-time host of the Open Championship - Trump has yet to turn a profit. SLC Turnberry Limited, the firm behind the resort, ran up losses of £3.38m last year. Under his ownership, its losses now total close to £33m.
A source at Trump Turnberry said the development was seen as integral to stemming the heavy losses, but Porciani denied the project was being pursued for that reason.
He explained: “I’ve been given the job of getting Turnberry into the black. 2018 was always the year that I personally guaranteed we’d break even.
“We’re still working on renovating bedroom stock. We’ve renovated 150 [bedrooms] at the top of the hill, and we’re about a quarter or a third of the way through 86 bedrooms at the bottom. I’ve still got major renovations going on. My goal at the moment is to break even, then next year get it into profit, and thereafter to build that.
“The strategies are there to get Turnberry solid and into the black without any of that development.”
In a strategic report accompanying its latest accounts, published last month, Eric Trump, a director of the firm alongside his brother, Donald Jr, expressed confidence that the resort “will return to profitability in the short to medium term.”
It made no mention of the proposed housing or holiday villa plans, adding only that “further redevelopments are ongoing.”
Covell Matthews is currently working with Trump’s firms on £150m plans for a new mixed use development adjoining Trump International Golf Links, his inaugural Scottish resort. A planning application before Aberdeenshire Council proposes 500 homes and 50 ‘hotel cottages’. It has attracted thousands of objections to date.
The firm, owned by US president Donald Trump, is urging officials to greenlight the major development across a vast tract of farmland in the remote corner of South Ayrshire.
Neither the Trump Organisation nor Trump Turnberry have made public the controversial plans, but Trump’s second son, Eric, has been personally overseeing the project for the past ten months.
Ralph Porciani, general manager of Trump Turnberry, told Scotland on Sunday the Trump Organisation was “excited” by the plans to develop the land, which he said was used only for “the odd bit of cattle grazing.”
Trump has previously boasted of having the right to build “at least a thousand houses” at Turnberry, and while Porciani expressed hope the venture would be “welcomed,” the 72-year-old may yet become embroiled in another battle with authorities in his mother’s homeland.
South Ayrshire Council’s planning service caution that Trump’s housing plan would result in the loss of “prime agricultural land” and have “significant visual impacts.” It also says the benefits of expanding Turnberry’s accommodation are “unsubstantiated.” However, a final decision has yet to be made.
While Trump’s purchase of the world-renowned golf course and hotel in April 2014 attracted international media coverage, less well known is the fact he simultaneously acquired a sprawling expanse of land to the north and east of the historic links course.
Spanning around 200 acres along the rugged Firth of Clyde coastline, it consists of agricultural land, outbuildings, and a disused runway which formed part of RAF Turnberry during both World Wars.
Now, the Trump Organisation has enlisted Covell Matthews, an Aberdeen-based architectural practice, in the hope of convincing the local authority to let the land be used for what it called a “logical extension” to Turnberry.
It promised that if two adjoining sites are included in the council’s new local development plan (LDP2) - a planning framework which decrees which sites will be developed, and which will be protected - Trump’s company will seek full planning permission for the housing and villas shortly after LDP2 is adopted, which could be as soon as late 2019.
Under the Trump Organisation’s proposals, some 87 houses would be built, extending the southern boundary of Maidens, a small coastal village with just 262 dwellings.
Correspondence sent to the council by Covell Matthews, obtained by Scotland on Sunday via the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004, states that the properties would reflect “a continuation of the town’s quaint spirit.” The houses would vary in size and type, and feature “large private gardens.”
Another letter sent by Covell Matthews in support of the extension to the Turnberry resort, located east of the A719, states: “The proposed site represents a logical extension to Trump Turnberry’s current hotel and leisure complex, expanding out from the existing villas whilst maintaining a connection to the golf courses.
“The vision for the site is to develop more villas to support the operations of the hotel and provide customers with alternative accommodation options.”
In both letters, Covell Matthews point to the Trump Organisation’s “excellent track record of investment in the area,” and claim that the undisclosed number of new villas would “create an obvious requirement for Trump Turnberry to employ more staff, which would be very positive for the area.”
Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, Porciani, who has been general manager at Turnberry for 15 years, said previous owners of the resort had tried and failed to develop the land, but he expected the Trump Organisation would prevail.
“What Eric [Trump] has done in the last year is zone the land out that he thinks is the best fit for, it and basically notify the council that it’s our plan to do it,” he said.
“We’ve still got at least 12 months of renovations to do at our villas, the spa, and leisure club, and then we need to add on some more venues. That’ll take us another 12 months, so it’ll probably be at the end of that [period] that we actually start to do more in depth meetings and plans.
“But definitely, does Turnberry want to it? 100 per cent yes. The Trump Organisation have it in their radar and are quite excited.”
He added: “It’s land that used for the odd bit of cattle grazing. We rent the land out to a farmer so he maintains it, it just sits there ticking over. I’d hope it would be welcomed and we would be able to do it, because I think it’;d bring a lot to the area.
“You look at some of the amazing golf courses in the Home Counties which have nice housing around them. I think it would add on an amazing opportunity for people in the area to move closer to Turnberry if they wanted to do that. It’s not often great housing in Turnberry comes up for sale.”
In a June 2016 interview with Reuters, Trump boasted that he had the right to create a major housing development at Turnberry, but stressed his focus was on politics.
He described his network of golf courses as “not really golf investments,” but “development deals,” explaining: “I have the right to build thousands of homes on the various properties I own, and I haven’t wanted to build them because frankly I’ve been busy doing other things, like running for president.
“It’s pretty simple. My golf holdings are really investments in thousands, many thousands of housing units and hotels. At some point the company will do them. Hopefully, I won’t because I will be president, but we’re in no rush to do them.”
In the interview, which coincided with the grand reopening of Turnberry after a major refurbishment, Trump added: “I would have the right to build at least a thousand houses on Turnberry, if I wanted to, again, if I wanted to. Right now I am doing something far more important than building houses.”
However, Trump’s presumption appears misplaced, at least in light of the criticism reserved by South Ayrshire Council’s planning service for his plans to make some of the biggest changes to Turnberry in its 112 year history.
It said the “large scale proposed development” for housing would result in the “loss of prime agricultural land and likely significant visual impacts,” adding that the landscape is “highly sensitive to new development.”
It described the land proposed for the luxury villas as an “extremely large” and “insensitive” site suggestion, with “poorly defined boundaries.” It added: “Potential for economic development but any benefits unsubstantiated.”
However, with the proposed LDP2 yet to be finalised, Trump’s plans remain very much on the table.
A spokeswoman for the council said: “As we have no settled position in terms of a proposed plan at this point, nothing has been definitely included or excluded at this time.”
Since taking over Turnberry - a four-time host of the Open Championship - Trump has yet to turn a profit. SLC Turnberry Limited, the firm behind the resort, ran up losses of £3.38m last year. Under his ownership, its losses now total close to £33m.
A source at Trump Turnberry said the development was seen as integral to stemming the heavy losses, but Porciani denied the project was being pursued for that reason.
He explained: “I’ve been given the job of getting Turnberry into the black. 2018 was always the year that I personally guaranteed we’d break even.
“We’re still working on renovating bedroom stock. We’ve renovated 150 [bedrooms] at the top of the hill, and we’re about a quarter or a third of the way through 86 bedrooms at the bottom. I’ve still got major renovations going on. My goal at the moment is to break even, then next year get it into profit, and thereafter to build that.
“The strategies are there to get Turnberry solid and into the black without any of that development.”
In a strategic report accompanying its latest accounts, published last month, Eric Trump, a director of the firm alongside his brother, Donald Jr, expressed confidence that the resort “will return to profitability in the short to medium term.”
It made no mention of the proposed housing or holiday villa plans, adding only that “further redevelopments are ongoing.”
Covell Matthews is currently working with Trump’s firms on £150m plans for a new mixed use development adjoining Trump International Golf Links, his inaugural Scottish resort. A planning application before Aberdeenshire Council proposes 500 homes and 50 ‘hotel cottages’. It has attracted thousands of objections to date.
Trump Hotels made millions off Republican campaigns during midterms: report
Martin Cizmar - raw story
10 NOV 2018 AT 18:25 ET
Pr*sident Donald Trump made millions on the midterm elections through his hotel projects, CNN reports.
The president collected at least $3.2 million in emoluments from Republican campaigns, according to a CNN analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. That number could swell further when the final filings are due.
The biggest benefactor of the president was the Republican National Committee, which spent $1.2 million at Trump’s properties since the beginning of 2017.
This year, the expenditures cover venue rentals, catering, and travel expenses.
Read the analysis here.
The president collected at least $3.2 million in emoluments from Republican campaigns, according to a CNN analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. That number could swell further when the final filings are due.
The biggest benefactor of the president was the Republican National Committee, which spent $1.2 million at Trump’s properties since the beginning of 2017.
This year, the expenditures cover venue rentals, catering, and travel expenses.
Read the analysis here.
Extensive New Report Breaks Down Specifics of Multiple Potential Trump Campaign Crimes
by Matt Naham | law and crime
1:54 pm, November 2nd, 2018
An extensive new report published by the Brookings Institute’s Governance Studies program has analyzed potential crimes committed by the Trump Campaign. The crimes in question may not contain the word “collusion” in them, but they are, in effect, just that, according to the authors Barry H. Berke, Dani R. James, Noah Bookbinder, and Norman Eisen.
Berke is a fellow at the American College of Trial Lawyers; James is a partner at the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP; Bookbinder is executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW); Eisen is the chair of CREW, a senior fellow of Governance Studies at Brookings, and former Obama White House ethics lawyer.
The authors, responding to President Donald Trump‘s oft-used phrase “collusion is not a crime,” admit that it’s “in one sense correct,” but clarify that “Collusion is not a single crime” but “a rubric that encompasses many possible offenses.”
To that end, the report goes into an in-depth analysis of the following six crimes Special Counsel Robert Mueller may be looking at right now as part of his Russia investigation: Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 371; Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 U.S.C § 1030; Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511; Contributions and Donations by Foreign Nationals, 52 U.S.C. § 30121; Bribery of Public Officials and Witnesses, 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2); Misprision of Felony, 18 U.S.C. § 4.
The analysis of these crimes was made in the context of news reporting on three specific events central to the Mueller investigation: Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Trump campaign had any advance knowledge of it or coordinated with it in any way; the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer for “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton that involved Donald Trump Jr.; former Trump campaign chairman/convicted felon Paul Manafort and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and contact between members of the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 DNC hack (see: former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone)
The fundamental contention of the analysis is that the conspiracy is the mother of all the other crimes.
These were the elements of conspiracy as presented in the analysis: Two or more people knowingly and voluntary pursuing an illegal goal (conspiracy) in “an overt act by one or more of the conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy.” The next level of that is to prove there was “knowing participation in the scheme with intent to defraud the United States” by two or more people in an overt act.
If that can be proven, everything else could neatly fall into place, the authors argue. Computer fraud would pertain to the alleged hack of the DNC by Russian military intelligence officers posing as the fictitious persona Guccifer 2.0. The Federal Wiretap Act could be implicated by the ensuing disclosure of stolen emails to WikiLeaks.
The Contributions and Donations by Foreign Nationals charge could hinge on the infamous Trump Tower meeting and whether the campaign the Trump campaign “deliberately met with Russian nationals after being told that they had information on the Clinton campaign as part of Russia and its government’s support for Trump, and hid this fact.” A contribution could simply be money or, more broadly, a “thing of value.” We’ll return to this in a moment.
“Further investigation could strengthen this case, develop evidence around other instances of Russian support, and could point to liability for other members of the Trump campaign, including possibly President Trump himself,” they authors argue.
The implication of the bribery statute hinges on whether there was a “quid pro quo” in return for a “thing of value.” The authors admit that “there does not presently seem to be a sufficient factual basis to support a bribery charge.” They wonder, however, if Trump’s pro-Russia stances “both as nominee and president” could be construed as a quid pro quo for the “thing of value” (Russian interference, dirt, material support of Trump etc.).
Finally, Misprision of Felony boils down to whether there was an effort to knowingly conceal participation a crime (again, the arch-crime being conspiracy).
The authors conclude by saying that “[w]hile there may not yet be definitive proof that the Trump campaign or its associates engaged in criminal collusion with Russia, there are legitimate questions regarding whether the president and those close to him worked with or alongside the Russians in their efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, questions that demand answers.”
“The American people have a fundamental right to know if the president of the United States or those close to him worked with Russia to win the election and undermine American democracy—in violation of our criminal law,” they said.
Special Counsel Mueller is currently in a bit of a holding pattern until Election Day, at least when it comes to making any major announcements in his investigation. It remains to be seen what will come out next, but it’s been reported that Mueller is “close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice.”
In the meantime, Mueller has turned up the heat in a noticeable way on the aforementioned Roger Stone in attempt to get to the bottom of his connection to WikiLeaks.
Berke is a fellow at the American College of Trial Lawyers; James is a partner at the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP; Bookbinder is executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW); Eisen is the chair of CREW, a senior fellow of Governance Studies at Brookings, and former Obama White House ethics lawyer.
The authors, responding to President Donald Trump‘s oft-used phrase “collusion is not a crime,” admit that it’s “in one sense correct,” but clarify that “Collusion is not a single crime” but “a rubric that encompasses many possible offenses.”
To that end, the report goes into an in-depth analysis of the following six crimes Special Counsel Robert Mueller may be looking at right now as part of his Russia investigation: Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 371; Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 U.S.C § 1030; Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511; Contributions and Donations by Foreign Nationals, 52 U.S.C. § 30121; Bribery of Public Officials and Witnesses, 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2); Misprision of Felony, 18 U.S.C. § 4.
The analysis of these crimes was made in the context of news reporting on three specific events central to the Mueller investigation: Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Trump campaign had any advance knowledge of it or coordinated with it in any way; the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer for “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton that involved Donald Trump Jr.; former Trump campaign chairman/convicted felon Paul Manafort and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and contact between members of the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 DNC hack (see: former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone)
The fundamental contention of the analysis is that the conspiracy is the mother of all the other crimes.
These were the elements of conspiracy as presented in the analysis: Two or more people knowingly and voluntary pursuing an illegal goal (conspiracy) in “an overt act by one or more of the conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy.” The next level of that is to prove there was “knowing participation in the scheme with intent to defraud the United States” by two or more people in an overt act.
If that can be proven, everything else could neatly fall into place, the authors argue. Computer fraud would pertain to the alleged hack of the DNC by Russian military intelligence officers posing as the fictitious persona Guccifer 2.0. The Federal Wiretap Act could be implicated by the ensuing disclosure of stolen emails to WikiLeaks.
The Contributions and Donations by Foreign Nationals charge could hinge on the infamous Trump Tower meeting and whether the campaign the Trump campaign “deliberately met with Russian nationals after being told that they had information on the Clinton campaign as part of Russia and its government’s support for Trump, and hid this fact.” A contribution could simply be money or, more broadly, a “thing of value.” We’ll return to this in a moment.
“Further investigation could strengthen this case, develop evidence around other instances of Russian support, and could point to liability for other members of the Trump campaign, including possibly President Trump himself,” they authors argue.
The implication of the bribery statute hinges on whether there was a “quid pro quo” in return for a “thing of value.” The authors admit that “there does not presently seem to be a sufficient factual basis to support a bribery charge.” They wonder, however, if Trump’s pro-Russia stances “both as nominee and president” could be construed as a quid pro quo for the “thing of value” (Russian interference, dirt, material support of Trump etc.).
Finally, Misprision of Felony boils down to whether there was an effort to knowingly conceal participation a crime (again, the arch-crime being conspiracy).
The authors conclude by saying that “[w]hile there may not yet be definitive proof that the Trump campaign or its associates engaged in criminal collusion with Russia, there are legitimate questions regarding whether the president and those close to him worked with or alongside the Russians in their efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, questions that demand answers.”
“The American people have a fundamental right to know if the president of the United States or those close to him worked with Russia to win the election and undermine American democracy—in violation of our criminal law,” they said.
Special Counsel Mueller is currently in a bit of a holding pattern until Election Day, at least when it comes to making any major announcements in his investigation. It remains to be seen what will come out next, but it’s been reported that Mueller is “close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice.”
In the meantime, Mueller has turned up the heat in a noticeable way on the aforementioned Roger Stone in attempt to get to the bottom of his connection to WikiLeaks.
Emails show Trump played key role in blocking move of FBI HQ — which likely benefited his hotel: report
Tana Ganeva - raw story
18 OCT 2018 AT 13:23 ET
Newly released government documents reveal that President Donald Trump played a prominent role in keeping FBI headquarters in Washington, CNN reports.
Stopping the move of the agency’s headquarters to the D.C. suburbs, CNN notes, may have financially benefited President Trump. His hotel is blocks away from the FBI’s current location.
Democrats in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee addressed the letter to General Services Administrator Emily Murphy, and suggested that she had previously misled Congress on the issue.
“New documents provided to the Oversight Committee indicate that President Trump met personally with you, the FBI, and White House officials on January 24, 2018, where he was directly involved with the decision to abandon the long-term relocation plan and instead move ahead with the more expensive proposal to construct a new building on the same site, and thereby prevent Trump Hotel competitors from acquiring the land,” states the letter by Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
As CNN notes, the probe into the decision to keep the FBI in D.C.—and the potential conflict of interest between the President’s personal financial gain and political decisions—foreshadows the kind of investigations Democrats might pursue if they take Congress following the midterms.
Stopping the move of the agency’s headquarters to the D.C. suburbs, CNN notes, may have financially benefited President Trump. His hotel is blocks away from the FBI’s current location.
Democrats in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee addressed the letter to General Services Administrator Emily Murphy, and suggested that she had previously misled Congress on the issue.
“New documents provided to the Oversight Committee indicate that President Trump met personally with you, the FBI, and White House officials on January 24, 2018, where he was directly involved with the decision to abandon the long-term relocation plan and instead move ahead with the more expensive proposal to construct a new building on the same site, and thereby prevent Trump Hotel competitors from acquiring the land,” states the letter by Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
As CNN notes, the probe into the decision to keep the FBI in D.C.—and the potential conflict of interest between the President’s personal financial gain and political decisions—foreshadows the kind of investigations Democrats might pursue if they take Congress following the midterms.
Here are all the Trump projects where Ivanka and her dad misled real estate buyers
Pro Publica - raw story
18 OCT 2018 AT 06:39 ET
A pattern of deception ran through the Trumps’ real estate deals since the mid-2000s. Not only were the Trumps more than the mere licensors they claimed to be, extracting millions in fees from nearly every facet of these projects, but they often misled buyers and investors on key information — such as the level of sales and the Trumps’ role and investment in the deals. (Read our full investigation.) The Trump Organization did not respond to our questions, and the White House didn’t have a comment.
Projects Where a Trump Family Member Overstated Sales Numbers
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Claim: Donald Trump claimed $365 million in sales in a 2007 letter to The Wall Street Journal.
Reality: Trump reported $290 million in a 2009 project audit.
Result: Never built.
FORT LAUDERDALE
Claim: Trump announced the hotel/condo was “pretty much sold out” in April 2006, according to a broker who attended the presentation.
Reality: 62 percent of units were sold as of July 2006, according to bank records that emerged in a court case.
Result: Entered foreclosure. Trump’s name removed before construction completed.
LAS VEGAS
Claim: Condos “sold out,” Trump told The Associated Press in 2005
Reality: About 25 percent of units were sold by 2011, according to press accounts.
Result: Built.
PANAMA
Claim: “It’s a 1,000-unit building, we’ve sold over 90 percent of it,” Ivanka told Portfolioin 2008.
Reality: As of three months later, 79 percent of the units were pre-sold, according to Moody’s.
Result: Built, but went bankrupt; Trump name removed.
SOHO
Claim: In 2008, Ivanka told reporters that 60 percent of units had sold.
Reality:A Trump partner’s affidavit revealed that 15 percent had been sold at the time.
Result: Built, but went bankrupt; Trump name removed.
TAMPA
Claim: The building “sold out,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in 2007.
Reality: The developers failed to sell a minimum of 70 percent of units, according to a Trump company letter that year, which deemed that a violation of its contract.
Result: Never built.
TORONTO
Claim: In a 2009 interview, Ivanka referred to the property as “virtually sold out.”
Reality: 24.8 percent of units had sold, according to a 2016 bankruptcy filing by the developers.
Result: Built, but went bankrupt; Trump name removed.
Projects Where the Trumps Suggested They Were Developers, Partners or Equity Owners (They Weren’t)BAJAMore than 50 buyers claimed Ivanka said the Trump Organization was a developer on the project at a 2007 sales event, according to a lawsuit quoted by Univision.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
“I am excited to be building Trump at Cap Cana,” Trump was quoted saying in a 2007 press release, according to Univision.
FORT LAUDERDALE
Trump called the hotel and tower “my latest development” in a letter announcing the project.
REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA
“TRUMP INVESTS IN GEORGIA” read banners for the project, according to The New Yorker. Asked by a Fox anchor what he was “investing in,” Trump responded, “I’m doing a big development” in Georgia.
PANAMA
“I am honored to develop this extraordinary high rise with my partner Roger Khafif of the K Group,” Trump said in a 2009 marketing statement.
TAMPA
Trump claimed an ownership stake in a news article at the time, stating it was less than 50 percent, then adding: “But it’s a substantial stake. I recently said I’d like to increase my stake but when they’re selling that well they don’t let you do that.”
WAIKIKI
In the final episode of season five of “The Apprentice,” Trump announced the project on national TV, saying “that’s why I’m building the magnificent Trump Hotel and Tower Waikiki.” In 2007, he told The Wall Street Journal: “This building is largely owned by me and being developed by me.”
Projects Where a Trump Family Member Overstated Sales Numbers
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Claim: Donald Trump claimed $365 million in sales in a 2007 letter to The Wall Street Journal.
Reality: Trump reported $290 million in a 2009 project audit.
Result: Never built.
FORT LAUDERDALE
Claim: Trump announced the hotel/condo was “pretty much sold out” in April 2006, according to a broker who attended the presentation.
Reality: 62 percent of units were sold as of July 2006, according to bank records that emerged in a court case.
Result: Entered foreclosure. Trump’s name removed before construction completed.
LAS VEGAS
Claim: Condos “sold out,” Trump told The Associated Press in 2005
Reality: About 25 percent of units were sold by 2011, according to press accounts.
Result: Built.
PANAMA
Claim: “It’s a 1,000-unit building, we’ve sold over 90 percent of it,” Ivanka told Portfolioin 2008.
Reality: As of three months later, 79 percent of the units were pre-sold, according to Moody’s.
Result: Built, but went bankrupt; Trump name removed.
SOHO
Claim: In 2008, Ivanka told reporters that 60 percent of units had sold.
Reality:A Trump partner’s affidavit revealed that 15 percent had been sold at the time.
Result: Built, but went bankrupt; Trump name removed.
TAMPA
Claim: The building “sold out,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in 2007.
Reality: The developers failed to sell a minimum of 70 percent of units, according to a Trump company letter that year, which deemed that a violation of its contract.
Result: Never built.
TORONTO
Claim: In a 2009 interview, Ivanka referred to the property as “virtually sold out.”
Reality: 24.8 percent of units had sold, according to a 2016 bankruptcy filing by the developers.
Result: Built, but went bankrupt; Trump name removed.
Projects Where the Trumps Suggested They Were Developers, Partners or Equity Owners (They Weren’t)BAJAMore than 50 buyers claimed Ivanka said the Trump Organization was a developer on the project at a 2007 sales event, according to a lawsuit quoted by Univision.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
“I am excited to be building Trump at Cap Cana,” Trump was quoted saying in a 2007 press release, according to Univision.
FORT LAUDERDALE
Trump called the hotel and tower “my latest development” in a letter announcing the project.
REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA
“TRUMP INVESTS IN GEORGIA” read banners for the project, according to The New Yorker. Asked by a Fox anchor what he was “investing in,” Trump responded, “I’m doing a big development” in Georgia.
PANAMA
“I am honored to develop this extraordinary high rise with my partner Roger Khafif of the K Group,” Trump said in a 2009 marketing statement.
TAMPA
Trump claimed an ownership stake in a news article at the time, stating it was less than 50 percent, then adding: “But it’s a substantial stake. I recently said I’d like to increase my stake but when they’re selling that well they don’t let you do that.”
WAIKIKI
In the final episode of season five of “The Apprentice,” Trump announced the project on national TV, saying “that’s why I’m building the magnificent Trump Hotel and Tower Waikiki.” In 2007, he told The Wall Street Journal: “This building is largely owned by me and being developed by me.”
from the mouth of a traitor!!!
Trump: 'Robert E. Lee was a great general'
BY CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO - the hill
10/12/18 09:44 PM EDT
President Trump praised Confederate General Robert E. Lee as "a great general" on Friday during a campaign rally in Lebanon, Ohio.
"So Robert E. Lee was a great general. And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee," Trump said before launching into a monologue about Lee, Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
"He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story. But Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, 'I can’t beat Robert E. Lee,'" Trump said.
"And he had all of his generals, they looked great, they were the top of their class at West Point. They were the greatest people. There’s only one problem — they didn’t know how the hell to win. They didn’t know how to fight. They didn’t know how," he continued.
Trump went on to say, multiple times, that Grant had a drinking problem, saying that the former president "knocked the hell out of everyone" as a Union general.
"Man was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognized as a great general," Trump added.
Trump has drawn criticism for his defense of Confederate statues, including those of Robert E. Lee.
He drew widespread condemnation last year following a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., saying that white nationalist protesters were there to oppose the removal of a "very, very important" statue.
"They were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said at the time. “This week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
Trump, speaking at another rally in Ohio last year, said that he can be one of the “most presidential” presidents to hold office. "…With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” he said to a crowd in Youngstown.
"So Robert E. Lee was a great general. And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee," Trump said before launching into a monologue about Lee, Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
"He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story. But Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, 'I can’t beat Robert E. Lee,'" Trump said.
"And he had all of his generals, they looked great, they were the top of their class at West Point. They were the greatest people. There’s only one problem — they didn’t know how the hell to win. They didn’t know how to fight. They didn’t know how," he continued.
Trump went on to say, multiple times, that Grant had a drinking problem, saying that the former president "knocked the hell out of everyone" as a Union general.
"Man was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognized as a great general," Trump added.
Trump has drawn criticism for his defense of Confederate statues, including those of Robert E. Lee.
He drew widespread condemnation last year following a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., saying that white nationalist protesters were there to oppose the removal of a "very, very important" statue.
"They were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said at the time. “This week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
Trump, speaking at another rally in Ohio last year, said that he can be one of the “most presidential” presidents to hold office. "…With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” he said to a crowd in Youngstown.
Making us proud to be Americans!!!
Trump attacks Democrats as 'radical socialists' and scorns universal healthcare plan
In USA Today op-ed, Trump warns of Democratic midterms win and says party ‘wants to model our economy after Venezuela’
Guardian staff and agencies
Wed 10 Oct 2018 09.58 EDT
Donald Trump put his name to an opinion article in USA Today published on Wednesday, in a rallying cry to voters ahead of the midterm elections and warning that a big Democratic win would bring America closer to socialism and “suffering, misery and decay”.
The president opened with a warning to senior citizens and all Americans of the dangers of a so-called universal healthcare system with guaranteed government health insurance for all.
He went on to say Democrats were in favor of “open-border socialism” and raised the alarm about the country swinging to the left, particularly with the emergence of younger, progressive insurgents who have shaken up the liberal establishment this election cycle.
“The truth is that the centrist Democratic party is dead,” Trump wrote on Wednesday. “The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela.”
Democrats are pushing for a “blue wave” of support from voters this November, hoping that the backlash against Trump since his shock win in the 2016 election and the Republicans’ further march to the right can inspire enough voters to cause the Democratic party to win control of one or even both houses of the US Congress.
But Trump’s article warned: “If Democrats win control of Congress this November, we will come dangerously closer to socialism in America. Government-run healthcare is just the beginning. Democrats are also pushing massive government control of education, private-sector businesses and other major sectors of the US economy.”
He urged that this is a fight the Republicans “must win” and issued further dire predictions about a “radical” agenda.
“Every single citizen will be harmed by such a radical shift in American culture and life. Virtually everywhere it has been tried, socialism has brought suffering, misery and decay,” he wrote.
The article has echoes of Trump’s shocking 2017 inauguration speech, which employed dystopian language and a bleak appraisal of the country as blighted in a state of “American carnage”.
He warned on Wednesday: “Today’s Democratic party is for open-borders socialism. This radical agenda would destroy American prosperity.”
The president opened with a warning to senior citizens and all Americans of the dangers of a so-called universal healthcare system with guaranteed government health insurance for all.
He went on to say Democrats were in favor of “open-border socialism” and raised the alarm about the country swinging to the left, particularly with the emergence of younger, progressive insurgents who have shaken up the liberal establishment this election cycle.
“The truth is that the centrist Democratic party is dead,” Trump wrote on Wednesday. “The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela.”
Democrats are pushing for a “blue wave” of support from voters this November, hoping that the backlash against Trump since his shock win in the 2016 election and the Republicans’ further march to the right can inspire enough voters to cause the Democratic party to win control of one or even both houses of the US Congress.
But Trump’s article warned: “If Democrats win control of Congress this November, we will come dangerously closer to socialism in America. Government-run healthcare is just the beginning. Democrats are also pushing massive government control of education, private-sector businesses and other major sectors of the US economy.”
He urged that this is a fight the Republicans “must win” and issued further dire predictions about a “radical” agenda.
“Every single citizen will be harmed by such a radical shift in American culture and life. Virtually everywhere it has been tried, socialism has brought suffering, misery and decay,” he wrote.
The article has echoes of Trump’s shocking 2017 inauguration speech, which employed dystopian language and a bleak appraisal of the country as blighted in a state of “American carnage”.
He warned on Wednesday: “Today’s Democratic party is for open-borders socialism. This radical agenda would destroy American prosperity.”
Trump Statuettes Spotted On Brooklyn Sidewalks.
A treat for our canine friends
The Planners Of The Trump Tower Meeting Moved Millions, And Mueller Is Now Investigating
Documents show suspicious transfers began six days before the controversial meeting.
Anthony Cormier
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Jason Leopold
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on September 21, 2018, at 10:45 a.m. ET
On June 3, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. received one of the most striking emails of the presidential campaign, offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of the Russian government’s “support for Mr. Trump.”
Trump Jr. responded 17 minutes later: “if it’s what you say I love it.”
That email led to a meeting at Trump Tower that has become a central focus of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
But the very day that email was sent, another exchange was taking place behind the scenes.
Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that $3.3 million began moving on June 3 between two of the men who orchestrated the meeting: Aras Agalarov, a billionaire real estate developer close to both Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, and Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, a longtime Agalarov employee once investigated for money laundering.
That money is on top of the more than $20 million that was flagged as suspicious, BuzzFeed News revealed earlier this month, after the money ricocheted among the planners and participants of the Trump Tower meeting. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which has been investigating whether any individuals colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election, is examining the suspicious transactions, four federal law enforcement officials said. A spokesperson for Mueller’s office declined to comment.
Although the documents do not directly link the $3.3 million to the meeting, they show that officials at three separate banks raised red flags about the funds. Many of the transfers seemed to have no legitimate purpose, bankers noted. Kaveladze quickly moved money to other accounts he controlled, and appeared to use some of it to make payments on Agalarov’s behalf — including more than $700,000 to pay off American Express charges.
Scott Balber, an attorney for Agalarov and Kaveladze, said each of these transactions was legitimate and there is nothing improper with their financial activity. Balber explained that Agalarov sent funds to Kaveladze, an employee, to pay various business or personal expenses in the US.
“What is suspicious, or insidious, about a billionaire who pays his employee in the US to pay his business or domestic bills?” Balber said. “This looks like complete nonsense.”
“It’s obvious the events of June 2016 have been a focal point of the special counsel’s investigation, various congressional inquiries, tremendous media attention and the like,” Balber said. “We are in the lens of that reality, so it doesn’t surprise me that there’s been some flyspecking, some gross overreporting by a number of financial institutions. They won’t be criticized for overreporting suspicious activity.”
None of these transactions was discovered until 2017, after the New York Times revealed the Trump Tower meeting. Shortly after those reports, investigators asked financial institutions to look back at their accounts to learn how money flowed among the people who planned and attended the meeting: Agalarov; Kaveladze; Agalarov’s pop star son, Emin; their employee, Rob Goldstone, who sent the original email to Trump Jr.; and others.
To unearth connections between some of their accounts, banks took an extraordinary step: They invoked a provision of the Patriot Act — a post-9/11 law that included new tools to track money laundering and terrorist financing. That provision, rarely used in the Trump-Russia investigation, allowed the banks to share information about customers with one another.
Three financial institutions — Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley — discovered the $3.3 million that flowed from Agalarov to Kaveladze.
They also learned that Kaveladze had given different banks radically different descriptions of one of his main companies, Corsy International. To JP Morgan Chase, Kaveladze said Corsy was a “transportation equipment and supplies merchant wholesaler.” He told Citibank it was a “music promotion company.” Agalarov gave yet another description to Morgan Stanley, calling the firm a “service provider” for his vast real estate company, Crocus Group.
Balber, the attorney, said that there are two separate businesses, both named “Corsy International,” that Kaveladze controlled. One is based in California and is involved in “procurement” issues related to Agalarov’s business empire. The other is based in New York and is largely involved with the music career of Emin Agalarov.
That lack of transparency made it difficult for bankers to know the true purpose of the funds into the company’s accounts. Examiners also became concerned with how Kaveladze handled the money.
On June 3, the day of the email exchange with Donald Trump Jr., Kaveladze began depositing checks into his JP Morgan Chase Platinum business checking account in California. He used three different branches in Huntington Beach, California, and the five checks totaled about $397,000. Each originated with Agalarov and referred to “compensation Amex expenses.”
Then on June 6, Agalarov started sending checks through an account at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management to Kaveladze’s company.
Those funds totaled about $971,000.
When they reviewed these accounts, bank examiners became suspicious because it was unclear exactly how the money was supposed to be used.
For instance, at JP Morgan Chase, Kaveladze transferred money from one of his companies’ accounts to another and ultimately sent 24 payments over 15 months to American Express for a total of $725,000 — a red flag to bankers because they said it appeared Kaveladze was making the payments for Agalarov. The documents do not say what expenses were charged to American Express, and three federal law enforcement agents said investigators are still trying to figure it out. Balber said these transactions were legitimate personal and business expenses for Agalarov.
The details unearthed by bankers were compiled in “suspicious activity reports” sent to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which shared them with other law enforcement agencies investigating Russian interference.
Suspicious activity reports are not evidence of wrongdoing, but they can provide valuable information to investigators looking into possible money laundering, fraud, tax evasion, or other financial misconduct.
During their reviews in 2017, some banks noticed behavior that they had not previously flagged. Bank of America, for example, noted about $7.8 million that was sent from Corsy International to another of Kaveladze’s businesses, Promomed, between 2012 and 2014. Bankers said they were concerned that by transferring funds from one company to another, Kaveladze was trying to obscure the original source of the money.
Citibank went far back into its accounts to search for suspicious activity by Kaveladze and the Agalarov family. Examiners “elevated” about $11.9 million in transactions that began in 2015, largely because the transactions originated in “high-risk jurisdictions,” or locations that are known as havens for money laundering, and because the funds were sent for “unknown purposes.”
Kaveladze had popped up on Citibank’s radar in September 2015, when he applied for a $100,000 line of credit for Corsy International. At that time, he told bankers that the company had $8 million in sales the previous year and that it had about $240,000 in available funds — but when Citibank investigated further, examiners learned that Corsy International’s account was actually overdrawn.
Citibank denied the loan.
Balber, Kaveladze’s attorney, said that his client did nothing improper, and that he doesn’t recall telling the bank about Corsy International’s available funds.
All three banks cited a 2000 report by the Government Accountability Office, in which Kaveladze was investigated as part of a Russian money laundering scheme. Kaveladze, that report found, established more than 2,000 corporations in Delaware for Russian real estate brokers, then set up US bank accounts for them. The brokers used these accounts to transfer about $1.4 billion, the report found.
Kaveladze was never charged with a crime and called the GAO’s inquiry a “witch hunt.”
Trump Jr. responded 17 minutes later: “if it’s what you say I love it.”
That email led to a meeting at Trump Tower that has become a central focus of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
But the very day that email was sent, another exchange was taking place behind the scenes.
Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that $3.3 million began moving on June 3 between two of the men who orchestrated the meeting: Aras Agalarov, a billionaire real estate developer close to both Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, and Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, a longtime Agalarov employee once investigated for money laundering.
That money is on top of the more than $20 million that was flagged as suspicious, BuzzFeed News revealed earlier this month, after the money ricocheted among the planners and participants of the Trump Tower meeting. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which has been investigating whether any individuals colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election, is examining the suspicious transactions, four federal law enforcement officials said. A spokesperson for Mueller’s office declined to comment.
Although the documents do not directly link the $3.3 million to the meeting, they show that officials at three separate banks raised red flags about the funds. Many of the transfers seemed to have no legitimate purpose, bankers noted. Kaveladze quickly moved money to other accounts he controlled, and appeared to use some of it to make payments on Agalarov’s behalf — including more than $700,000 to pay off American Express charges.
Scott Balber, an attorney for Agalarov and Kaveladze, said each of these transactions was legitimate and there is nothing improper with their financial activity. Balber explained that Agalarov sent funds to Kaveladze, an employee, to pay various business or personal expenses in the US.
“What is suspicious, or insidious, about a billionaire who pays his employee in the US to pay his business or domestic bills?” Balber said. “This looks like complete nonsense.”
“It’s obvious the events of June 2016 have been a focal point of the special counsel’s investigation, various congressional inquiries, tremendous media attention and the like,” Balber said. “We are in the lens of that reality, so it doesn’t surprise me that there’s been some flyspecking, some gross overreporting by a number of financial institutions. They won’t be criticized for overreporting suspicious activity.”
None of these transactions was discovered until 2017, after the New York Times revealed the Trump Tower meeting. Shortly after those reports, investigators asked financial institutions to look back at their accounts to learn how money flowed among the people who planned and attended the meeting: Agalarov; Kaveladze; Agalarov’s pop star son, Emin; their employee, Rob Goldstone, who sent the original email to Trump Jr.; and others.
To unearth connections between some of their accounts, banks took an extraordinary step: They invoked a provision of the Patriot Act — a post-9/11 law that included new tools to track money laundering and terrorist financing. That provision, rarely used in the Trump-Russia investigation, allowed the banks to share information about customers with one another.
Three financial institutions — Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley — discovered the $3.3 million that flowed from Agalarov to Kaveladze.
They also learned that Kaveladze had given different banks radically different descriptions of one of his main companies, Corsy International. To JP Morgan Chase, Kaveladze said Corsy was a “transportation equipment and supplies merchant wholesaler.” He told Citibank it was a “music promotion company.” Agalarov gave yet another description to Morgan Stanley, calling the firm a “service provider” for his vast real estate company, Crocus Group.
Balber, the attorney, said that there are two separate businesses, both named “Corsy International,” that Kaveladze controlled. One is based in California and is involved in “procurement” issues related to Agalarov’s business empire. The other is based in New York and is largely involved with the music career of Emin Agalarov.
That lack of transparency made it difficult for bankers to know the true purpose of the funds into the company’s accounts. Examiners also became concerned with how Kaveladze handled the money.
On June 3, the day of the email exchange with Donald Trump Jr., Kaveladze began depositing checks into his JP Morgan Chase Platinum business checking account in California. He used three different branches in Huntington Beach, California, and the five checks totaled about $397,000. Each originated with Agalarov and referred to “compensation Amex expenses.”
Then on June 6, Agalarov started sending checks through an account at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management to Kaveladze’s company.
Those funds totaled about $971,000.
When they reviewed these accounts, bank examiners became suspicious because it was unclear exactly how the money was supposed to be used.
For instance, at JP Morgan Chase, Kaveladze transferred money from one of his companies’ accounts to another and ultimately sent 24 payments over 15 months to American Express for a total of $725,000 — a red flag to bankers because they said it appeared Kaveladze was making the payments for Agalarov. The documents do not say what expenses were charged to American Express, and three federal law enforcement agents said investigators are still trying to figure it out. Balber said these transactions were legitimate personal and business expenses for Agalarov.
The details unearthed by bankers were compiled in “suspicious activity reports” sent to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which shared them with other law enforcement agencies investigating Russian interference.
Suspicious activity reports are not evidence of wrongdoing, but they can provide valuable information to investigators looking into possible money laundering, fraud, tax evasion, or other financial misconduct.
During their reviews in 2017, some banks noticed behavior that they had not previously flagged. Bank of America, for example, noted about $7.8 million that was sent from Corsy International to another of Kaveladze’s businesses, Promomed, between 2012 and 2014. Bankers said they were concerned that by transferring funds from one company to another, Kaveladze was trying to obscure the original source of the money.
Citibank went far back into its accounts to search for suspicious activity by Kaveladze and the Agalarov family. Examiners “elevated” about $11.9 million in transactions that began in 2015, largely because the transactions originated in “high-risk jurisdictions,” or locations that are known as havens for money laundering, and because the funds were sent for “unknown purposes.”
Kaveladze had popped up on Citibank’s radar in September 2015, when he applied for a $100,000 line of credit for Corsy International. At that time, he told bankers that the company had $8 million in sales the previous year and that it had about $240,000 in available funds — but when Citibank investigated further, examiners learned that Corsy International’s account was actually overdrawn.
Citibank denied the loan.
Balber, Kaveladze’s attorney, said that his client did nothing improper, and that he doesn’t recall telling the bank about Corsy International’s available funds.
All three banks cited a 2000 report by the Government Accountability Office, in which Kaveladze was investigated as part of a Russian money laundering scheme. Kaveladze, that report found, established more than 2,000 corporations in Delaware for Russian real estate brokers, then set up US bank accounts for them. The brokers used these accounts to transfer about $1.4 billion, the report found.
Kaveladze was never charged with a crime and called the GAO’s inquiry a “witch hunt.”
Trump admits Fox News hosts influenced his decision to declassify key Russia documents
"The great Lou Dobbs, the great Sean Hannity, the wonderful great Jeanie Pirro."
FRANK DALE - thinkprogress
SEP 19, 2018, 6:25 PM
Any doubt about the feedback loop between President Donald Trump and FoxNews can be put to rest, as the president credited Fox’s Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and Jeanine Pirro for his decision to declassify key Russia documents in an interview with The Hill released on Wednesday.
As ThinkProgress reported on Tuesday, Trump’s declassification of materials relating to the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was made “at the request of” top congressional Republicans, including Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who was a member of the Executive Committee for Trump’s White House transition.
Despite concerns about potential national security issues resulting from Trump’s actions, especially since neither the Department of Justice nor FBI were reportedly involved in the decision, the president praised Fox News and Fox Business hosts for making the recommendation to him during a conversation with Hill.tv’s John Solomon and Buck Sexton.
“I have been asked by so many people that I respect, please — the great Lou Dobbs, the great Sean Hannity, the wonderful great Jeanie Pirro. (laughs)
No, she takes it so personally. And that’s not, let’s say they like me. But this is beyond liking me. They know that this is one of the great scandals in the history of our country.”
Trump also mentioned Fox News’ Gregg Jarrett when he was asked about the declassification of Russia documents earlier in the interview.
“You know Gregg Jarrett wrote a book called the Russian Hoax. It actually is a hoax. I call it a witch hunt, but it’s a hoax. Beyond a witch hunt.”
Hannity first referenced Trump’s ability to declassify Russia documents on the July 23 episode of his Fox News show, according to Media Matters’ Nick Fernandez. Hannity and Dobbs have discussed the subject at least a dozen separate times on their shows since then.
Trump’s mention of how Fox News influenced his decision to declassify documents was not included in The Hill’s article about the interview, which contained a note that “brief segments where the president went off the record or made personal observations unrelated to the interview” were removed. However, the names of Hannity, Dobbs, Pirro, and Jarrett appear in the transcript released later on Wednesday.
Solomon, who conducted the interview for Hill.tv, has a long history of twisting the truth to defend Trump.
As ThinkProgress reported on Tuesday, Trump’s declassification of materials relating to the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was made “at the request of” top congressional Republicans, including Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who was a member of the Executive Committee for Trump’s White House transition.
Despite concerns about potential national security issues resulting from Trump’s actions, especially since neither the Department of Justice nor FBI were reportedly involved in the decision, the president praised Fox News and Fox Business hosts for making the recommendation to him during a conversation with Hill.tv’s John Solomon and Buck Sexton.
“I have been asked by so many people that I respect, please — the great Lou Dobbs, the great Sean Hannity, the wonderful great Jeanie Pirro. (laughs)
No, she takes it so personally. And that’s not, let’s say they like me. But this is beyond liking me. They know that this is one of the great scandals in the history of our country.”
Trump also mentioned Fox News’ Gregg Jarrett when he was asked about the declassification of Russia documents earlier in the interview.
“You know Gregg Jarrett wrote a book called the Russian Hoax. It actually is a hoax. I call it a witch hunt, but it’s a hoax. Beyond a witch hunt.”
Hannity first referenced Trump’s ability to declassify Russia documents on the July 23 episode of his Fox News show, according to Media Matters’ Nick Fernandez. Hannity and Dobbs have discussed the subject at least a dozen separate times on their shows since then.
Trump’s mention of how Fox News influenced his decision to declassify documents was not included in The Hill’s article about the interview, which contained a note that “brief segments where the president went off the record or made personal observations unrelated to the interview” were removed. However, the names of Hannity, Dobbs, Pirro, and Jarrett appear in the transcript released later on Wednesday.
Solomon, who conducted the interview for Hill.tv, has a long history of twisting the truth to defend Trump.
Purported billionaire Donald Trump demanded small-donors pay back his $10 million investment in campaign: Woodward
Bob Brigham - raw story
11 SEP 2018 AT 15:52 ET
Donald Trump’s lack of access to cash hindered his presidential campaign at a crucial point, veteran journalist Bob Woodward explained in his new book Fear.
Woodward explained the crucial role of son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, “without the title, was running the campaign, especially on money matters.”
In August of 2016, campaign chief executive officer Steve Bannon told Kushner that the campaign desperately needed Trump to write a $50 million check to the campaign for TV ads.
“He will never write a $50 million check,” Kushner replied.
“Dude, we’re going to have this thing in a dead heat,” Bannon argued. “We need to finally go up on TV with something.”
“Steve, unless you can show him he’s a dead lock — I mean a dead lock — up three to five points, he’ll never write that size check,” Kushner predicted.
The candidate’s son-in-law suggested asking for only half the amount.
“He doesn’t have a lot of cash,” Kushner revealed.
“Fuck that,” Trump replied. “Where the fuck’s the money?”
The next day Bannon asked for $10 million, which would be repaid to Trump as small dollar donors made contributions to the campaign.
Bannon reportedly referred to people donating to the billionaire as “grundoons” or “hobbits.”
Two days later, Trump agreed to the $10 million advance.
“Okay, fine, get off my back,” Trump told his campaign advisors.
The events were documented in chapter five of Robert Woodward’s new book, Fear: Trump in the White House.
Woodward explained the crucial role of son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, “without the title, was running the campaign, especially on money matters.”
In August of 2016, campaign chief executive officer Steve Bannon told Kushner that the campaign desperately needed Trump to write a $50 million check to the campaign for TV ads.
“He will never write a $50 million check,” Kushner replied.
“Dude, we’re going to have this thing in a dead heat,” Bannon argued. “We need to finally go up on TV with something.”
“Steve, unless you can show him he’s a dead lock — I mean a dead lock — up three to five points, he’ll never write that size check,” Kushner predicted.
The candidate’s son-in-law suggested asking for only half the amount.
“He doesn’t have a lot of cash,” Kushner revealed.
“Fuck that,” Trump replied. “Where the fuck’s the money?”
The next day Bannon asked for $10 million, which would be repaid to Trump as small dollar donors made contributions to the campaign.
Bannon reportedly referred to people donating to the billionaire as “grundoons” or “hobbits.”
Two days later, Trump agreed to the $10 million advance.
“Okay, fine, get off my back,” Trump told his campaign advisors.
The events were documented in chapter five of Robert Woodward’s new book, Fear: Trump in the White House.
9/11: Donald Trump's bizarre quotes about September 11 attacks prior to becoming president
Before becoming 'leader of the free world', reality TV star propelled conspiracy theories and boasted about having higher television ratings than the 2001 atrocity
Rachael Revesz - the independent(uk)
9/11/18
Donald Trump has been criticised for airing his controversial views on everything from LGBT rights to climate change, and the terrorist attacks on America of September 2001 are no exception.
From his days as a real estate tycoon in New York to running a campaign for political office, the former reality TV star has whipped up controversy on several occasions surrounding an atrocity that killed close to 3,000 people.
And as the under-fire president readies himself for the latest 9/11commemorations, the litany of controversial remarks will come under fresh scrutiny.
11 September 2001
“40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan… And now it’s the tallest.”
The day the Twin Towers fell, real estate businessman Mr Trump was speaking to radio station WWOR when he veered off to brag about his nearby 71-storey skyscraper, claiming the title of highest building in Lower Manhattan.
Shortly after the attack, Mr Trump claimed $150,000 from the government to cover “rent loss” and “repairs”. The money had originally been set aside for small businesses in the area.
11 September 2013
“I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.”
Mr Trump marked the anniversary on Twitter in 2013. He later deleted the tweet, but inexplicably kept his reposting of the original tweet.
November 2015
“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down, and I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.”
The then-presidential candidate said at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, that people had celebrated the disaster across the water from the Twin Towers. He later repeated his claim to ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, adding that the cheers came from areas of New Jersey with “large Arab populations”. The claims were denied by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and police.
February 2016
“The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe”
At a primary season debate, candidate Mr Trump took his former rivals Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush to task for defending former President George W Bush.
He added: “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him. And George Bush — by the way, George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn’t listen to the advice of his CIA.”
February 2016
“I lost hundreds of friends in 9/11.”
Mr Trump insisted he knew many of the people working in the Twin Towers, but never named a single person. The president would have had to have known about one in 10 of the victims if his claim of knowing “hundreds” of the 2,996 victim was true.
March 2016
“Thanks sweetie. That’s nice”
When Mr Trump was promoting the opening of his new hotel in Washington DC while on the campaign trail, a woman in the crowd asked him if he would hire veterans and 9/11 survivors. He invited her to the stage, promising he would give her a job. She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, and he replied, “Thanks sweetie. That’s nice.”
August 2016
“Those people that knocked down the World Trade Centre most likely under the Trump policy wouldn’t have been here to knock down the World Trade Centre, just so you understand.”
At another campaign event, he insisted he would have been smarter on terrorism than his predecessor. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were citizens of Saudi Arabia – a country omitted from the list of countries included in his controversial travel ban.
April 2017
“It’s the highest [ratings] for ‘Deface the Nation’ since the World Trade Center. Since the World Trade Center came down. It’s a tremendous advantage.”
In an interview about his first 100 days in the White House with the Associated Press, Donald Trump boasted that his “ratings” on cable network shows like on Fox and CBS’s Face the Nation were higher than those for broadcasts of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The president has been consistently preoccupied with his ratings and the turnouts at his rallies. Within hours of his inauguration, he punished the National Park Service for posting pictures of his ceremony which seemed to compare his crowds with a much higher turnout for Barack Obama.
---
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
“We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible.” @SaraCarterDC @LouDobbs
4:08 AM - Sep 11, 2018
From his days as a real estate tycoon in New York to running a campaign for political office, the former reality TV star has whipped up controversy on several occasions surrounding an atrocity that killed close to 3,000 people.
And as the under-fire president readies himself for the latest 9/11commemorations, the litany of controversial remarks will come under fresh scrutiny.
11 September 2001
“40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan… And now it’s the tallest.”
The day the Twin Towers fell, real estate businessman Mr Trump was speaking to radio station WWOR when he veered off to brag about his nearby 71-storey skyscraper, claiming the title of highest building in Lower Manhattan.
Shortly after the attack, Mr Trump claimed $150,000 from the government to cover “rent loss” and “repairs”. The money had originally been set aside for small businesses in the area.
11 September 2013
“I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.”
Mr Trump marked the anniversary on Twitter in 2013. He later deleted the tweet, but inexplicably kept his reposting of the original tweet.
November 2015
“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down, and I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.”
The then-presidential candidate said at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, that people had celebrated the disaster across the water from the Twin Towers. He later repeated his claim to ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, adding that the cheers came from areas of New Jersey with “large Arab populations”. The claims were denied by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and police.
February 2016
“The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe”
At a primary season debate, candidate Mr Trump took his former rivals Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush to task for defending former President George W Bush.
He added: “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him. And George Bush — by the way, George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn’t listen to the advice of his CIA.”
February 2016
“I lost hundreds of friends in 9/11.”
Mr Trump insisted he knew many of the people working in the Twin Towers, but never named a single person. The president would have had to have known about one in 10 of the victims if his claim of knowing “hundreds” of the 2,996 victim was true.
March 2016
“Thanks sweetie. That’s nice”
When Mr Trump was promoting the opening of his new hotel in Washington DC while on the campaign trail, a woman in the crowd asked him if he would hire veterans and 9/11 survivors. He invited her to the stage, promising he would give her a job. She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, and he replied, “Thanks sweetie. That’s nice.”
August 2016
“Those people that knocked down the World Trade Centre most likely under the Trump policy wouldn’t have been here to knock down the World Trade Centre, just so you understand.”
At another campaign event, he insisted he would have been smarter on terrorism than his predecessor. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were citizens of Saudi Arabia – a country omitted from the list of countries included in his controversial travel ban.
April 2017
“It’s the highest [ratings] for ‘Deface the Nation’ since the World Trade Center. Since the World Trade Center came down. It’s a tremendous advantage.”
In an interview about his first 100 days in the White House with the Associated Press, Donald Trump boasted that his “ratings” on cable network shows like on Fox and CBS’s Face the Nation were higher than those for broadcasts of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The president has been consistently preoccupied with his ratings and the turnouts at his rallies. Within hours of his inauguration, he punished the National Park Service for posting pictures of his ceremony which seemed to compare his crowds with a much higher turnout for Barack Obama.
---
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
“We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible.” @SaraCarterDC @LouDobbs
4:08 AM - Sep 11, 2018
Trump’s new FBI conspiracy theory is remarkably dishonest even by his standards
Bad faith theater.
AARON RUPAR - thinkprogress
SEP 11, 2018, 4:08 PM
On Tuesday morning, President Trump spread a conspiracy theory, and he wants you to believe it’s evidence the Department of Justice is rigged against him.
“New Strzok-Page texts reveal ‘Media Leak Strategy,'” Trump tweeted, referring to newly released April 2017 text messages between former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. “@FoxNews So terrible, and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI – but the world is watching, and they get it completely.”
The Washington Post sheds additional light on the texts, which Trump wants you to see as evidence Strzok and Page, who were having a romantic affair at the time, were coordinating a strategy to leak information about the Russia investigation to the press.
In one, on April 10, Strzok tells Page, “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.” (Page resigned from the FBI in early May 2017.)
In another, on April 12, Strzok tells Page, “Well done, Page.”
Trump isn’t alone in trying to exploit the newly released texts to push a conspiracy theory. On Monday night, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) claimed they constitute evidence that “senior officials at FBI/DOJ selectively leaked info to the media about ongoing investigations related to the Trump admin.”
But there’s a much simpler explanation for the texts, coming as they did two months after Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a major DOJ campaign against leakers.
A straightforward reading of them suggests that when Strzok told Page he wanted “to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go,” he was literally referring to the DOJ’s campaign against leakers.
The Washington Post fleshes it out:
Later text messages have come out suggesting Strzok was indeed tasked with [anti-leak] duties, and he earned renown for leading the leak investigation of ex-CIA agent John Kiriakou earlier this decade. Kiriakou pleaded guilty in 2012 and served two years in prison for sharing information with a reporter about an undercover CIA officer. Strzok also decried leaks in his July 2018 testimony to Congress. If anybody made sense to lead such an effort, it would be him.
Combating leaks was also a big initiative led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions (spurred by Trump himself) at the time. A week after these texts, for example, Sessions said he wanted to put people in jail for leaks. In February 2017, Trump said, “I’ve actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. . . . Those are criminal leaks.”
After Trump posted his tweet on Tuesday morning, Strzok’s attorney, Aitan Goelman, released a statement saying the president’s interpretation of the texts is the opposite of true, adding that his client was actually referring to the DOJ’s anti-leak campaign.
A group of House Democrats also released a statement responding to Meadows by pointing out that “Republicans in Congress repeatedly cherry-pick, mischaracterize, and then leak bits and piece of documents to fabricate conspiracy theories to protect President Trump, and this is just the latest example.”
“The documents clearly show that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were not discussing how to leak documents to the press — but whether the Justice Department should change its regulations to stop leaks to the media,” it continues.
As Goelman and the group of House Dems allude to, this isn’t the first time Trump and his allies in Congress have used bad-faith interpretations of the Strzok-Page texts to spread baseless conspiracy theories.
In January, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) pushed a theory that Strzok-Page texts indicated there was a “secret society” within the FBI that was trying to bring down Trump even before he won the election. But as soon as the texts were released publicly, it became clear Johnson’s conspiracy theory was based entirely on a misreading of a text message that was clearly intended as a joke.
Finally, the suggestion that Strzok and Page used leaks to try to bring down Trump doesn’t square with the history of the Russia investigation. There remains a major hole in the conspiracy theories advanced for more than a year by Trump and his allies: Strzok, Page, and other FBI agents didn’t leak about the fact the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign more than three months before the 2016 election. If they had leaked this fact to the media at the time, it could have inflicted a mortal wound on Trump’s presidential campaign.
Instead, before the election, FBI officials went out of their way to publicize the bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Prominent pollsters have concluded the FBI’s unusual handling of the Clinton investigation may have thrown the election for Trump. The Trump administration even cited the bureau’s rough handling of Clinton as a pretext for Trump’s decision to fire then-FBI Director James Comey — right before he admitted he fired Comey over the Russia investigation.
“New Strzok-Page texts reveal ‘Media Leak Strategy,'” Trump tweeted, referring to newly released April 2017 text messages between former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. “@FoxNews So terrible, and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI – but the world is watching, and they get it completely.”
The Washington Post sheds additional light on the texts, which Trump wants you to see as evidence Strzok and Page, who were having a romantic affair at the time, were coordinating a strategy to leak information about the Russia investigation to the press.
In one, on April 10, Strzok tells Page, “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.” (Page resigned from the FBI in early May 2017.)
In another, on April 12, Strzok tells Page, “Well done, Page.”
Trump isn’t alone in trying to exploit the newly released texts to push a conspiracy theory. On Monday night, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) claimed they constitute evidence that “senior officials at FBI/DOJ selectively leaked info to the media about ongoing investigations related to the Trump admin.”
But there’s a much simpler explanation for the texts, coming as they did two months after Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a major DOJ campaign against leakers.
A straightforward reading of them suggests that when Strzok told Page he wanted “to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go,” he was literally referring to the DOJ’s campaign against leakers.
The Washington Post fleshes it out:
Later text messages have come out suggesting Strzok was indeed tasked with [anti-leak] duties, and he earned renown for leading the leak investigation of ex-CIA agent John Kiriakou earlier this decade. Kiriakou pleaded guilty in 2012 and served two years in prison for sharing information with a reporter about an undercover CIA officer. Strzok also decried leaks in his July 2018 testimony to Congress. If anybody made sense to lead such an effort, it would be him.
Combating leaks was also a big initiative led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions (spurred by Trump himself) at the time. A week after these texts, for example, Sessions said he wanted to put people in jail for leaks. In February 2017, Trump said, “I’ve actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. . . . Those are criminal leaks.”
After Trump posted his tweet on Tuesday morning, Strzok’s attorney, Aitan Goelman, released a statement saying the president’s interpretation of the texts is the opposite of true, adding that his client was actually referring to the DOJ’s anti-leak campaign.
A group of House Democrats also released a statement responding to Meadows by pointing out that “Republicans in Congress repeatedly cherry-pick, mischaracterize, and then leak bits and piece of documents to fabricate conspiracy theories to protect President Trump, and this is just the latest example.”
“The documents clearly show that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were not discussing how to leak documents to the press — but whether the Justice Department should change its regulations to stop leaks to the media,” it continues.
As Goelman and the group of House Dems allude to, this isn’t the first time Trump and his allies in Congress have used bad-faith interpretations of the Strzok-Page texts to spread baseless conspiracy theories.
In January, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) pushed a theory that Strzok-Page texts indicated there was a “secret society” within the FBI that was trying to bring down Trump even before he won the election. But as soon as the texts were released publicly, it became clear Johnson’s conspiracy theory was based entirely on a misreading of a text message that was clearly intended as a joke.
Finally, the suggestion that Strzok and Page used leaks to try to bring down Trump doesn’t square with the history of the Russia investigation. There remains a major hole in the conspiracy theories advanced for more than a year by Trump and his allies: Strzok, Page, and other FBI agents didn’t leak about the fact the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign more than three months before the 2016 election. If they had leaked this fact to the media at the time, it could have inflicted a mortal wound on Trump’s presidential campaign.
Instead, before the election, FBI officials went out of their way to publicize the bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Prominent pollsters have concluded the FBI’s unusual handling of the Clinton investigation may have thrown the election for Trump. The Trump administration even cited the bureau’s rough handling of Clinton as a pretext for Trump’s decision to fire then-FBI Director James Comey — right before he admitted he fired Comey over the Russia investigation.
Here's How Much Trump's Golf Cart Rentals Have Cost US Taxpayers
A new report reveals the price tag of the president's favorite hobby.
By Walter Einenkel / Daily Kos
September 10, 2018, 5:00 AM GMT
Everyone knows that President Trump likes to play golf. The white supremacist in chief is playing more golf than any previous president. Trump likes to reward world leaders and other people paying for golf with Trump by giving them tours of Air Force One. TMZ is now reporting that they have gotten their hands on federal documents showing taxpayers have had to pay out about $300,675 for golf cart rentals… alone.
Many of the expenses emanate from Trump's Mar-a-Lago excursions. And, get this ... since taking office Trump has reportedly spent 153 days at golf properties, which explains why the golf cart rental is sky high.
Since Trump took office, the total expense of his golf outings cost taxpayers an estimated $77 MILLION.
According to TMZ, those costs do not include all of the golfing Trump has done abroad. Trump’s “golfing prowess” is based on him cheating and lying and being a rather average person with lots of money and power. In fact, bestselling author Rick Reilly is going to release a book soon about the fact that Donald Trump is about as ethically challenged when it comes to golfing as he is in the rest of his life.
Hachette Books announced Wednesday that Rick Reilly's "Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump" will come out next May. Hachette is calling the book a close study of Trump's "ethics deficit" on the course and what it says about him as a leader. Reilly is a longtime contributor to Sports Illustrated and CNN. He's basing his book on firsthand observations, along with interviews with everyone from golfing partners to caddies.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin has up until recently been a very big Trump supporter, so this report ads to rumors from a couple of weeks ago—reported by Spin magazine—that the two yucky men have had a falling out. Either way, Trump’s been a terrible drain on our country, not only financially, but emotionally, psychologically, and philosophically.
Many of the expenses emanate from Trump's Mar-a-Lago excursions. And, get this ... since taking office Trump has reportedly spent 153 days at golf properties, which explains why the golf cart rental is sky high.
Since Trump took office, the total expense of his golf outings cost taxpayers an estimated $77 MILLION.
According to TMZ, those costs do not include all of the golfing Trump has done abroad. Trump’s “golfing prowess” is based on him cheating and lying and being a rather average person with lots of money and power. In fact, bestselling author Rick Reilly is going to release a book soon about the fact that Donald Trump is about as ethically challenged when it comes to golfing as he is in the rest of his life.
Hachette Books announced Wednesday that Rick Reilly's "Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump" will come out next May. Hachette is calling the book a close study of Trump's "ethics deficit" on the course and what it says about him as a leader. Reilly is a longtime contributor to Sports Illustrated and CNN. He's basing his book on firsthand observations, along with interviews with everyone from golfing partners to caddies.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin has up until recently been a very big Trump supporter, so this report ads to rumors from a couple of weeks ago—reported by Spin magazine—that the two yucky men have had a falling out. Either way, Trump’s been a terrible drain on our country, not only financially, but emotionally, psychologically, and philosophically.
the whole administration is a fraud!!!
Revealed: Trump inauguration crowd photos were edited after he intervened
Jon Swaine in New York - the guardian
9/6/18
A government photographer edited official pictures of Donald Trump’s inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger following a personal intervention from the president, according to newly released documents.
The photographer cropped out empty space “where the crowd ended” for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009.
The detail was revealed in investigative reports released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act by the inspector general of the US interior department. They shed new light on the first self-inflicted crisis of Trump’s presidency, when his White House falsely claimed he had attracted the biggest ever inauguration audience.
The records detail a scramble within the National Park Service (NPS) on 21 January 2017 after an early-morning phone call between Trump and the acting NPS director, Michael Reynolds. They also state that Sean Spicer, then White House press secretary, called NPS officials repeatedly that day in pursuit of the more flattering photographs.
It was not clear from the records which photographs were edited and whether they were released publicly.
The newly disclosed details were not included in the inspector general’s office’s final report on its inquiry into the saga, which was published in June last year and gave a different account of the NPS photographer’s actions.
By the time Trump spoke on the telephone with Reynolds on the morning after the inauguration, then-and-now pictures of the national mall were circulating online showing that Trump’s crowd fell short of Obama’s. A reporter’s tweet containing one such pair of images was retweeted by the official NPS Twitter account.
An NPS communications official, whose name was redacted in the released files, told investigators that Reynolds called her after speaking with the president and said Trump wanted pictures from the inauguration. She said “she got the impression that President Trump wanted to see pictures that appeared to depict more spectators in the crowd”, and that the images released so far showed “a lot of empty areas”.
The communications official said she “assumed” the photographs Trump was requesting “needed to be cropped”, but that Reynolds did not ask for this specifically. She then contacted the NPS photographer who had covered the event the day before.
A second official, from the NPS public affairs department, told investigators that Spicer called her office on the morning of 21 January and asked for pictures that “accurately represented the inauguration crowd size”.
In this official’s view, Spicer’s request amounted to “a request for NPS to provide photographs in which it appeared the inauguration crowd filled the majority of the space in the photograph”. She told investigators that she, too, contacted the NPS photographer to ask for additional shots.
The NPS photographer, whose name was also redacted, told investigators he was contacted by an unidentified official who asked for “any photographs that showed the inauguration crowd sizes”. Having filed 25 photographs on inauguration day, he was asked to go back to his office and “edit a few more” for a second submission.
“He said he edited the inauguration photographs to make them look more symmetrical by cropping out the sky and cropping out the bottom where the crowd ended,” the investigators reported, adding: “He said he did so to show that there had been more of a crowd.”
The investigators said the photographer believed the cropping was what the official “had wanted him to do”, but that the official “had not specifically asked him to crop the photographs to show more of a crowd”.
A summary in the inspector general’s final report said the photographer told investigators “he selected a number of photos, based on his professional judgment, that concentrated on the area of the national mall where most of the crowd was standing”.
Asked to account for the discrepancy, Nancy DiPaolo, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, said the cropping was not mentioned in the final report because the photographer told investigators this was his “standard artistic practice”. But investigators did not note this in the write-up of their interview.[...]
The photographer cropped out empty space “where the crowd ended” for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009.
The detail was revealed in investigative reports released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act by the inspector general of the US interior department. They shed new light on the first self-inflicted crisis of Trump’s presidency, when his White House falsely claimed he had attracted the biggest ever inauguration audience.
The records detail a scramble within the National Park Service (NPS) on 21 January 2017 after an early-morning phone call between Trump and the acting NPS director, Michael Reynolds. They also state that Sean Spicer, then White House press secretary, called NPS officials repeatedly that day in pursuit of the more flattering photographs.
It was not clear from the records which photographs were edited and whether they were released publicly.
The newly disclosed details were not included in the inspector general’s office’s final report on its inquiry into the saga, which was published in June last year and gave a different account of the NPS photographer’s actions.
By the time Trump spoke on the telephone with Reynolds on the morning after the inauguration, then-and-now pictures of the national mall were circulating online showing that Trump’s crowd fell short of Obama’s. A reporter’s tweet containing one such pair of images was retweeted by the official NPS Twitter account.
An NPS communications official, whose name was redacted in the released files, told investigators that Reynolds called her after speaking with the president and said Trump wanted pictures from the inauguration. She said “she got the impression that President Trump wanted to see pictures that appeared to depict more spectators in the crowd”, and that the images released so far showed “a lot of empty areas”.
The communications official said she “assumed” the photographs Trump was requesting “needed to be cropped”, but that Reynolds did not ask for this specifically. She then contacted the NPS photographer who had covered the event the day before.
A second official, from the NPS public affairs department, told investigators that Spicer called her office on the morning of 21 January and asked for pictures that “accurately represented the inauguration crowd size”.
In this official’s view, Spicer’s request amounted to “a request for NPS to provide photographs in which it appeared the inauguration crowd filled the majority of the space in the photograph”. She told investigators that she, too, contacted the NPS photographer to ask for additional shots.
The NPS photographer, whose name was also redacted, told investigators he was contacted by an unidentified official who asked for “any photographs that showed the inauguration crowd sizes”. Having filed 25 photographs on inauguration day, he was asked to go back to his office and “edit a few more” for a second submission.
“He said he edited the inauguration photographs to make them look more symmetrical by cropping out the sky and cropping out the bottom where the crowd ended,” the investigators reported, adding: “He said he did so to show that there had been more of a crowd.”
The investigators said the photographer believed the cropping was what the official “had wanted him to do”, but that the official “had not specifically asked him to crop the photographs to show more of a crowd”.
A summary in the inspector general’s final report said the photographer told investigators “he selected a number of photos, based on his professional judgment, that concentrated on the area of the national mall where most of the crowd was standing”.
Asked to account for the discrepancy, Nancy DiPaolo, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, said the cropping was not mentioned in the final report because the photographer told investigators this was his “standard artistic practice”. But investigators did not note this in the write-up of their interview.[...]
Trump said that condemning Charlottesville neo-Nazis was ‘the biggest fUcking mistake I’ve made’: Bob Woodward
Brad Reed - RAW STORY
04 SEP 2018 AT 11:50 ET
Bob Woodward’s new book on President Donald Trump — titled “Fear: Inside the Trump White House” — is filled with explosive revelations about Trump’s presidency.
One of the most explosive has to do with the president’s handling of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2017, in which the president said that there were “very fine people” on “both sides” of the demonstration.
According to a leaked excerpt obtained by the Washington Post, Trump deeply resented being forced to come out and specifically condemn white nationalists after being advised by aides that he needed to do so to make clear that he was opposed to racism.
“That was the biggest f*cking mistake I’ve made,” Trump told advisers shortly after giving a speech that condemned Nazis, according to Woodward’s sources, who also say Trump called the speech “the worst” he’d ever given.
Woodward also reports that former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn, who is Jewish, threatened to resign after Trump’s Charlottesville performance, but was convinced to stay aboard by the president, who accused him of “treason” for thinking of stepping down.
Chief of staff John Kelly, whom Woodward also reports believes Trump is an “idiot,”told Cohn that he was similarly horrified by Trump’s performance and also considered resigning from his post.
RELATED: Trump’s staff staged a ‘coup’ to stop him from destroying nation: Woodward
Pr*sdent’s own staff staged a quiet “coup” to prevent “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world,” according to a new book by Pulitzer-winning Watergate reporter Bob Woodward.
One of the most explosive has to do with the president’s handling of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2017, in which the president said that there were “very fine people” on “both sides” of the demonstration.
According to a leaked excerpt obtained by the Washington Post, Trump deeply resented being forced to come out and specifically condemn white nationalists after being advised by aides that he needed to do so to make clear that he was opposed to racism.
“That was the biggest f*cking mistake I’ve made,” Trump told advisers shortly after giving a speech that condemned Nazis, according to Woodward’s sources, who also say Trump called the speech “the worst” he’d ever given.
Woodward also reports that former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn, who is Jewish, threatened to resign after Trump’s Charlottesville performance, but was convinced to stay aboard by the president, who accused him of “treason” for thinking of stepping down.
Chief of staff John Kelly, whom Woodward also reports believes Trump is an “idiot,”told Cohn that he was similarly horrified by Trump’s performance and also considered resigning from his post.
RELATED: Trump’s staff staged a ‘coup’ to stop him from destroying nation: Woodward
Pr*sdent’s own staff staged a quiet “coup” to prevent “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world,” according to a new book by Pulitzer-winning Watergate reporter Bob Woodward.
Trump tried to buy up decades worth of dirt the National Enquirer had on him: report
Tom Boggioni - raw story
30 AUG 2018 AT 07:30 ET
According to a report at the New York Times, the scandal tabloid National Enquirer had an accumulation of stories acquired over decades on Donald Trump that he made efforts to purchase.
Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, put together a plan to buy all of those stories in order to bury them, in much the same way that they buried the story about his reported affair to adult actress Stormy Daniels, by using possibly illegal payoffs.
According to the report, a phone conversation taped by Cohen had him saying, “It’s all the stuff — all the stuff, because you never know.”
The Times based their report on insiders who knew about the discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity, so as not to be drawn into the legal cases swirling around both Cohen and the president.
The report goes on to state that the two never followed through but that it was “strongly hinted at in a recording that Mr. Cohen’s lawyer released last month of a conversation about payoffs that Mr. Cohen had with Mr. Trump.”
According to the report, it was not disclosed how much the Enquirer and it’s owner, American Media, has on Trump and whether any of that information has been handed over to federal investigators.
You can read the whole report here.
Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, put together a plan to buy all of those stories in order to bury them, in much the same way that they buried the story about his reported affair to adult actress Stormy Daniels, by using possibly illegal payoffs.
According to the report, a phone conversation taped by Cohen had him saying, “It’s all the stuff — all the stuff, because you never know.”
The Times based their report on insiders who knew about the discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity, so as not to be drawn into the legal cases swirling around both Cohen and the president.
The report goes on to state that the two never followed through but that it was “strongly hinted at in a recording that Mr. Cohen’s lawyer released last month of a conversation about payoffs that Mr. Cohen had with Mr. Trump.”
According to the report, it was not disclosed how much the Enquirer and it’s owner, American Media, has on Trump and whether any of that information has been handed over to federal investigators.
You can read the whole report here.
child stealing is not enough!!!
Trump Administration Borrows a Cruel Page from His Past: Questioning Citizens' Birth Certificates
This is a dark turn, even for the Trump administration.
By Cody Fenwick / AlterNet
August 29, 2018, 11:55 AM GMT
President Donald Trump's harmful and clearly racist obsession with enforcing draconian immigration restrictions has taken another pernicious turn and appears to be targeting hundreds of Hispanic Americans who live near the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a new report from the Washington Post.
The new report found that hundreds, if not thousands, of people living on the border have been denied passports by the State Department over skepticism about their birth certificates. It's true, the report says, that some midwives in the area have created falsified birth records in the past, but many of these same people created legitimate birth records as well.
When it can't confirm that the document is legitimate, it seems, the department errs on the side of denying the passport. In one case the Postdocumented, a man provided additional evidence of his birthplace after being initially denied, only to be denied once again. He had to hire a lawyer to continue to appeal the decision — a move that can very costly for people with low incomes.
The practice also raises disturbing parallels with the issue that brought Trump into the modern political scene: Falsely attacking the legitimacy of President Barack Obama's birth certificate.
The State Department told the Post that it has not changed its policies with regard to passport applications. The report adds: "But cases identified by The Washington Post and interviews with immigration attorneys suggest a dramatic shift in both passport issuance and immigration enforcement."
Some of the people who have been denied passports have later even been jailed and placed into deportation proceedings, according to the Post.
The stunning report reveals the depths to which the administration will sink in its campaign against immigrants — or even just people it thinks might be immigrants. There's absolutely no reason that people who have lived in the United States their whole lives, who have official paperwork demonstrating their citizenship, should bear the burden of proof to show that their documentation is not a forgery.
The new report found that hundreds, if not thousands, of people living on the border have been denied passports by the State Department over skepticism about their birth certificates. It's true, the report says, that some midwives in the area have created falsified birth records in the past, but many of these same people created legitimate birth records as well.
When it can't confirm that the document is legitimate, it seems, the department errs on the side of denying the passport. In one case the Postdocumented, a man provided additional evidence of his birthplace after being initially denied, only to be denied once again. He had to hire a lawyer to continue to appeal the decision — a move that can very costly for people with low incomes.
The practice also raises disturbing parallels with the issue that brought Trump into the modern political scene: Falsely attacking the legitimacy of President Barack Obama's birth certificate.
The State Department told the Post that it has not changed its policies with regard to passport applications. The report adds: "But cases identified by The Washington Post and interviews with immigration attorneys suggest a dramatic shift in both passport issuance and immigration enforcement."
Some of the people who have been denied passports have later even been jailed and placed into deportation proceedings, according to the Post.
The stunning report reveals the depths to which the administration will sink in its campaign against immigrants — or even just people it thinks might be immigrants. There's absolutely no reason that people who have lived in the United States their whole lives, who have official paperwork demonstrating their citizenship, should bear the burden of proof to show that their documentation is not a forgery.
foolspeak!!!
Donald Trump: Google’s news service is rigged against me
US president claims ‘Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good’
Jim Waterson Media editor
the guardian
Tue 28 Aug 2018 07.19 EDT
Donald Trump has used a series of early morning tweets to complain that Google’s news service is “rigged” against him and has pledged to address this “very serious” situation.
The US president said the existing system was biased in favour of stories from leftwing news outlets and suggested tech companies were trying to hide positive stories about his administration.
Trump also stated that 96% of Google News results for “Trump” were from leftwing outlets, which he described as “very dangerous”.
It is likely the US president was referring to a viral news story posted on Saturday by the website PJ Media, which concluded that the vast majority of Google News results for the president were from left-leaning outlets. The site used a classification that ranks almost every mainstream news outlet – other than Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and DailyMail.com – as leftwing.
PJ Media said its survey of the top 100 Google News results for the search term “Trump” was “not scientific” but suggested “a pattern of bias against right-leaning content”.
Google never reveals how its algorithm works, partly to stop news organisations from gaming the system in order to boost their ranking. Google News results can be a substantial driver of traffic for websites, with the system relying on a vast number of signals when it comes to ranking news stories, potentially including a news site’s long-term reputation and popularity.
The US president’s tweets – sent at 5.24am Washington DC time – are the latest in a string of attacks by Trump on major tech companies, as part of his ongoing criticism of the media.
Earlier this month, he said that “too many voices are being destroyed” by social networks, who have become increasingly willing to ban prominent individuals who have broken their rules, such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The US president said the existing system was biased in favour of stories from leftwing news outlets and suggested tech companies were trying to hide positive stories about his administration.
Trump also stated that 96% of Google News results for “Trump” were from leftwing outlets, which he described as “very dangerous”.
It is likely the US president was referring to a viral news story posted on Saturday by the website PJ Media, which concluded that the vast majority of Google News results for the president were from left-leaning outlets. The site used a classification that ranks almost every mainstream news outlet – other than Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and DailyMail.com – as leftwing.
PJ Media said its survey of the top 100 Google News results for the search term “Trump” was “not scientific” but suggested “a pattern of bias against right-leaning content”.
Google never reveals how its algorithm works, partly to stop news organisations from gaming the system in order to boost their ranking. Google News results can be a substantial driver of traffic for websites, with the system relying on a vast number of signals when it comes to ranking news stories, potentially including a news site’s long-term reputation and popularity.
The US president’s tweets – sent at 5.24am Washington DC time – are the latest in a string of attacks by Trump on major tech companies, as part of his ongoing criticism of the media.
Earlier this month, he said that “too many voices are being destroyed” by social networks, who have become increasingly willing to ban prominent individuals who have broken their rules, such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Trump was involved in scuttling FBI building across from Trump’s DC Hotel: Inspector General report
Bob Brigham - raw story
27 AUG 2018 AT 16:19 ET
The Inspector General of the General Services Administration on Monday released an in-depth report showing President Donald Trump was involved in scuttling plans by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to build a new headquarters.
The president was mentioned over three dozen times in the report.
The Inspector General report found that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy’s testimony before Congress on the scandal, “was incomplete and may have left the misleading impression that she had no discussions with the President or senior White House officials in the decision-making process about the project.”
The Trump administration invoked executive privilege to prevent the inspector general from learning exactly what was said when President Trump allegedly intervened in the rebuilding process.
The FBI plan would have created a large construction zone across the street from Trump’s luxury DC hotel.
The investigation was initiated by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the Vice Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“This IG report demonstrates that Administration officials obscured the White House’s involvement in the FBI headquarters project,” Connolly concluded.
“When we began this investigation, the prospect that President Trump was personally involved in the government-led redevelopment of a property in close proximity to the Trump Hotel was dismissed as a conspiracy theory,” he added. “Now, the president’s involvement in this multi-billion-dollar government procurement which will directly impact his bottom line has been confirmed by the White House Press Secretary and government photographs.”
Connolly also urged further investigation.
“This IG report is only the beginning. We must develop a comprehensive understanding of the President’s involvement in this procurement and what it has cost the United States in terms of both national security and taxpayer dollars. I am calling on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to convene immediate hearings on this matter and to subpoena any GSA officials who are suspected of misleading Congress,” he demanded.
Read the full report (PDF).
The president was mentioned over three dozen times in the report.
The Inspector General report found that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy’s testimony before Congress on the scandal, “was incomplete and may have left the misleading impression that she had no discussions with the President or senior White House officials in the decision-making process about the project.”
The Trump administration invoked executive privilege to prevent the inspector general from learning exactly what was said when President Trump allegedly intervened in the rebuilding process.
The FBI plan would have created a large construction zone across the street from Trump’s luxury DC hotel.
The investigation was initiated by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the Vice Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“This IG report demonstrates that Administration officials obscured the White House’s involvement in the FBI headquarters project,” Connolly concluded.
“When we began this investigation, the prospect that President Trump was personally involved in the government-led redevelopment of a property in close proximity to the Trump Hotel was dismissed as a conspiracy theory,” he added. “Now, the president’s involvement in this multi-billion-dollar government procurement which will directly impact his bottom line has been confirmed by the White House Press Secretary and government photographs.”
Connolly also urged further investigation.
“This IG report is only the beginning. We must develop a comprehensive understanding of the President’s involvement in this procurement and what it has cost the United States in terms of both national security and taxpayer dollars. I am calling on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to convene immediate hearings on this matter and to subpoena any GSA officials who are suspected of misleading Congress,” he demanded.
Read the full report (PDF).
TRUMP DENIES MCCAIN 'HERO' STATEMENT FROM WHITE HOUSE, BUT FORMER ARIZONA SENATOR MAY HAVE LAST LAUGH
BY JAMES HETHERINGTON - newsweek
ON 8/27/18 AT 6:05 AM
President Donald Trump has reportedly vetoed a White House statement that would have extolled the late Arizona Senator John McCain as a hero.
White House aides had prepared a statement that lauded McCain for his time in the military and politics, and they were ready to release it—until Trump stepped in. The president told his staff that he wanted to post a tweet instead. His tweet, which was uploaded on Sunday, did not mention any of McCain’s achievements.
“My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain,” Trump tweeted. “Our hearts and prayers are with you.”
According to The Washington Post, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, chief of staff John Kelly and other White House aides wanted to release an official White House statement. Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for Trump’s legal team, called Trump's decision “atrocious.”
“At a time like this, you would expect more of an American president when you’re talking about the passing of a true American hero,” Corallo said, reported The Post.
McCain died on Saturday after his family announced he would not continue with treatment against aggressive brain cancer. He died on Saturday, surrounded by his family.
It seems McCain, who had a bitter relationship with Trump, had one last shot to fire at the U.S. President. According to CNN, McCain specifically requested that Donald Trump not be invited to his funeral. McCain will lie in state in both the Arizona Capitol and the U.S. Capitol rotunda before the funeral service in Washington National Cathedral and burial in Annapolis, Maryland.
Trump and McCain exchanged fighting words in the past, perhaps most viciously when Trump said McCain was a “war hero only because he got caught,” and that he preferred “people who didn’t get captured.” McCain was a Vietnam prisoner of war for almost six years, enduring regular beatings and torture. He was offered an early release but refused it unless every other soldier was freed.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will be tasked with finding McCain's replacement for his vacant Senate seat. Whomever Ducey selects will remain in the seat until a special election is held in November 2020. The winner of that election will hold the seat until 2022.
Ducey has not said said whom he might select to fill the seat, out of respect for McCain.
In a statement following McCain’s death, Ducey said: “We’re most proud to call him a fellow Arizonan.
“Like so many of us, he was not born here, but his spirit, service and fierce independence shaped the state with which he became synonymous.”
White House aides had prepared a statement that lauded McCain for his time in the military and politics, and they were ready to release it—until Trump stepped in. The president told his staff that he wanted to post a tweet instead. His tweet, which was uploaded on Sunday, did not mention any of McCain’s achievements.
“My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain,” Trump tweeted. “Our hearts and prayers are with you.”
According to The Washington Post, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, chief of staff John Kelly and other White House aides wanted to release an official White House statement. Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for Trump’s legal team, called Trump's decision “atrocious.”
“At a time like this, you would expect more of an American president when you’re talking about the passing of a true American hero,” Corallo said, reported The Post.
McCain died on Saturday after his family announced he would not continue with treatment against aggressive brain cancer. He died on Saturday, surrounded by his family.
It seems McCain, who had a bitter relationship with Trump, had one last shot to fire at the U.S. President. According to CNN, McCain specifically requested that Donald Trump not be invited to his funeral. McCain will lie in state in both the Arizona Capitol and the U.S. Capitol rotunda before the funeral service in Washington National Cathedral and burial in Annapolis, Maryland.
Trump and McCain exchanged fighting words in the past, perhaps most viciously when Trump said McCain was a “war hero only because he got caught,” and that he preferred “people who didn’t get captured.” McCain was a Vietnam prisoner of war for almost six years, enduring regular beatings and torture. He was offered an early release but refused it unless every other soldier was freed.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will be tasked with finding McCain's replacement for his vacant Senate seat. Whomever Ducey selects will remain in the seat until a special election is held in November 2020. The winner of that election will hold the seat until 2022.
Ducey has not said said whom he might select to fill the seat, out of respect for McCain.
In a statement following McCain’s death, Ducey said: “We’re most proud to call him a fellow Arizonan.
“Like so many of us, he was not born here, but his spirit, service and fierce independence shaped the state with which he became synonymous.”
Exclusive: Ex-Trump World Tower doorman releases 'catch-and-kill' contract about alleged Trump affair
By Sonia Moghe, CNN
Updated 11:15 PM ET, Fri August 24, 2018
(CNN)A former Trump World Tower doorman who says he has knowledge of an alleged affair President Donald Trump had with an ex-housekeeper, which resulted in a child, is now able to talk about a contract he entered with American Media Inc. that had prohibited him from discussing the matter with anyone, according to his attorney.
On Friday, Marc Held -- the attorney for Dino Sajudin, the former doorman -- said his client had been released from his contract with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, "recently" after back-and-forth discussions with AMI.
CNN has exclusively obtained a copy of the "source agreement" between Sajudin and AMI, which is owned by David Pecker.
The contract appears to have been signed on Nov. 15, 2015, and states that AMI has exclusive rights to Sajudin's story but does not mention the details of the story itself beyond saying, "Source shall provide AMI with information regarding Donald Trump's illegitimate child..."
The contract states that "AMI will not owe Source any compensation if AMI does not publish the Exclusive..." and the top of the agreement shows that Sajudin could receive a sum of $30,000 "payable upon publication as set forth below."
But the third page of the agreement shows that about a month later, the parties signed an amendment that states that Sajudin would be paid $30,000 within five days of receiving the amendment. It says the "exclusivity period" laid out in the agreement "is extended in perpetuity and shall not expire."
The amendment also establishes a $1 million payment that Sajudin would be responsible for making to AMI "in the event Source breaches this provision."
"Mr. Sajudin has been unable to discuss the circumstances regarding his deal with American Media Inc. and the story that he sold to them, due to a significant financial penalty," Held told CNN. "Just recently, AMI released Mr. Sajudin from the terms of his agreement and he is now able to speak about his personal experience with them, as well as his story, which is now known to be one of the 'catch and kill' pieces. Mr. Sajudin hopes the truth will come out in the very near future."
In April, Sajudin told CNN he claims to have knowledge of a relationship Trump had with his former housekeeper that resulted in a child.
At the time, AMI called Sajudin's story "not credible" and denied any connection between the story and Trump and his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen.
The White House did not respond to CNN's requests for comments in April.
CNN has contacted AMI to clarify whether Sajudin has now been released from the contract to be able to speak on terms of the agreement and to seek reaction on this latest development, but has yet to receive a response.
Sajudin's allegation that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock has not been independently confirmed by any of the outlets that have investigated the story.
Held said he cannot give the exact date the agreement was terminated, per another agreement the attorney made with AMI in order to get his client out of the contract.
Held said that now that Sajudin has been released from the agreement with AMI, he would no longer be liable for a payment for speaking out.
"He's a blue-collar worker and a million dollars would have ruined him for life," Held told CNN.
What the doorman claims to know
When the story surfaced in April, Sajudin told CNN about the alleged relationship in a statement:
"Today I awoke to learn that a confidential agreement that I had with AMI (The National Enquirer) with regard to a story about President Trump was leaked to the press. I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower I was instructed not to criticize President Trump's former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump, which produced a child."
The Associated Press reported in April that Cohen "acknowledged to the AP that he had discussed Sajudin's story with the magazine when the tabloid was working on it. He said he was acting as a Trump spokesman when he did so and denied knowing anything beforehand about the Enquirer payment to the ex-doorman."
Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of tax fraud, false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations tied to his work for Trump.
In that deal, he pleaded guilty to paying $130,000 to former adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to conceal her story of an alleged affair with Trump. He also pleaded guilty to working with AMI to pay off former Playboy model Karen McDougal in a similar "catch and kill" agreement in order to keep her allegations of an affair with Trump from being published. Trump has denied an affair with both women.
Pecker has received immunity in the Cohen case for providing details of the payments to prosecutors, a source confirmed to CNN on Friday.
On Friday, Marc Held -- the attorney for Dino Sajudin, the former doorman -- said his client had been released from his contract with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, "recently" after back-and-forth discussions with AMI.
CNN has exclusively obtained a copy of the "source agreement" between Sajudin and AMI, which is owned by David Pecker.
The contract appears to have been signed on Nov. 15, 2015, and states that AMI has exclusive rights to Sajudin's story but does not mention the details of the story itself beyond saying, "Source shall provide AMI with information regarding Donald Trump's illegitimate child..."
The contract states that "AMI will not owe Source any compensation if AMI does not publish the Exclusive..." and the top of the agreement shows that Sajudin could receive a sum of $30,000 "payable upon publication as set forth below."
But the third page of the agreement shows that about a month later, the parties signed an amendment that states that Sajudin would be paid $30,000 within five days of receiving the amendment. It says the "exclusivity period" laid out in the agreement "is extended in perpetuity and shall not expire."
The amendment also establishes a $1 million payment that Sajudin would be responsible for making to AMI "in the event Source breaches this provision."
"Mr. Sajudin has been unable to discuss the circumstances regarding his deal with American Media Inc. and the story that he sold to them, due to a significant financial penalty," Held told CNN. "Just recently, AMI released Mr. Sajudin from the terms of his agreement and he is now able to speak about his personal experience with them, as well as his story, which is now known to be one of the 'catch and kill' pieces. Mr. Sajudin hopes the truth will come out in the very near future."
In April, Sajudin told CNN he claims to have knowledge of a relationship Trump had with his former housekeeper that resulted in a child.
At the time, AMI called Sajudin's story "not credible" and denied any connection between the story and Trump and his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen.
The White House did not respond to CNN's requests for comments in April.
CNN has contacted AMI to clarify whether Sajudin has now been released from the contract to be able to speak on terms of the agreement and to seek reaction on this latest development, but has yet to receive a response.
Sajudin's allegation that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock has not been independently confirmed by any of the outlets that have investigated the story.
Held said he cannot give the exact date the agreement was terminated, per another agreement the attorney made with AMI in order to get his client out of the contract.
Held said that now that Sajudin has been released from the agreement with AMI, he would no longer be liable for a payment for speaking out.
"He's a blue-collar worker and a million dollars would have ruined him for life," Held told CNN.
What the doorman claims to know
When the story surfaced in April, Sajudin told CNN about the alleged relationship in a statement:
"Today I awoke to learn that a confidential agreement that I had with AMI (The National Enquirer) with regard to a story about President Trump was leaked to the press. I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower I was instructed not to criticize President Trump's former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump, which produced a child."
The Associated Press reported in April that Cohen "acknowledged to the AP that he had discussed Sajudin's story with the magazine when the tabloid was working on it. He said he was acting as a Trump spokesman when he did so and denied knowing anything beforehand about the Enquirer payment to the ex-doorman."
Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of tax fraud, false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations tied to his work for Trump.
In that deal, he pleaded guilty to paying $130,000 to former adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to conceal her story of an alleged affair with Trump. He also pleaded guilty to working with AMI to pay off former Playboy model Karen McDougal in a similar "catch and kill" agreement in order to keep her allegations of an affair with Trump from being published. Trump has denied an affair with both women.
Pecker has received immunity in the Cohen case for providing details of the payments to prosecutors, a source confirmed to CNN on Friday.
South Africa Condemns Trump's Tweet of Racist Farm Attack Conspiracy Theory
Trump seemingly endorsed a conspiracy theory about South African farm attacks being a plot to exterminate white people.
By Matthew Chapman / AlterNet
August 23, 2018, 2:59 AM GMT
On Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump stunned political observers when he tweeted a demand for the U.S. government to look into the "large scale killing of farmers" in South Africa.
I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2018His tweet drew an angry response from the government of South Africa on Thursday morning. "South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past."
In reality, murders among South African farmers are at a 19-year low. But an ongoing conspiracy theory in white nationalist circles alleges attacks against white farmers in South Africa are a systematic plot to steal the land of white people and exterminate them from the country. Numerous white supremacists cheered Trump's apparent endorsement of this belief, from far-right activist Lauren Southern, to Charlottesville "Unite the Right Rally" organizer Jason Kessler, to racist organizations like Identity Evropa.
More broadly, there is a narrative among white supremacists that South Africa's brutal apartheid regime — which subjugated the country's black majority, deprived them of virtually all rights, banned interracial marriage, and forced hundreds of thousands of people off their land and into segregated ghettoes called "townships" — was one of the only civilized societies in Africa, and that its toppling in the early 1990s was a mortal blow to the white race. This is exemplified by Dylann Roof, the white supremacist gunman who murdered 9 black churchgoers in Charleston, who wore the flag of the apartheid South African government on his jacket in a Facebook image.
The idea South African farm attacks are a mass conspiracy to commit white genocide has increasingly trickled into mainstream right-wing organizations. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and his frequent guest speaker Mark Steyn, promote the idea regularly. In fact, Trump's tweet tags "@TuckerCarlson" and "@FoxNews", suggesting that it was Carlson who put the idea in Trump's head.
I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2018His tweet drew an angry response from the government of South Africa on Thursday morning. "South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past."
In reality, murders among South African farmers are at a 19-year low. But an ongoing conspiracy theory in white nationalist circles alleges attacks against white farmers in South Africa are a systematic plot to steal the land of white people and exterminate them from the country. Numerous white supremacists cheered Trump's apparent endorsement of this belief, from far-right activist Lauren Southern, to Charlottesville "Unite the Right Rally" organizer Jason Kessler, to racist organizations like Identity Evropa.
More broadly, there is a narrative among white supremacists that South Africa's brutal apartheid regime — which subjugated the country's black majority, deprived them of virtually all rights, banned interracial marriage, and forced hundreds of thousands of people off their land and into segregated ghettoes called "townships" — was one of the only civilized societies in Africa, and that its toppling in the early 1990s was a mortal blow to the white race. This is exemplified by Dylann Roof, the white supremacist gunman who murdered 9 black churchgoers in Charleston, who wore the flag of the apartheid South African government on his jacket in a Facebook image.
The idea South African farm attacks are a mass conspiracy to commit white genocide has increasingly trickled into mainstream right-wing organizations. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and his frequent guest speaker Mark Steyn, promote the idea regularly. In fact, Trump's tweet tags "@TuckerCarlson" and "@FoxNews", suggesting that it was Carlson who put the idea in Trump's head.
Trump's future
no surprise!!!
Top Trump Adviser Was Just Busted Hanging Out With Publisher of White Nationalists
Peter Brimelow is the publisher of the overt white supremacist website VDare. Larry Kudlow invited him to his house.
By Matthew Chapman / AlterNet
August 21, 2018, 3:18 PM GMT
According to a Washington Postreport on Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow invited a man notorious for publishing the work of white nationalists into his home for his birthday celebration.
Kudlow told the Post that he has known the publisher Peter Brimelow since "forever," and that they first became acquainted while they were both working as financial journalists. He further says that Brimelow's extreme views were "a side of Peter that I don't know, and I totally, utterly disagree with that point of view and have my whole life."
But Brimelow's extensive involvement in overtly racist causes is well documented, as the Post pointed out:
Brimelow, 70, was once a well-connected figure in mainstream conservative circles, writing for Dow Jones and National Review. But over the past two decades, he has become a zealous promoter of white-identity politics on Vdare.com, the anti-immigration website that he founded in 1999.
While Brimelow has long personally rejected the label of "white nationalist," he acknowledged to the Harvard Crimson in 2016 that his website does "certainly publish a few writers I would regard as 'white nationalist' in that they stand up for whites just as Zionists, black nationalists do for Jews, blacks, etc."
In fact, VDare is a lot more than simply "anti-immigration." It has publishedarticles claiming that "Jewish activity" is a "highly successful group competitive strategy directed against neighboring peoples and host societies," and that "America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people." Brimelow himself told a 2017 conference of white supremacists that Trump was right to call Mexicans rapists because "Hispanics do specialize in rape, particularly of children. They're very prone to it, compared to other groups."
Kudlow is not even the only Trump official with ties to Brimelow. Earlier this month, White House speechwriter Darren Beattie was terminated after the media began looking into his 2016 appearance with Brimelow on a panel at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club conference.
Kudlow told the Post that he has known the publisher Peter Brimelow since "forever," and that they first became acquainted while they were both working as financial journalists. He further says that Brimelow's extreme views were "a side of Peter that I don't know, and I totally, utterly disagree with that point of view and have my whole life."
But Brimelow's extensive involvement in overtly racist causes is well documented, as the Post pointed out:
Brimelow, 70, was once a well-connected figure in mainstream conservative circles, writing for Dow Jones and National Review. But over the past two decades, he has become a zealous promoter of white-identity politics on Vdare.com, the anti-immigration website that he founded in 1999.
While Brimelow has long personally rejected the label of "white nationalist," he acknowledged to the Harvard Crimson in 2016 that his website does "certainly publish a few writers I would regard as 'white nationalist' in that they stand up for whites just as Zionists, black nationalists do for Jews, blacks, etc."
In fact, VDare is a lot more than simply "anti-immigration." It has publishedarticles claiming that "Jewish activity" is a "highly successful group competitive strategy directed against neighboring peoples and host societies," and that "America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people." Brimelow himself told a 2017 conference of white supremacists that Trump was right to call Mexicans rapists because "Hispanics do specialize in rape, particularly of children. They're very prone to it, compared to other groups."
Kudlow is not even the only Trump official with ties to Brimelow. Earlier this month, White House speechwriter Darren Beattie was terminated after the media began looking into his 2016 appearance with Brimelow on a panel at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club conference.
Pollsters: Trump and GOP are losing young, female voters permanently
the hill
8/20/2018
Pollsters Anna Greenberg and Dan Cox said on Monday that President Trump and Republicans are losing young women to Democrats permanently.
"When you ask millennial women who are likely voters, about 65, 68 percent would actually vote for a Democrat in the generic congressional race, so that puts them as base Democratic voters," Greenberg, a partner at Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, told Hill.TV's Krystal Ball on "What America's Thinking."
"What we know is that in your coming of age years, from sort of your teens into your early 20s, have a profound, long-term impact on what your partisanship and voting patterns are for the rest of your life," she continued.
"So, not only in this moment are these millennial women heavily, heavily Democratic and heavily hostile to Trump, but it's likely that they are going to sort of be the vanguard of, I think, the feminization of the Democratic Party," she said.
Cox, the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, agreed with Greenberg, adding that young, millennial women do not believe Trump supports them on some of the issues they care about.
"I think we're seeing something pretty unique among young women here, separate from young men. We're seeing a growing gender divide among this age group, and I think a lot of this has to do with Trump, but not exclusively," he said.
"This is a generation and an age group that is not enamored with the president, but young women particularly when it comes to reproductive health issues, and other concerns, they think that Trump's just not on their side."
A Pew Research Center study released earlier this year found that the number of women who identify with the Democratic Party rose from 54 percent in 2016 to 56 percent in 2017.
Increased support among women could give Democrats the leverage they need to make gains in the November midterm elections.
"When you ask millennial women who are likely voters, about 65, 68 percent would actually vote for a Democrat in the generic congressional race, so that puts them as base Democratic voters," Greenberg, a partner at Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, told Hill.TV's Krystal Ball on "What America's Thinking."
"What we know is that in your coming of age years, from sort of your teens into your early 20s, have a profound, long-term impact on what your partisanship and voting patterns are for the rest of your life," she continued.
"So, not only in this moment are these millennial women heavily, heavily Democratic and heavily hostile to Trump, but it's likely that they are going to sort of be the vanguard of, I think, the feminization of the Democratic Party," she said.
Cox, the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, agreed with Greenberg, adding that young, millennial women do not believe Trump supports them on some of the issues they care about.
"I think we're seeing something pretty unique among young women here, separate from young men. We're seeing a growing gender divide among this age group, and I think a lot of this has to do with Trump, but not exclusively," he said.
"This is a generation and an age group that is not enamored with the president, but young women particularly when it comes to reproductive health issues, and other concerns, they think that Trump's just not on their side."
A Pew Research Center study released earlier this year found that the number of women who identify with the Democratic Party rose from 54 percent in 2016 to 56 percent in 2017.
Increased support among women could give Democrats the leverage they need to make gains in the November midterm elections.
Here’s how the Russian mob used cash from a multi-billion dollar gas scam to get their hooks into Trump
Travis Gettys - raw story
16 AUG 2018 AT 08:55 ET
President Donald Trump got his start laundering money for the Russian mob more than 30 years ago as part of one of the biggest scams in U.S. history, according to a new book.
Investigative reporter Craig Unger has described Trump Tower as a “cathedral to money laundering,” and his new book — “House of Trump, House of Putin” — examines the depth of the president’s relationship with the Russian mafia, which he says has no meaningful distinction from the country’s intelligence agencies.
Unger traces the links between Trump and the Russian mob back to at least 1984, when a Soviet refugee David Bogatin was looking for a place to stash the millions he was raking in from a gasoline tax scam he was running with the Colombo crime family.
That scam, the largest of its kind in American history, was busted up by federal investigators as part of Operation Red Daisy, which resulted in the indictment of 15 Russian nationals and 10 others for evading more than $140 million in fuel excise taxes.
Bogatin and two associates, Michael Markowitz and Lev Persits, approached Michael Franzese, the son of a notorious underboss in the Colombo organization, in 1980 asking for protection for their own network of sketchy gas stations.
“These Russians were having trouble collecting money owed them,” Franzese later recalled. “They were also having problems obtaining and holding on to the licenses they needed to keep the gas tax scam going.”
Franzese, the son of mob enforcer John “Sonny” Franzese, was not initially impressed by the Russians — he mocked Markowitz’s disco-styled attire and thought Bogatin looked more like an accountant than a mafioso — but agreed to work for them in exchange for 75 percent of their take in the scheme, Unger wrote.
The lopsided deal proved spectacularly successful for both sides, as profits soared to $100 million a month and more than $1 billion a year — but the conspirators needed a place to launder their ill-gotten cash.
“After seven years in New York, Bogatin had stashed away enough money to buy real estate anywhere he wanted,” Unger wrote. “For roughly a decade, thousands of Russian Jews like him had been pouring into Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. But Bogatin had his eyes on something more prestigious.”
Bogatin became fixated on a “garish” 58-story building that had opened a year before — Trump Tower — and he paid $6 million in cash from his fuel tax scheme for five apartments there.
Unger tracked more than 1,300 similar cash transactions at Trump Tower over the next three decades involving mobsters that ensnared the future president in the closely tied web of Russian spies and mobsters.
“Russian Mafia and Russian intelligence operatives successfully targeted, compromised, and implanted either a willfully ignorant or an inexplicably unaware Russian asset in the White House as the most powerful man on earth,” Unger concludes.
“In doing so, without firing a shot, the Russians helped put in power a man who would immediately begin to undermine the Western Alliance,” he added, “which has been the foundation of American national security for more than 70 years; who would start massive trade wars with America’s longtime allies; fuel right‐wing anti‐immigrant populism; and assault the rule of law in the United States.”
Investigative reporter Craig Unger has described Trump Tower as a “cathedral to money laundering,” and his new book — “House of Trump, House of Putin” — examines the depth of the president’s relationship with the Russian mafia, which he says has no meaningful distinction from the country’s intelligence agencies.
Unger traces the links between Trump and the Russian mob back to at least 1984, when a Soviet refugee David Bogatin was looking for a place to stash the millions he was raking in from a gasoline tax scam he was running with the Colombo crime family.
That scam, the largest of its kind in American history, was busted up by federal investigators as part of Operation Red Daisy, which resulted in the indictment of 15 Russian nationals and 10 others for evading more than $140 million in fuel excise taxes.
Bogatin and two associates, Michael Markowitz and Lev Persits, approached Michael Franzese, the son of a notorious underboss in the Colombo organization, in 1980 asking for protection for their own network of sketchy gas stations.
“These Russians were having trouble collecting money owed them,” Franzese later recalled. “They were also having problems obtaining and holding on to the licenses they needed to keep the gas tax scam going.”
Franzese, the son of mob enforcer John “Sonny” Franzese, was not initially impressed by the Russians — he mocked Markowitz’s disco-styled attire and thought Bogatin looked more like an accountant than a mafioso — but agreed to work for them in exchange for 75 percent of their take in the scheme, Unger wrote.
The lopsided deal proved spectacularly successful for both sides, as profits soared to $100 million a month and more than $1 billion a year — but the conspirators needed a place to launder their ill-gotten cash.
“After seven years in New York, Bogatin had stashed away enough money to buy real estate anywhere he wanted,” Unger wrote. “For roughly a decade, thousands of Russian Jews like him had been pouring into Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. But Bogatin had his eyes on something more prestigious.”
Bogatin became fixated on a “garish” 58-story building that had opened a year before — Trump Tower — and he paid $6 million in cash from his fuel tax scheme for five apartments there.
Unger tracked more than 1,300 similar cash transactions at Trump Tower over the next three decades involving mobsters that ensnared the future president in the closely tied web of Russian spies and mobsters.
“Russian Mafia and Russian intelligence operatives successfully targeted, compromised, and implanted either a willfully ignorant or an inexplicably unaware Russian asset in the White House as the most powerful man on earth,” Unger concludes.
“In doing so, without firing a shot, the Russians helped put in power a man who would immediately begin to undermine the Western Alliance,” he added, “which has been the foundation of American national security for more than 70 years; who would start massive trade wars with America’s longtime allies; fuel right‐wing anti‐immigrant populism; and assault the rule of law in the United States.”
Trump Staffer Tried to Recruit Lobbyists for Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich
Once he worked to get Donald Trump into the White House. Then he started doing favors on behalf of someone else—one of Russia’s richest men.
BETSY WOODRUFF - daily beast
08.15.18 9:00 PM ET
In the time since the election, a little-known Trump campaign staffer named Daniel Gelbinovich reached out to a number of Washington lobbyists with an eyebrow-raising ask: to shield a Putin ally from U.S. sanctions.
Two lobbyists—speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter—told The Daily Beast that Gelbinovich approached them and told them he was trying to help Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch worth more than $11 billion, find a lobbyist to help keep him from being added to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
Gelbinovich confirmed this reporting.
“I approached the lobbyists on behalf of a private equity firm that requested outreach for this type of work,” he said in an email to The Daily Beast. “The firm claimed that this outreach was on behalf of the individual you mentioned. I do not have a direct connection to Mr. Abramovich myself.”
Gelbinovich’s claims to have worked on behalf of Abramovich, if true, are another piece of the web of connections between Trump World and powerful Russians. And that web is already thick: Besides President Trump’s much-vaunted personal friendliness with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, Trump and his allies have a long history of doing business with Russian power players. His daughter is longtime friends with Abramovich’s former partner; his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, invested in a shipping firm linked to Putin’s judo partner, who is under U.S. sanctions, according to The New York Times; and Trump himself teamed up with oligarch Aras Agalarov to put on the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013.
The revelation of Gelbinovich’s claim to have worked on behalf of Abramovich also comes as a jury begins deliberations on the fate of another Trump campaign alum, Paul Manafort—who faces criminal charges related to his work for a Putin ally in Ukraine.
Evelyn Farkas, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, said the Gelbinovich effort highlights the growing consternation in Moscow about U.S. sanctions.
“That just tells you how much nervousness there is in Russia about being put on the sanctions list,” said Farkas, who worked on Russia matters at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. “The thing is, if he’s put on the U.S. sanctions list, then he’s in effect—because we do everything still in close coordination with the EU—then he’ll be put on the EU sanctions list, which is the bigger impact on him because of the fact that he owns property in the U.K., which is still in the EU.”
Gelbinovich was a low-level staffer on the Trump campaign, according to campaign sources, frequently booking travel for senior staff. He was on the campaign in its very early days. A picture published by the Daily Mail on Aug. 27, 2015, shows him sitting alone at a long, bare table in Trump campaign headquarters, cradling a phone and flanked by “Trump Make America Great Again!” signs.
After the campaign, he did a stint at the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, according to a public lobbying disclosure filing, working for Coca-Cola. Gelbinovich told The Daily Beast he is now self-employed and consulting, and that his work regarding Abramovich had nothing to do with Williams & Jensen.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian magnate who spent years in prison and is now a Kremlin critic, told Bloomberg that Abramovich is a close ally of Putin.
“There’s no oligarch among those still accepted in the West who’s closer and more trusted by Putin than Abramovich,” he said.
---
Gelbinovich, for his part, claimed hat none of the lobbyists he contacted agreed to represent Abramovich.
But Gelbinovich is not the only Trump associate to claim an affiliation with the Russian oligarch. Ivanka Trump has been friends with Dasha Zhukova, who has two children with Abramovich, for more than a decade, according to Bloomberg.
Zhukova and Abramovich announced they would split in August 2017. The president’s daughter has posted multiple pictures with Zhukova on her Instagram. Bloomberg also noted that Jared Kushner and Abramovich have had several social encounters, which the president’s son-in-law revealed when applying for a security clearance.
Despite his powerful social circle, Abramovich has faced legal challenges this past year. The BBC reported in June that he withdrew his application for a visa to the U.K. after his investor visa expired in May. The BBC pointed to exacerbated diplomatic tensions between the U.K. and Russia over the chemical weapon attack on retired Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia as a possible explanation for Abramovich’s visa troubles. In the wake of his visa troubles, Abramovich took up Israeli citizenship, according to the Guardian.
Some of Putin’s oligarch allies have been iced out of the American financial system under the Trump administration as the Treasury Department has implemented sanctions retaliating against the Kremlin for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In April of this year, Treasury announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian entities and oligarchs, including Oleg Deripaska, the Putin ally who put millions into the pocket of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Pushing back against these sanctions has been a key focus of Russian foreign policy for years. When Kremlin-linked Russians met with Trump campaign bosses at Trump Tower in June 2016, participants claimed the group just discussed adoptions—likely Putin’s decision to bar Americans from adopting Russian children, a move retaliating against American sanctions.
And when alleged Russian operative Maria Butina questioned then-candidate Trump on July 22, 2015, she asked him about sanctions.
“I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we’ll get along with Putin,” Trump told her. “I would get along very nicely with Putin, I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.”
The sanctions list hasn’t just survived the Trump administration; it’s grown. And it’s generated plenty of potential leads for Trump allies like Gelbinovich looking to cash in on their influence in Washington.
Two lobbyists—speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter—told The Daily Beast that Gelbinovich approached them and told them he was trying to help Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch worth more than $11 billion, find a lobbyist to help keep him from being added to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
Gelbinovich confirmed this reporting.
“I approached the lobbyists on behalf of a private equity firm that requested outreach for this type of work,” he said in an email to The Daily Beast. “The firm claimed that this outreach was on behalf of the individual you mentioned. I do not have a direct connection to Mr. Abramovich myself.”
Gelbinovich’s claims to have worked on behalf of Abramovich, if true, are another piece of the web of connections between Trump World and powerful Russians. And that web is already thick: Besides President Trump’s much-vaunted personal friendliness with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, Trump and his allies have a long history of doing business with Russian power players. His daughter is longtime friends with Abramovich’s former partner; his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, invested in a shipping firm linked to Putin’s judo partner, who is under U.S. sanctions, according to The New York Times; and Trump himself teamed up with oligarch Aras Agalarov to put on the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013.
The revelation of Gelbinovich’s claim to have worked on behalf of Abramovich also comes as a jury begins deliberations on the fate of another Trump campaign alum, Paul Manafort—who faces criminal charges related to his work for a Putin ally in Ukraine.
Evelyn Farkas, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, said the Gelbinovich effort highlights the growing consternation in Moscow about U.S. sanctions.
“That just tells you how much nervousness there is in Russia about being put on the sanctions list,” said Farkas, who worked on Russia matters at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. “The thing is, if he’s put on the U.S. sanctions list, then he’s in effect—because we do everything still in close coordination with the EU—then he’ll be put on the EU sanctions list, which is the bigger impact on him because of the fact that he owns property in the U.K., which is still in the EU.”
Gelbinovich was a low-level staffer on the Trump campaign, according to campaign sources, frequently booking travel for senior staff. He was on the campaign in its very early days. A picture published by the Daily Mail on Aug. 27, 2015, shows him sitting alone at a long, bare table in Trump campaign headquarters, cradling a phone and flanked by “Trump Make America Great Again!” signs.
After the campaign, he did a stint at the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, according to a public lobbying disclosure filing, working for Coca-Cola. Gelbinovich told The Daily Beast he is now self-employed and consulting, and that his work regarding Abramovich had nothing to do with Williams & Jensen.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian magnate who spent years in prison and is now a Kremlin critic, told Bloomberg that Abramovich is a close ally of Putin.
“There’s no oligarch among those still accepted in the West who’s closer and more trusted by Putin than Abramovich,” he said.
---
Gelbinovich, for his part, claimed hat none of the lobbyists he contacted agreed to represent Abramovich.
But Gelbinovich is not the only Trump associate to claim an affiliation with the Russian oligarch. Ivanka Trump has been friends with Dasha Zhukova, who has two children with Abramovich, for more than a decade, according to Bloomberg.
Zhukova and Abramovich announced they would split in August 2017. The president’s daughter has posted multiple pictures with Zhukova on her Instagram. Bloomberg also noted that Jared Kushner and Abramovich have had several social encounters, which the president’s son-in-law revealed when applying for a security clearance.
Despite his powerful social circle, Abramovich has faced legal challenges this past year. The BBC reported in June that he withdrew his application for a visa to the U.K. after his investor visa expired in May. The BBC pointed to exacerbated diplomatic tensions between the U.K. and Russia over the chemical weapon attack on retired Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia as a possible explanation for Abramovich’s visa troubles. In the wake of his visa troubles, Abramovich took up Israeli citizenship, according to the Guardian.
Some of Putin’s oligarch allies have been iced out of the American financial system under the Trump administration as the Treasury Department has implemented sanctions retaliating against the Kremlin for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In April of this year, Treasury announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian entities and oligarchs, including Oleg Deripaska, the Putin ally who put millions into the pocket of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Pushing back against these sanctions has been a key focus of Russian foreign policy for years. When Kremlin-linked Russians met with Trump campaign bosses at Trump Tower in June 2016, participants claimed the group just discussed adoptions—likely Putin’s decision to bar Americans from adopting Russian children, a move retaliating against American sanctions.
And when alleged Russian operative Maria Butina questioned then-candidate Trump on July 22, 2015, she asked him about sanctions.
“I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we’ll get along with Putin,” Trump told her. “I would get along very nicely with Putin, I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.”
The sanctions list hasn’t just survived the Trump administration; it’s grown. And it’s generated plenty of potential leads for Trump allies like Gelbinovich looking to cash in on their influence in Washington.
Trump- Putin Summit
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trump funnies
When an Idiot is in charge!!!
trump family values
Donald Trump’s grandfather Friedrich Trump ran a restaurant, bar, and brothel in British Columbia.
America's Criminal-in-Chief
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But her emails
trade fool!!!
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Trump Confirms His “Shithole” Racism By Saying He Wants Immigrants From Non-White Countries Out
By Jason Easley on Tue, Jan 16th, 2018 at 3:20 pm
politicus usa
Trump responded that he wanted immigrants from other non-white parts of the world out of the United States when he was asked about his immigration views in the White House.
Here is the transcript via the White House as provided to PoliticusUSA:
Q Mr. President, did you say that you want more people to come in from Norway? Did you say that you wanted more people coming in from Norway?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Q Is that true, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I want them to come in from everywhere — everywhere. Thank you very much, everybody.
Q Just the Caucasian or white countries, sir? Or do you want people to come in from other parts of the world?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Out.
Why would Trump answer out if that isn’t what he wants to see happen to immigrant who come to the United States from non-white majority countries? Trump’s entire immigration policy has been focused on deporting black and brown skinned people, so his one word answer was not a surprise.
Republicans and the administration have never denied that Trump wants non-white immigrants out of the country. They claim that he didn’t use the word “shithole,” but there has never been a firm denial that Trump holds a racist view of African countries.
Trump’s own answer confirmed that it doesn’t matter what Republicans pretend like they didn’t hear, this president is bigoted and intends to deport non-white immigrants.
Here is the transcript via the White House as provided to PoliticusUSA:
Q Mr. President, did you say that you want more people to come in from Norway? Did you say that you wanted more people coming in from Norway?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Q Is that true, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I want them to come in from everywhere — everywhere. Thank you very much, everybody.
Q Just the Caucasian or white countries, sir? Or do you want people to come in from other parts of the world?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Out.
Why would Trump answer out if that isn’t what he wants to see happen to immigrant who come to the United States from non-white majority countries? Trump’s entire immigration policy has been focused on deporting black and brown skinned people, so his one word answer was not a surprise.
Republicans and the administration have never denied that Trump wants non-white immigrants out of the country. They claim that he didn’t use the word “shithole,” but there has never been a firm denial that Trump holds a racist view of African countries.
Trump’s own answer confirmed that it doesn’t matter what Republicans pretend like they didn’t hear, this president is bigoted and intends to deport non-white immigrants.
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Trump getting up at the crack of 11 ... after spending the morning in bed watching TV
By Mark Sumner - daily kos
Monday Jan 08, 2018 · 7:30 AM PST
Over the past week, multiple stories have appeared about Trump’s mental decline. His evaporating vocabulary. His dwindling attention span. His shriveling comprehension.
But while those losses are hard to prove without Trump actually going through with his offer to take an IQ test—which seems extremely unlikely—Axois reports that there’s one other thing that Trump is doing … littlely.
President Trump is starting his official day much later than he did in the early days of his presidency, often around 11am, and holding far fewer meetings, according to copies of his private schedule shown to Axios. This is largely to meet Trump’s demands for more “Executive Time,” which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us.
This news of Trump’s extremely abbreviated morning session comes a week after we learned about Trump’s senior discount evening plans.
"If (Trump) was not having his 6:30 dinner with Steve Bannon, then, more to his liking, he was in bed by that time with a cheeseburger, watching his three screens and making phone calls -- the phone was his true contact point with the world -- to a small group of friends, who charted his rising and falling levels of agitation through the evening and then compared notes with one another."
So, Donald Trump spends at least 17 hours of each day in his PJs. His presidenting schedule has apparently been reduced to a 11-4 interval between parking himself back in front of the bedroom TV.
The schedule says Trump has "Executive Time" in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. Trump comes down for his first meeting of the day, which is often an intelligence briefing, at 11am.
Which means Trump has plenty of time for the Gorilla Channel (which is a joke) and Fox & Friends (which is a different kind of joke). Read More
But while those losses are hard to prove without Trump actually going through with his offer to take an IQ test—which seems extremely unlikely—Axois reports that there’s one other thing that Trump is doing … littlely.
President Trump is starting his official day much later than he did in the early days of his presidency, often around 11am, and holding far fewer meetings, according to copies of his private schedule shown to Axios. This is largely to meet Trump’s demands for more “Executive Time,” which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us.
This news of Trump’s extremely abbreviated morning session comes a week after we learned about Trump’s senior discount evening plans.
"If (Trump) was not having his 6:30 dinner with Steve Bannon, then, more to his liking, he was in bed by that time with a cheeseburger, watching his three screens and making phone calls -- the phone was his true contact point with the world -- to a small group of friends, who charted his rising and falling levels of agitation through the evening and then compared notes with one another."
So, Donald Trump spends at least 17 hours of each day in his PJs. His presidenting schedule has apparently been reduced to a 11-4 interval between parking himself back in front of the bedroom TV.
The schedule says Trump has "Executive Time" in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. Trump comes down for his first meeting of the day, which is often an intelligence briefing, at 11am.
Which means Trump has plenty of time for the Gorilla Channel (which is a joke) and Fox & Friends (which is a different kind of joke). Read More
NARCO-A-LAGO: MONEY LAUNDERING AT THE TRUMP OCEAN CLUB PANAMA
You can download the PDF version of this report here.
From Global Witness: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
“Every other country goes into these places and they do what they have to do… It’s a horrible law and [the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] should be changed.”
In the early 2000s, a series of bankruptcies meant Donald J. Trump was shunned by most lenders. Struggling for credit, he started selling his name to high-end real estate projects. This report examines in detail the criminal connections that propelled one such project – the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama – and how this case bears some of the same disturbing hallmarks as other Trump developments.
Since he became President of the United States, numerous investigations and articles have probed Trump’s business dealings and his alleged links to criminals and other shadowy characters. It is understood that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation under the Department of Justice will also examine his real estate business. This is important because it seems likely that, following his various bankruptcies, at least a part of Trump’s business empire has been built on untraceable funds, some apparently linked to Russian criminal networks.
Trump may not have deliberately set out to facilitate criminal activity in his business dealings. But, as this Global Witness investigation shows, licensing his brand to the luxurious Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama aligned Trump’s financial interests with those of crooks looking to launder ill-gotten gains. Trump seems to have done little to nothing to prevent this. What is clear is that proceeds from Colombian cartels’ narcotics trafficking were laundered through the Trump Ocean Club and that Donald Trump was one of the beneficiaries.
One key player in the laundering of drug money at the Trump Ocean Club was notorious fraudster David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzmán, whom a U.S. court subsequently sentenced to nine years for laundering millions of dollars' worth of illicit funds, including narcotics proceeds, through companies and real estate.
Another was Murcia Guzmán’s business associate, Alexandre Henrique Ventura Nogueira, who brokered nearly a third of the 666 pre-construction unit sales at the Trump Ocean Club and claims to have sold 350-400 units overall. Ventura Nogueira’s sales brokerage was critical to ensuring the project’s lift-off and Trump’s ability to earn tens of millions of dollars.
The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere. In most countries, regulation is notoriously lax in the real estate sector. Cash payments are subject to hardly any scrutiny, giving opportunistic and unprincipled developers free rein to accept dirty money.
In the case of the Trump Ocean Club, accepting easy – and possibly dirty – money early on would have been in Trump’s interest; a certain volume of pre-construction sales was necessary to secure financing for the project, which stood to net him $75.4 million by the end of 2010. Trump received a percentage of the financing he helped secure, and a cut on the sale of every unit at the development.
He and his family have made millions of dollars more from management fees and likely continue to profit from the Trump Ocean Club. Eager for the project’s success, Trump and his children have participated directly in marketing, management, and even project design. According to broker Ventura Nogueira, Trump’s daughter Ivanka attended at least 10 meetings with him and project developer Roger Khafif.
A large number of those involved with the Trump Ocean Club in its early phase were Russian and Eastern European citizens or diaspora members. In an interview with NBC and Reuters, Ventura Nogueira said that 50 percent of his buyers were Russian, and that some had “questionable backgrounds.” He added that he found out later that some were part of the Russian Mafia.
Since the Russian government’s alleged interference in the 2016 election, a lot has been made of Trump’s heavy reliance on funds from Russia for his licensing deals. Trump relying on funds from Russia is not in itself a problem – some of these funds are no doubt from legitimate sources. What is deeply problematic, however, is the fact that some of this money appears to have come from criminal networks.
Donald Trump has incessantly promoted himself as a successful and viable businessman, and this was critical to his success in the 2016 presidential election. But this report presents evidence that this façade was built, at least in part, on ventures used to launder cash generated by criminal activities. Trump’s unscrupulous business dealings and blindness to potential illegality raise serious questions about his suitability to govern the most powerful country in the world.
The dubious dealings of Trump the businessman also raise questions about the commitment of Trump the President to tackling crime and corruption. Trump got elected by repeatedly pledging to “drain the swamp”, but in the nine months since his inauguration he has actually taken steps that could worsen corruption in the U.S. and internationally. Indeed, one of his administration’s few legislative successes to date has been to overturn the implementing regulation of a ground-breaking anti-corruption law.[...]
“Every other country goes into these places and they do what they have to do… It’s a horrible law and [the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] should be changed.”
In the early 2000s, a series of bankruptcies meant Donald J. Trump was shunned by most lenders. Struggling for credit, he started selling his name to high-end real estate projects. This report examines in detail the criminal connections that propelled one such project – the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama – and how this case bears some of the same disturbing hallmarks as other Trump developments.
Since he became President of the United States, numerous investigations and articles have probed Trump’s business dealings and his alleged links to criminals and other shadowy characters. It is understood that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation under the Department of Justice will also examine his real estate business. This is important because it seems likely that, following his various bankruptcies, at least a part of Trump’s business empire has been built on untraceable funds, some apparently linked to Russian criminal networks.
Trump may not have deliberately set out to facilitate criminal activity in his business dealings. But, as this Global Witness investigation shows, licensing his brand to the luxurious Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama aligned Trump’s financial interests with those of crooks looking to launder ill-gotten gains. Trump seems to have done little to nothing to prevent this. What is clear is that proceeds from Colombian cartels’ narcotics trafficking were laundered through the Trump Ocean Club and that Donald Trump was one of the beneficiaries.
One key player in the laundering of drug money at the Trump Ocean Club was notorious fraudster David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzmán, whom a U.S. court subsequently sentenced to nine years for laundering millions of dollars' worth of illicit funds, including narcotics proceeds, through companies and real estate.
Another was Murcia Guzmán’s business associate, Alexandre Henrique Ventura Nogueira, who brokered nearly a third of the 666 pre-construction unit sales at the Trump Ocean Club and claims to have sold 350-400 units overall. Ventura Nogueira’s sales brokerage was critical to ensuring the project’s lift-off and Trump’s ability to earn tens of millions of dollars.
The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere. In most countries, regulation is notoriously lax in the real estate sector. Cash payments are subject to hardly any scrutiny, giving opportunistic and unprincipled developers free rein to accept dirty money.
In the case of the Trump Ocean Club, accepting easy – and possibly dirty – money early on would have been in Trump’s interest; a certain volume of pre-construction sales was necessary to secure financing for the project, which stood to net him $75.4 million by the end of 2010. Trump received a percentage of the financing he helped secure, and a cut on the sale of every unit at the development.
He and his family have made millions of dollars more from management fees and likely continue to profit from the Trump Ocean Club. Eager for the project’s success, Trump and his children have participated directly in marketing, management, and even project design. According to broker Ventura Nogueira, Trump’s daughter Ivanka attended at least 10 meetings with him and project developer Roger Khafif.
A large number of those involved with the Trump Ocean Club in its early phase were Russian and Eastern European citizens or diaspora members. In an interview with NBC and Reuters, Ventura Nogueira said that 50 percent of his buyers were Russian, and that some had “questionable backgrounds.” He added that he found out later that some were part of the Russian Mafia.
Since the Russian government’s alleged interference in the 2016 election, a lot has been made of Trump’s heavy reliance on funds from Russia for his licensing deals. Trump relying on funds from Russia is not in itself a problem – some of these funds are no doubt from legitimate sources. What is deeply problematic, however, is the fact that some of this money appears to have come from criminal networks.
Donald Trump has incessantly promoted himself as a successful and viable businessman, and this was critical to his success in the 2016 presidential election. But this report presents evidence that this façade was built, at least in part, on ventures used to launder cash generated by criminal activities. Trump’s unscrupulous business dealings and blindness to potential illegality raise serious questions about his suitability to govern the most powerful country in the world.
The dubious dealings of Trump the businessman also raise questions about the commitment of Trump the President to tackling crime and corruption. Trump got elected by repeatedly pledging to “drain the swamp”, but in the nine months since his inauguration he has actually taken steps that could worsen corruption in the U.S. and internationally. Indeed, one of his administration’s few legislative successes to date has been to overturn the implementing regulation of a ground-breaking anti-corruption law.[...]
Trump’s appearance in Panama Papers revealed
International Business Times
25 NOV 2017 AT 08:12 ET
From Raw Story: The instance of President Donald Trump’s appearance in the Panama Papers – the massive trove of leaked documents, reveals in detail how the world’s richest people hide their business dealings from scrutiny and taxation.
A real estate deal from the early 1990s is the first instance of President Trump’s name being mentioned in the Panama Papers.
An investigative reporter, Jake Bernstein, Friday afternoon flagged the discovery that involves the purchase and subsequent sale of a unit at the newly constructed Trump Palace on the Upper East Side in the 1990s. This deal involved a Panamanian company named Process Consultants, Inc., that purchased a 16th floor condo at the Trump skyscraper in 1991.
Process Consultants was owned through bearer shares. These share certificates indicate that whoever physically possessed the papers owned the company. The bearer shares could be used to transfer assets completely anonymously and were favorite tools among money launderers.
Three year after the purchase in 1994, the Process Consultants decided to sell this condo at the Trump Palace. Trump Corporation was the exclusive broker for this. According to a contract document, which provided the details of an agreement, the apartment was sold for apartment for $395,000. However, later, the price appeared to have been cut down to $355,000. It is believed a woman from Hong Kong, whose name has appeared in other leaked documents had purchased the apartment, reported the New York daily News.
However, the New York City Department of Finance online database Automated City Registered Information System has information on the apartment only after 2005, which pointed out during this time, the condo was owned by a Brazilian from Sao Paolo. He sold the unit for $795,400, that year.
But with most Panama Papers revelations, there has been no indication of who is actually behind Process Consultants or from where that person’s money came. According to the New York Daily News, using bearer shares doesn’t prove that Process Consultants was involved in something dubious, the quick turnover seems to be a characteristic of money laundering.
The publication reported that if Trump’s company knowingly facilitated the condo sale for the purpose of laundering money then the president himself could land in difficulty.
As part of his investigation into Russian election meddling, special prosecutor Robert Mueller had been looking into Trump’s sprawling real estate empire. It's unclear if the Process Consultants deal is of interest in the probe.
The Trump condo contract is one among the thousands of documents that were leaked in 2015 from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sold anonymous shell companies around the globe and had created more than 160,000 offshore entities by the year 2008. Some of the world’s richest people were able to conduct dubious business deals by hiding behind the law firm’s offshore companies.
The founders behind Mossack Fonseca were arrested after the massive leak. The firm is under investigation across the world.
Last month, the Paradise Papers leak revealed Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wibur Ross had been involved in doing million dollar business deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov.
A real estate deal from the early 1990s is the first instance of President Trump’s name being mentioned in the Panama Papers.
An investigative reporter, Jake Bernstein, Friday afternoon flagged the discovery that involves the purchase and subsequent sale of a unit at the newly constructed Trump Palace on the Upper East Side in the 1990s. This deal involved a Panamanian company named Process Consultants, Inc., that purchased a 16th floor condo at the Trump skyscraper in 1991.
Process Consultants was owned through bearer shares. These share certificates indicate that whoever physically possessed the papers owned the company. The bearer shares could be used to transfer assets completely anonymously and were favorite tools among money launderers.
Three year after the purchase in 1994, the Process Consultants decided to sell this condo at the Trump Palace. Trump Corporation was the exclusive broker for this. According to a contract document, which provided the details of an agreement, the apartment was sold for apartment for $395,000. However, later, the price appeared to have been cut down to $355,000. It is believed a woman from Hong Kong, whose name has appeared in other leaked documents had purchased the apartment, reported the New York daily News.
However, the New York City Department of Finance online database Automated City Registered Information System has information on the apartment only after 2005, which pointed out during this time, the condo was owned by a Brazilian from Sao Paolo. He sold the unit for $795,400, that year.
But with most Panama Papers revelations, there has been no indication of who is actually behind Process Consultants or from where that person’s money came. According to the New York Daily News, using bearer shares doesn’t prove that Process Consultants was involved in something dubious, the quick turnover seems to be a characteristic of money laundering.
The publication reported that if Trump’s company knowingly facilitated the condo sale for the purpose of laundering money then the president himself could land in difficulty.
As part of his investigation into Russian election meddling, special prosecutor Robert Mueller had been looking into Trump’s sprawling real estate empire. It's unclear if the Process Consultants deal is of interest in the probe.
The Trump condo contract is one among the thousands of documents that were leaked in 2015 from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sold anonymous shell companies around the globe and had created more than 160,000 offshore entities by the year 2008. Some of the world’s richest people were able to conduct dubious business deals by hiding behind the law firm’s offshore companies.
The founders behind Mossack Fonseca were arrested after the massive leak. The firm is under investigation across the world.
Last month, the Paradise Papers leak revealed Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wibur Ross had been involved in doing million dollar business deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov.
The Trump Family Made Millions from Drug Cartels and the Russian Mafia in Panama City: Report
Maybe we should start calling the president's Florida estate "Mar-a-Narco."
By Liz Posner / AlterNet November 17, 2017, 9:04 AM GMT
Robert Mueller has some new material to work with as he continues his investigation of the Trump administration's ties to Russia. A new report shows that for 10 years, a Trump property in Panama City collected millions of dollars from the Russian mafia and Colombian drug cartels. An investigation from Global Witness, an international NGO that probes corruption and money laundering, reveals how the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower turned a blind eye to crime lords looking for a safe haven to stash their blood money.
The property, which the lead broker Alexandre Ventura Nogueira describes as “Ivanka Trump’s baby,” listed units for three times the going rate in Panama City, thanks to the Trump name. Nogueira worked closely with the Trump family; he claims he attended at least 10 meetings with Ivanka Trump, who challenged him to sell 100 units in the building.
“The agreement was, I had a week to sell 100 units,” Nogueira told Reuters. “I said, ‘I’m going to do better, I’m going to sell without telling (the buyers) the price.'”
Nogueira later fled Panama after he was arrested for unrelated charges of real estate fraud. From his European asylum, he told NBC that at least half of his Trump Ocean Club customers were Russians, including some with “questionable backgrounds." Only later did he learn of their ties to Russian organized crime circles.
NBC reports that Mauricio Ceballos, a former prosecutor in Panama who investigated Trump’s business associates for financial crimes, called the Trump Ocean Club “a vehicle for money laundering.”
Among the shady buyers are:
By 2010, Donald Trump had made approximately $74.2 million through his association with the hotel. From 2014-2017, he was paid as much as $13.9 million.
As Global Witness explains:
“The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
“Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere.”
The Trump Organization has shrugged off responsibility in a statement following the news, but legal experts say it should have done its due diligence into the backgrounds of buyers. Arthur Middlemiss, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney and a former head of the global anti-corruption program at JPMorgan, blames the Trumps directly:
“Those who do business there should perform due diligence on others involved in their ventures. If they fail to do so, they risk being liable under U.S. law of turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.”
The property, which the lead broker Alexandre Ventura Nogueira describes as “Ivanka Trump’s baby,” listed units for three times the going rate in Panama City, thanks to the Trump name. Nogueira worked closely with the Trump family; he claims he attended at least 10 meetings with Ivanka Trump, who challenged him to sell 100 units in the building.
“The agreement was, I had a week to sell 100 units,” Nogueira told Reuters. “I said, ‘I’m going to do better, I’m going to sell without telling (the buyers) the price.'”
Nogueira later fled Panama after he was arrested for unrelated charges of real estate fraud. From his European asylum, he told NBC that at least half of his Trump Ocean Club customers were Russians, including some with “questionable backgrounds." Only later did he learn of their ties to Russian organized crime circles.
NBC reports that Mauricio Ceballos, a former prosecutor in Panama who investigated Trump’s business associates for financial crimes, called the Trump Ocean Club “a vehicle for money laundering.”
Among the shady buyers are:
- David Murcia Guzmán, founder of a large Colombian marketing company, who purchased 10 units in the Trump Ocean Club. Guzmán is now in U.S. custody, convicted of laundering money on behalf of drug cartels, and will be extradited to Colombia. Guzmán also has financial ties to the terrorist organization FARC.
- Louis Pargiolas, who pleaded guilty in 2009 in Miami to conspiracy to import cocaine.
- Stanislav Kavalenka, a Russian national charged in Canada for compelling women into prostitution.
- Arkady Vodovozov, convicted in Israel of kidnapping, according to Reuters.
By 2010, Donald Trump had made approximately $74.2 million through his association with the hotel. From 2014-2017, he was paid as much as $13.9 million.
As Global Witness explains:
“The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
“Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere.”
The Trump Organization has shrugged off responsibility in a statement following the news, but legal experts say it should have done its due diligence into the backgrounds of buyers. Arthur Middlemiss, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney and a former head of the global anti-corruption program at JPMorgan, blames the Trumps directly:
“Those who do business there should perform due diligence on others involved in their ventures. If they fail to do so, they risk being liable under U.S. law of turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.”
the criminal administration!!!
The wealthy men in Trump's inner circle with links to tax havens
The president promised to bring trillions of dollars back to the US, but many around him are no strangers to the offshore world
Jon Swaine and Ed Pilkington in New York
Sunday 5 November 2017 13.00 EST
From The Guardian: On the election trail in 2016, Donald Trump promised tax reforms to tempt major US companies back onshore and “bring back trillions of dollars from American businesses that is now parked overseas”.
As the first anniversary of his election victory looms this week, Trump and fellow Republicans are trying to drive those tax reforms through Congress.
On 1 November, Trump reiterated his commitment.
“Finally, our plan will bring back trillions of dollars from offshore … that will come pouring back into our country that will be put to work and will be spent by our companies that could never get the money back for many years. Bring the money back. We’re rebuilding America.”
But Trump is surrounded by wealthy individuals who have legally either sheltered their own investments or presided over policies to keep company profits or clients’ funds out of reach in tax havens.
Gary Cohn
Trump’s chief economic adviser, who is the driving force behind the White House tax reform effort, is no stranger to offshore finance. The leaked documents reveal that for various periods between 2002 and 2006, Cohn was president or vice-president of 22 separate entities in Bermuda for Goldman Sachs....
Rex Tillerson
The US secretary of state is named in the leaked files as a director of an offshore firm used in a multibillion-dollar oil and gas venture in the Middle East that became embroiled in controversy.
Tillerson was a director of Marib Upstream Services Company, incorporated in Bermuda in 1997. The company was tied to ExxonMobil, the American oil and gas corporation that Tillerson later led as chief executive. At the time, Tillerson was president of ExxonMobil’s Yemen division....
Steven Mnuchin
The US Treasury secretary’s former bank financed offshore private jets for wealthy clients, including a billionaire Yemeni businessman whose son is wanted for rape and murder in the UK.
CIT Bank, where Mnuchin was deputy chairman, provided customers with financing structures for personal aircraft priced at tens of millions of dollars, which customers used to legally avoid sales taxes and other charges....
Randal Quarles
The Trump administration’s most senior banking watchdog appears in the Paradise Papers in connection with an offshore bank that is under investigation by US authorities for possible tax evasion.
Quarles, Trump’s vice-chairman for supervision at the Federal Reserve, is named in the files as an officer of two firms incorporated in the Cayman Islands by the Carlyle Group, the private equity giant where Quarles was a partner until 2013.
The files detail transactions between one of Quarles’s offshore vehicles and Butterfield, a Bermuda-based bank in which Carlyle had led a $550m investment in 2010. That stake was one of several in distressed banks bought up by a new specialist team at Carlyle, including Quarles, following the 2008 financial crisis...
Jon Huntsman
Trump’s new US ambassador to Russia helped lead a previously undisclosed offshore company, according to the leaked files.
Huntsman, the former Utah governor, was listed as a director of HICI International Sales Corporation in a confidential filing to authorities in Barbados, where the company was formed in 1999. The offshore vehicle was set up to carry out overseas sales for Huntsman ICI, an industrial chemicals branch of Huntsman Corporation.
The filing said HICI was owned by Huntsman ICI Holdings LLC in the US, where Huntsman was vice-chairman and manager. In 2000, Huntsman ICI reported making a $151m profit on revenues of $4.4bn....
Kenneth Juster
Trump’s ambassador to India benefited from the offshore business of his former investment company and its billion-dollar purchase of a shipping corporation.
Juster is named in the Paradise Papers as a beneficial owner of a Bermuda-based branch of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm where he was a partner before joining the Trump administration...
Carl Icahn
Icahn, a friend and former adviser to Trump, owns a $250m mining company spread across three tax havens and structured in a way that limits the information it must disclose to US authorities.
The leaks detail how Icahn holds a controlling stake in Ferrous Resources, a Brazilian mining company officially based on the Isle of Man. It in turn owns a pair of holding companies in Luxembourg and Malta, which operate iron mines in Brazil.
All three jurisdictions offer low- or zero-tax regimes for corporations, making them destinations of choice for foreign businesses seeking to legally lower their tax bills. A report in 2015 by Citizens for Tax Justice said Icahn operated 20 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens....
Tom Barrack
The chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee leads a $58bn real estate investment trust that channels some of its profits to the low- or no-tax jurisdictions of Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands and Lebanon.
Barrack, who has described himself as one of the president’s “closest friends for 40 years”, appears in the Paradise Papers through offshore subsidiaries of Colony NorthStar, of which he is CEO...
Jay Clayton
Trump’s SEC chairman received income from a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands.
Clayton disclosed to the government ethics office before taking up the SEC job that he received income from Mount Kellett Capital Partners (Cayman) LP, the offshore subsidiary of a US hedge fund. A proposed structure chart in the leaked Appleby files shows a complex web of ties that were created between the Cayman Islands offshoot, its head company, and other offshore subsidiaries....
Ben Carson
A biotechnology company headed by Carson, Trump’s housing and urban development (HUD) secretary, set up offshore firms that could have reduced its tax bill.
The Paradise Papers contain files on two subsidiaries of Vaccinogen in Bermuda that date from Carson’s time as chairman of the Baltimore-based biotechnology company. The offshore vehicles were established as holding companies for “intellectual property related to the treatment of cancer and other diseases”, according to the files...
(complete article)
As the first anniversary of his election victory looms this week, Trump and fellow Republicans are trying to drive those tax reforms through Congress.
On 1 November, Trump reiterated his commitment.
“Finally, our plan will bring back trillions of dollars from offshore … that will come pouring back into our country that will be put to work and will be spent by our companies that could never get the money back for many years. Bring the money back. We’re rebuilding America.”
But Trump is surrounded by wealthy individuals who have legally either sheltered their own investments or presided over policies to keep company profits or clients’ funds out of reach in tax havens.
Gary Cohn
Trump’s chief economic adviser, who is the driving force behind the White House tax reform effort, is no stranger to offshore finance. The leaked documents reveal that for various periods between 2002 and 2006, Cohn was president or vice-president of 22 separate entities in Bermuda for Goldman Sachs....
Rex Tillerson
The US secretary of state is named in the leaked files as a director of an offshore firm used in a multibillion-dollar oil and gas venture in the Middle East that became embroiled in controversy.
Tillerson was a director of Marib Upstream Services Company, incorporated in Bermuda in 1997. The company was tied to ExxonMobil, the American oil and gas corporation that Tillerson later led as chief executive. At the time, Tillerson was president of ExxonMobil’s Yemen division....
Steven Mnuchin
The US Treasury secretary’s former bank financed offshore private jets for wealthy clients, including a billionaire Yemeni businessman whose son is wanted for rape and murder in the UK.
CIT Bank, where Mnuchin was deputy chairman, provided customers with financing structures for personal aircraft priced at tens of millions of dollars, which customers used to legally avoid sales taxes and other charges....
Randal Quarles
The Trump administration’s most senior banking watchdog appears in the Paradise Papers in connection with an offshore bank that is under investigation by US authorities for possible tax evasion.
Quarles, Trump’s vice-chairman for supervision at the Federal Reserve, is named in the files as an officer of two firms incorporated in the Cayman Islands by the Carlyle Group, the private equity giant where Quarles was a partner until 2013.
The files detail transactions between one of Quarles’s offshore vehicles and Butterfield, a Bermuda-based bank in which Carlyle had led a $550m investment in 2010. That stake was one of several in distressed banks bought up by a new specialist team at Carlyle, including Quarles, following the 2008 financial crisis...
Jon Huntsman
Trump’s new US ambassador to Russia helped lead a previously undisclosed offshore company, according to the leaked files.
Huntsman, the former Utah governor, was listed as a director of HICI International Sales Corporation in a confidential filing to authorities in Barbados, where the company was formed in 1999. The offshore vehicle was set up to carry out overseas sales for Huntsman ICI, an industrial chemicals branch of Huntsman Corporation.
The filing said HICI was owned by Huntsman ICI Holdings LLC in the US, where Huntsman was vice-chairman and manager. In 2000, Huntsman ICI reported making a $151m profit on revenues of $4.4bn....
Kenneth Juster
Trump’s ambassador to India benefited from the offshore business of his former investment company and its billion-dollar purchase of a shipping corporation.
Juster is named in the Paradise Papers as a beneficial owner of a Bermuda-based branch of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm where he was a partner before joining the Trump administration...
Carl Icahn
Icahn, a friend and former adviser to Trump, owns a $250m mining company spread across three tax havens and structured in a way that limits the information it must disclose to US authorities.
The leaks detail how Icahn holds a controlling stake in Ferrous Resources, a Brazilian mining company officially based on the Isle of Man. It in turn owns a pair of holding companies in Luxembourg and Malta, which operate iron mines in Brazil.
All three jurisdictions offer low- or zero-tax regimes for corporations, making them destinations of choice for foreign businesses seeking to legally lower their tax bills. A report in 2015 by Citizens for Tax Justice said Icahn operated 20 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens....
Tom Barrack
The chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee leads a $58bn real estate investment trust that channels some of its profits to the low- or no-tax jurisdictions of Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands and Lebanon.
Barrack, who has described himself as one of the president’s “closest friends for 40 years”, appears in the Paradise Papers through offshore subsidiaries of Colony NorthStar, of which he is CEO...
Jay Clayton
Trump’s SEC chairman received income from a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands.
Clayton disclosed to the government ethics office before taking up the SEC job that he received income from Mount Kellett Capital Partners (Cayman) LP, the offshore subsidiary of a US hedge fund. A proposed structure chart in the leaked Appleby files shows a complex web of ties that were created between the Cayman Islands offshoot, its head company, and other offshore subsidiaries....
Ben Carson
A biotechnology company headed by Carson, Trump’s housing and urban development (HUD) secretary, set up offshore firms that could have reduced its tax bill.
The Paradise Papers contain files on two subsidiaries of Vaccinogen in Bermuda that date from Carson’s time as chairman of the Baltimore-based biotechnology company. The offshore vehicles were established as holding companies for “intellectual property related to the treatment of cancer and other diseases”, according to the files...
(complete article)
Here are the 5 biggest links connecting Trump to Manafort and Russian money laundering
Brad Reed
30 OCT 2017 AT 11:51 ET
From Raw Story: The Trump White House is claiming victory in the wake of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s indictment on money laundering charges on the grounds that the indictment did not specifically mention Manafort’s work in the Trump campaign in 2016.
However, the nature of the charges against Manafort serves as a basis for establishing links between President Donald Trump and the Russian mob.
Here are the five biggest links that connect Trump, Manafort and Russian organized crime operations.
However, the nature of the charges against Manafort serves as a basis for establishing links between President Donald Trump and the Russian mob.
Here are the five biggest links that connect Trump, Manafort and Russian organized crime operations.
- The indictment against Manafort alleges he was laundering money he earned from his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Specifically, the indictment states that, “in order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, Manafort and Gates laundered money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts.”
- Long before he ran Trump’s campaign, Manafort lived in an apartment in Trump Tower. Manafort first purchased an apartment in Trump Tower in 2006, which WNYC notes was right around the time that his lobbying firm signed a $10 million contract with a Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska — the same man whom Manafort agreed to give personal briefings about the state of Trump’s presidential campaign to in 2016.
- In 2013, the FBI obtained a search warrant to eavesdrop on what it believed to be a massive Russian money laundering operation — and which also happened to be running out of Trump Tower. As ABC News reported earlier this year, the investigation into the operation led “to a federal grand jury indictment of more than 30 people, including one of the world’s most notorious Russian mafia bosses, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.”
- Another figure allegedly involved in the Russian money laundering business is Felix Sater — a longtime Trump associate. Sater’s financial relationship with Trump dates back to at least 2003, when the Trump Organization rented out office space to Sater’s former company. Even though Trump initially tried to distance himself from Sater after news of his criminal past came to light in 2007, he subsequently tapped Sater in 2010 to scout out real estate. This is notable because Sater is reportedly cooperating with an investigation into money laundering that used American properties to help hide money.
- Sater’s company, Bayrock Capital, also operated out of Trump Tower — and may have used Trump properties to launder Russian money. A Bloomberg report from earlier this year reveals that a former Bayrock insider, Jody Kriss, now claims that Sater’s firm was all an elaborate money laundering operation. In 2007, Trump teamed with Bayrock to secure funding for the Trump Soho hotel via FL Group, an Icelandic bank that was regularly used by Russians to launder money.
*IN 1927, 1,000 WHITE-ROBED KLANSMEN RIOTED IN QUEENS. TRUMP'S FATHER WAS ARRESTED IN THAT INCIDENT.
bigtree
From Demo. Underground: Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid 3h3 hours ago
...this story creeps out of the memory hole, and gains new and chilling resonance.
Donald Trump's father was arrested at Ku Klux Klan riot in New York in 1927, records reveal
_____The predication for the Klan to march, according to a flier passed around Jamaica beforehand, was that “Native-born Protestant Americans” were being “assaulted by Roman Catholic police of New York City.” “Liberty and Democracy have been trampled upon,” it continued, “when native-born Protestant Americans dare to organise to protect one flag, the American flag; one school, the public school; and one language, the English language.”
It's not clear from the context what role Fred Trump played in the brawl. The news article simply notes that seven men were arrested in the “near-riot of the parade,” all of whom were represented by the same lawyers. Update: A contemporaneous article from the Daily Star notes that Trump was detained “on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so.”
When news of the old report surfaced last year, Donald Trump vehemently denied his father's arrest. “He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened,” he said to the Daily Mail. “This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It's a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.”
...It's worth noting that Trump's comments came one day after another Klan brawl, this time in Anaheim, Calif. Thirteen people were arrested and three were stabbed after a Klan rally turned violent. And it's worth noting, too, as did Jonathan Chait at New York magazine, that Trump's claim to “know nothing” about white supremacists echoes the language of the 19th-century “Know Nothing” party — a nativist group that supported only Protestants for public office...
read: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charlottesville-latest-donald-trump-father-fred-arrested-ku-klux-klan-kkk-rally-riot-queens-new-york-a7891701.html
...this story creeps out of the memory hole, and gains new and chilling resonance.
Donald Trump's father was arrested at Ku Klux Klan riot in New York in 1927, records reveal
_____The predication for the Klan to march, according to a flier passed around Jamaica beforehand, was that “Native-born Protestant Americans” were being “assaulted by Roman Catholic police of New York City.” “Liberty and Democracy have been trampled upon,” it continued, “when native-born Protestant Americans dare to organise to protect one flag, the American flag; one school, the public school; and one language, the English language.”
It's not clear from the context what role Fred Trump played in the brawl. The news article simply notes that seven men were arrested in the “near-riot of the parade,” all of whom were represented by the same lawyers. Update: A contemporaneous article from the Daily Star notes that Trump was detained “on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so.”
When news of the old report surfaced last year, Donald Trump vehemently denied his father's arrest. “He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened,” he said to the Daily Mail. “This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It's a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.”
...It's worth noting that Trump's comments came one day after another Klan brawl, this time in Anaheim, Calif. Thirteen people were arrested and three were stabbed after a Klan rally turned violent. And it's worth noting, too, as did Jonathan Chait at New York magazine, that Trump's claim to “know nothing” about white supremacists echoes the language of the 19th-century “Know Nothing” party — a nativist group that supported only Protestants for public office...
read: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charlottesville-latest-donald-trump-father-fred-arrested-ku-klux-klan-kkk-rally-riot-queens-new-york-a7891701.html
no shit
pbmus -demo. underground
Donald Trump admitted in 2007 that he had invested in Russia
In a deposition in 2007, Trump said something he and his family would later deny repeatedly
MATTHEW ROZSA
From Salon: Pr*sident Donald Trump may want the headaches associated with the Russia scandal to go away, but a new report has drawn attention to yet another controversial aspect of Trump’s relationship with that country’s financial elite.
Although Trump told NBC in May, “I am not involved in Russia,” he admitted in a 2007 deposition that a real estate development firm known as the Bayrock Group had brought Russian investors to Trump Tower to discuss investing in Moscow, according to a report by Bloomberg.
“It’s ridiculous that I wouldn’t be investing in Russia,” Trump said. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment.”
Bloomberg also reported that one of the principals at Bayrock is businessman Felix Sater, who reportedly has ties to organized crime in both the United States and Russia. Although Trump has repeatedly insisted that he is only passingly acquainted with Sater, former Bayrock employees insist that Sater often met with Trump at his business empire’s New York City headquarters and guided Trump’s children around Moscow.
They also report that Sater is still in contact with the president and some of his advisers. It is worth noting that the Bayrock Group itself also had an office located in Trump Tower.
While the president likes to downplay his business ties to Russia, his son Donald Trump Jr. once admitted to a real estate conference in 2008 that Trump built a tower in Panama for wealthy Russian clients, according to a report by Time.
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Trump told the crowd.
Although Trump told NBC in May, “I am not involved in Russia,” he admitted in a 2007 deposition that a real estate development firm known as the Bayrock Group had brought Russian investors to Trump Tower to discuss investing in Moscow, according to a report by Bloomberg.
“It’s ridiculous that I wouldn’t be investing in Russia,” Trump said. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment.”
Bloomberg also reported that one of the principals at Bayrock is businessman Felix Sater, who reportedly has ties to organized crime in both the United States and Russia. Although Trump has repeatedly insisted that he is only passingly acquainted with Sater, former Bayrock employees insist that Sater often met with Trump at his business empire’s New York City headquarters and guided Trump’s children around Moscow.
They also report that Sater is still in contact with the president and some of his advisers. It is worth noting that the Bayrock Group itself also had an office located in Trump Tower.
While the president likes to downplay his business ties to Russia, his son Donald Trump Jr. once admitted to a real estate conference in 2008 that Trump built a tower in Panama for wealthy Russian clients, according to a report by Time.
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Trump told the crowd.
taking the former leader of the free world for a stroll!!
charlyvi - from Demo Underground
On this President's Day, congratulations to James Buchanan on finally moving out of the bottom spot in the presidential rankings.
Thanks to Ignorant Americans, this Loser is now "President"
America's Next GOP Presidential Traitor joining Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1 & 2
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Trump's Cabinet, etc
the trailer trash adminstration
(archives - for description & news of swamp members)
Puerto Rico salutes Trump...
DonViejo
From Demo Underground: Pendejo =
adjective
stupid
estúpido, pendejo, bruto, atontado, estulto, bozal
noun
motherfucker
hijo de puta, pendejo, coño
coward
cobarde, gallina, temeroso, pendejo, asqueroso, rajado
berk
imbécil, idiota, pendejo
Word Origin and History for berk. n. "fool," 1936, abbreviation of Berkshire Hunt (or Berkeley Hunt), rhyming slang for cunt but typically applied only to contemptible persons, not to the body part. This is not an objective, anatomical term, neither does it imply coitus.
adjective
stupid
estúpido, pendejo, bruto, atontado, estulto, bozal
noun
motherfucker
hijo de puta, pendejo, coño
coward
cobarde, gallina, temeroso, pendejo, asqueroso, rajado
berk
imbécil, idiota, pendejo
Word Origin and History for berk. n. "fool," 1936, abbreviation of Berkshire Hunt (or Berkeley Hunt), rhyming slang for cunt but typically applied only to contemptible persons, not to the body part. This is not an objective, anatomical term, neither does it imply coitus.
white house concerns
trump: the "escape from la" pr*sident
PRESIDENT TRUMP:
CHILD MOLESTER, RACIST, SEXIST, CRIMINAL, KLAN SYMPATHIZER, MAFIA ASSOCIATE, TAX FRAUD, FASCIST, RUSSIAN MOLE
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Trump exhibits the same level of gravitas as, say, a spoiled child wearing a cardboard crown from Burger King. His tacky, garish displays of wealth, his clownish stab at a normal head of hair, and his ridiculously ill-fitting suits utterly fail to convey a basic sense of taste, much less gravitas. The other day, for example, Trump referred to third-party candidate Evan McMullin as “Evan McMuffin.” Petty insults like this one (along with “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Lyin’ Ted,” etc.) convey a level of gravitas equal to purple-nurples during recess. And while Trump insists that he’ll be a very, very terrific president and, literally, the greatest jobs president God ever created, no one with a sense of history who believes he’s going to be any of those things.
tough guy!!!
Hillary Weighs In
Demo Underground
John Adams: “Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society.”
trump - i never did it
