Tag: Trump family

Protecting Trump’s family has become a core principle of the Republican Party ideology

Republicans are up in arms about the actions of one of their own. What did he do to elicit such wrath? He dared to issue a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) sent the subpoena as part of the panel’s continuing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This should hardly be surprising — Trump Jr. makes multiple appearances at key points in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation. On at least two occasions, it appears that Mueller weighed charging Trump Jr. with crimes, but decided against it. And Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congres appears to have been misleading, if not outright perjury, especially in light of Michael Cohen’s revelations about his own lies to lawmakers regarding the negotiations in 2016 by the Trump Organization to build a tower in Moscow.

But Burr’s decision to send the subpoena has caused an uproar among Republicans. They’ve been doing their best to sweep the Mueller report — including its damning revelations about the president — under the rug. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a speech declaring “case closed” on the matter.

View the complete May 10 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Trump family, businesses sue in effort to block banks from complying with subpoenas

President Trump, members of his family and his private businesses filed a federal lawsuit late Monday against Deutsche Bank and Capital One in an attempt to block the financial institutions from complying with congressional subpoenas.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, comes after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) issued the subpoenas seeking records on Trump’s personal finances.

“The subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the President and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage. No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one,” the complaint states.

View the complete April 29 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

Maryanne Trump Barry Quits Federal Bench Amid Tax Probe

We don’t hear about her much, but President Donald Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, is a notable figure in her own right. She’s been a federal judge on the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, where she was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999.

And she just did something very suspicious.

At 82, she’s been an inactive senior judge on the court not hearing cases, according to a New York Times report Wednesday night. But she just stepped down from her position, officially retiring.

View the complete April 10 article by Cody Fenwick on the National Memo website here.

Culture Of Corruption: Nearly Every Trump Entity Is Under Investigation

Trump brings a culture of corruption everywhere he goes. Nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is now under investigation or scrutiny. Here are some of the latest developments:

Trump was forced to shut down his foundation, which remains under investigation for illegal self-dealing and being used for political gain.

New York Times: “The Donald J. Trump Foundation will close and give away all its remaining funds amid a lawsuit accusing the charity and the Trump family of using it illegally for self-dealing and political gain, the New York attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.”

Trump’s inaugural committee is under investigation into whether it misspent donations and accepted illegal contributions.

Wall Street Journal: “Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations, people familiar with the matter said.” Continue reading “Culture Of Corruption: Nearly Every Trump Entity Is Under Investigation”

New York files civil suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in ‘illegal conduct’

The following article David A. Fahrenthold was posted on the Washington Post website June 14, 2018:

New York’s attorney general filed suit against President Trump and his three eldest children Thursday, alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the president’s personal charity and saying that Trump had repeatedly misused the nonprofit organization to pay off his businesses’ creditors, to decorate one of his golf clubs and to stage a multimillion-dollar giveaway at 2016 campaign events.

In the suit, Attorney General Barbara Underwood asked a state judge to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. She asked that its remaining $1 million in assets be distributed to other charities and that Trump be forced to pay at least $2.8 million in restitution and penalties. Continue reading “New York files civil suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in ‘illegal conduct’”

Jared Kushner’s Close Friend Rick Gerson Under Scrutiny From Mueller Team

The following article was posted on the Daily Beast website May 31, 2018:

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A close friend of Jared Kushner’s is of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller for his supposed knowledge of meetings between Trump associates and foreign officials, NBC News reports. Five unnamed sources who are said to be familiar with the investigation say Richard Gerson, a New York hedge-fund manager, was in Seychelles in January 2017 around the same time Trump associate Erik Prince met with Russian and United Arab Emirates officials, including Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi. Gerson reportedly met with Prince Mohamed and was in contact with a Lebanese-American businessman with close ties to the UAE, George Nader, who organized the Erik Prince meeting. A spokesperson for Gerson said: “Mr. Gerson was on vacation in the Seychelles prior to the meeting you reference. He knew nothing about the meeting, had left before the meeting was reported to have taken place, and has never met or communicated with Erik Prince.”

READ IT AT NBC NEWS

 

The Trump Family Made Millions from Drug Cartels and the Russian Mafia in Panama City: Report

The following article by Liza Posner was posted on the AlterNet website November 17, 2017:

Maybe we should start calling the president’s Florida estate “Mar-a-Narco.”

Trump Tower Panama City. Credit: WIkiPedia

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.’” Continue reading “The Trump Family Made Millions from Drug Cartels and the Russian Mafia in Panama City: Report”

How Trump May Be Profiting Off Natural Disasters

The following article by Chris Riotta with Newsweek was posted on the National Memo website September 10, 2017:

Donald Trump proposed to slash funding for federal disaster relief and emergency preparedness programs just months into his presidency. Now, with Hurricane Irma barreling toward the southeastern U.S. coastline and Houston beginning to rebuild after Hurricane Harvey, the first family stands to add to its bankroll during—and in the wake of—major natural disasters striking the United States.

Our Thoughts on Rep. Paulsen and Trump Lavish Travel on Public Tab

As we learned last October, 2016, President Trump will not be paying taxes for almost 20 years. He also will not release his tax returns.  Yet, those of us who do pay taxes will be paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the security and travel of his extended family, with some of that flowing right back into Trumps’ own pockets.  Trump expenses in just one year are expected to be double what Obama’s were in all eight years combined.

By tolerating President Trump’s existing conflicts of interest in his businesses, we encourage further conflicts, hurting all Americans financially and morally. We urge our “so called” fiscally conservative elected Republicans including Congressman Paulsen, as well as the working class supporters of Trump to please stand up to “King” Trump.   

Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense

The following article by Drew Harwell, Amy Britain and Jonathan O’Connell was posted on the Washington Post website February 16, 2017:

On Friday, President Trump and his entourage will jet for the third straight weekend to a working getaway at his oceanfront Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.

On Saturday, Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr., with their Secret Service details in tow, will be nearly 8,000 miles away in the United Arab Emirates, attending the grand opening of a Trump-brand golf resort in the “Beverly Hills of Dubai.” Continue reading “Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense”