Tag: Trump corruption

The Biggest Loser

New Trump Tax Facts Hint at Massive Cheating and Vulnerability to Russian Influence

Now that Donald Trump has been exposed as perhaps the biggest loser in American business history, here are two reasonable questions to ask:

  1. Does this shed any light on his fight to keep Congress from seeing his recent tax returns?
  2. Do Trump’s tax filings matter to us and our government?

And the answers are yes and YES!

Trump’s business tax losses from 1985 through 1995 were revealed Tuesday by The New York Times. A source who had legal possession of Trump’s tax data, known as transcripts, gave them to the newspaper.

View the complete May 8 article by David Cay Johnston on the DC Report website here.

James Comey obliterates Bill Barr’s reputation in brutal op-ed: ‘Trump has eaten your soul’

Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday published a brutal op-ed in the New York Times dissecting how people such as current Attorney General Bill Barr and former deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have found themselves corrupted by President Donald Trump.

In his op-ed, Comey explains that being in constant contact with an “amoral leader” such as Trump inevitably tests officials’ ethics — even when those officials see themselves as guardrails against Trump’s worst behavior.

In the cases of both Rosenstein and Barr, he argues, the two men have shown that they lack the needed “inner strength” to defy the president, which has led to the destruction of their reputations as law enforcement officials.

View the complete May 1 article by Brad Reed on the Raw Story website here.

Here’s how taxpayers covered a $1,000 liquor bill for Trump staffers at Mar-a-Lago

A top-shelf, closed-door drinking session. $546-a-night hotel rooms. A special government credit card for Mar-a-Lago. Taxpayers foot the costs — and the president profits.

Find “Trump, Inc.” wherever you get your podcasts. This week’s episode examines the intersection of money, presidential access and security, and the push and pull between government spending and private profits at Mar-a-Lago.

In April 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate and club, for a two-day summit. While Xi and his delegation stayed at a nearby hotel, Trump and his advisers stayed at the peach-colored, waterfront resort.

That evening, Trump and a dozen of his closest advisers hosted Xi and the Chinese delegation in an ornate dining room where they ate Dover sole and New York strip steak. Those sorts of lavish, formal gatherings are expected for a major bilateral summit.

View the complete May 1 article by Derek Kravitz of ProPublica on the AlterNet website here.

Congressional Democrats’ emoluments lawsuit targeting President Trump’s private business can proceed, judge says

Democrats in Congress can move ahead with their lawsuit against President Trump alleging that his private business violates the Constitution’s ban on gifts or payments from foreign governments, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The decision in Washington from U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan adopted a broad definition of the anti-corruption law and could set the stage for Democratic lawmakers to begin seeking information from the Trump Organization. The Justice Department can try to delay or block the process by asking an appeals court to intervene.

In a 48-page opinion, the judge refused the request of the president’s legal team to dismiss the case and rejected Trump’s narrow definition of emoluments, finding it “unpersuasive and inconsistent.”

View the complete April 30 article by Jonathan O’Connell, Ann E. Marimow and Carol D. Leonnig on The Washington Post website here.

Federal judge rejects Trump request to dismiss Democrats’ Emoluments Clause lawsuit

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected President Trump’s request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that Trump has violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the more than 200 Democratic senators and members of Congress behind the lawsuit had reason to seek an injunction in the case and that their request is constitutional.

In his ruling, Sullivan found that Trump had disregarded “the ordinary meaning” of the term “emolument” as intended in the Constitution by claiming that it should apply only to profits he earns directly through his own work.

View the complete April 30 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

Why has Congress stalled on investigating money laundering allegations at Trump properties?

Stonewalled by the Trump administration, Congress seems to have lost interest.

When Donald Trump assumed the presidency in 2017, two of his foreign projects — one in Panama and one in Azerbaijan — stood out for what appeared to be clear links to foreign money laundering operations. But with Trump’s presidency enveloped in an unprecedented number of scandals, congressional willingness to investigate the properties appears to have wilted — in no small part because of stonewalling by the current administration.

Both properties were closely associated with Ivanka Trump. Trump described the Trump Ocean Club property in Panama City, Panama, as Ivanka’s “baby,” while the Trump Tower Baku project, located in Azerbaijan’s capital, was something Ivanka herself claimed she “oversaw.” Both endeavors, however, have been swamped in controversy — not simply because of signs pointing to money laundering operations, but because both projects have since imploded, with neither any longer carrying Trump’s name.

In Panama, for instance, the indicators of money laundering at Trump Ocean Club Panama, which the Trump Organization helped manage, were impossible to miss. From purchases in cash to bulk sales, from sales to anonymous shell companies to purchasers using “bearer shares” — in which the company is owned by whoever holds a physical stock certificate, without any registry keeping track of ownership — the signs were all there. One of the property’s primary sales brokers, Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, admitted in a 2013 conversation secretly taped by a former business partner that he was “regularly laundering money”  across Panama.

View the complete April 11 article by Casey Michel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Donald Trump Cheats At Golf In Some Really Ridiculous Ways: Sports Writer

Sports writer Rick Reilly says the president “kicks the ball out of the rough so many times the caddies call him Pelé.”

It’s pretty obvious that Donald Trump likes golf, but he may like cheating at it even more.

That’s according to sports writer Rick Reilly, author of a new book about Trump’s golf game, Commander In Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.

Reilly, who claims the president goes to ridiculous lengths to ensure he wins each match, appeared on “Morning Joe” Tuesday and said he’d learned how Trump won the 18 club championships he repeatedly boasts about.

View the complete April 2 article by David Moye on the Huffington Post website here.

Schiff recites long list of Trump’s Russia contacts after Republicans call for his resignation

“I think it’s immoral, I think it’s unethical, I think it’s unpatriotic, and yes, I think it’s corrupt and evidence of collusion.”

A group of House Republicans on Thursday called on House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) to resign from his post because he has repeatedly expressed concerns that President Donald Trump may have colluded with America’s political adversaries. In response, Schiff shot back with a detailed list of all of the times that Trump associates have had contact with Russians, admonishing his colleagues for normalizing that conduct, even if it stops short of a criminal conspiracy.

“I have always said that the question of whether this amounts to conspiracy is another matter,” Schiff said during the heated exchange. “But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is okay — and the day we do think that’s okay is the day we will look back and say, ‘that is the day America lost its way.’”

Reading a letter signed by nine Republican committee members calling for Schiff to step down as chairman, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) had claimed moments prior that Schiff’s “willingness to promote a demonstrably false narrative is alarming.”

View the complete March 28 article by Danielle McLean on the ThinkProgress website here.

‘If you took it all in in one day, it would kill you’: What Mueller’s investigation has already revealed

He pulled back the curtain on a sophisticated Kremlin hacking operation — identifying by name the 12 Russian military officers who he said sought to sway a U.S. election.

He exposed a Russian online influence campaign — bringing criminal charges against the 13 members of a Russian troll farm now accused of trying to manipulate U.S. voters and sow division through fake social media personae.

And he revealed how those closest to President Trump defrauded banks, cheated on their taxes and, time and time again, lied to deflect inquiries into their ties with Russia.

View the complete March 22 article by Matt Zapotosky and Rosalind S. Helderman on The Washignton Post website here.

Not just Cindy Yang: Royals, felon, pop stars, others got access to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

The uproar over Yang’s Mar-a-Lago access again raises potential conflicts arising from a president spending time at a private residence that is also a for-profit enterprise.

Amid the mushrooming speculation surrounding Cindy Yang’s ability to get into and sell access to President Donald Trump’s closely guarded private clubs, Yang’s attorney — who is not a club member — walked through the majestic wrought iron doors of Mar-a-Lago on the evening of March 16.

Attorney Evan Turk, who described Yang as “another casualty, as a supporter of our president,” gained entrance to the club like so many other non-members. He got a ticket to one of dozens of swank fundraisers hosted every year at Mar-a-Lago during Palm Beach’s social season.

Although the walled club is seemingly impenetrable and membership dues and fees top $200,000, a quick perusal of social media reveals Mar-a-Lago as a porous party destination accessible to anyone with the right contacts or a few hundred dollars.

View the complete March 20 article by Christine Stapleton on The Palm Beach Post website here.