Tag: Trump grift

New York Times: Tax records show Trump had over $270 million in debt forgiven after failing to repay lenders

President Donald Trump has had more than $270 million in debt forgiven since 2010 after he failed to repay his lenders for a Chicago skyscraper development, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

An analysis of his tax records by the Times shows that after the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago encountered financial problems, big banks and hedge funds cut Trump considerable slack, granting him years of additional time to repay his debts, much of which was ultimately forgiven. 

And while the previously unreported forgiven debts would usually fuel a large tax bill, Trump appears to have managed to pay almost no federal income tax on them, the Times reported, partially because of the significant financial losses his other businesses were enduring. Continue reading.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany Is Now Formally Moonlighting as a Trump Campaign Aide

Good government groups say it’s just one more example of the blurry lines between Trump’s White House and his political operation.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany appears to have taken on a new gig. In addition to her role as a government employee, she’s now serving as a senior aide on her boss’s reelection campaign.

In an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday morning, McEnany was introduced as “Trump 2020 senior adviser and White House press secretary.” A few hours later, Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney introduced McEnany by saying she is “serving now as adviser for the Trump campaign.”

McEnany’s dual roles for the White House and the Trump reelection campaign immediately set off alarm bells among good-government advocates, who said they represent yet another instance of the often blurry lines between the Trump administration and the president’s political operation. Continue reading.

Ballrooms, candles and luxury cottages: During Trump’s term, millions of government and GOP dollars have flowed to his properties

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‘The 45th President’: One in a series looking back at the Trump presidency

President Trump welcomed the Japanese prime minister at Mar-a-Lago, in front of a towering arrangement of roses. The two could have met in Washington, but Trump said his private club was a more comfortable alternative.

“It is, indeed, the Southern White House,” Trump said, greeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in front of the press in April 2018.

For Trump, there was another, hidden benefit. Money.

At Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s company would get paid to host his summit.

In the next two days, as Trump and Abe talked about trade and North Korea, Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., club billed the U.S. government $13,700 for guest rooms, $16,500 for food and wine and $6,000 for the roses and other floral arrangements. Continue reading.

How Trump abandoned his pledge to ‘drain the swamp’

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‘The 45th President’: One in a series looking back at the Trump presidency

On a Friday evening in late September, President Trump huddled with high-dollar donors, lobbyists and corporate executives in a private room at the hotel he owns in Washington, where attendees took turns pitching the president on their pet issues.

Trump was there to raise big money for his reelection effort. The price of admission: as much as $100,000 per person to get in the door.

For his guests, it was a chance to make the most of what has emerged as a signature feature of Trump’s Washington: the ability of wealthy donors to directly lobby the president. Continue reading.

Trump’s Philanthropy: Big Tax Write-Offs and Claims That Don’t Always Add Up

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Hidden financial records cast doubt on a number of his charitable commitments and show that most of his giving came from land deals that offset his income.

In President Trump’s telling, he is a committed philanthropist with strong ties to many charities. “If you don’t give back, you’re never ever going to be fulfilled in life,” he wrote in “Trump 101: The Way to Success,” published at the height of his “Apprentice” fame.

And according to his tax records, he has given back at least $130 million since 2005, his second year as a reality TV star.

But the long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show that Mr. Trump did not have to reach into his wallet for most of that giving. The vast bulk of his charitable tax deductions, $119.3 million worth, came from simply agreeing not to develop land — in several cases, after he had shelved development plans. Continue reading.

Trump used his campaign war chest like an ATM. Now it’s dead broke — and GOP donors are furious

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Suckers. That’s clearly how major GOP donors feel after realizing that Trump’s campaign is basically dead broke, he’s dragging down the entire party, and he’s even put Democrats in position to potentially take back the Senate. 

“The Senate majority is the most important objective right now,” said Dan Eberhart, who has given over $190,000 to Trump’s reelection effort, according to the AP. “It’s the bulwark against so much bad policy that the Democrats want to do if they sweep the elections.”

Eberhart and others feel burned after the state of Trump’s campaign war chest has come into clearer view in the final months of the race. Some Republicans donors even founded a separate pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America, that was explicitly not run by Trump’s people because he’s clearly not sending his finest. Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson recently poured $75 million into that PAC instead of just handing it over to the Trump campaign. Continue reading.

Trump touted a major new factory — but all Wisconsin got was ‘empty promises and empty buildings’: report

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President Donald Trump and his supporters were hoping that a deal with the Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn would create 13,000 new manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin, guaranteeing that he would win the state this election year and convince voters that he made good on his promise to bring new jobs to the Rust Belt. But the Foxconn deal, journalist Josh Dzieza emphasizes in an article for The Verge, has been a flop — and the LCD plant that was promised never materialized. Instead of a manufacturing renaissance, all Wisconsin got were “empty promises and empty buildings,” according to The Verge.

“Hopes were high among the employees who joined Foxconn’s Wisconsin project in the summer of 2018,” Dzieza explains. “In June, President Donald Trump had broken ground on an LCD factory he called ‘the eighth wonder of the world.’ The scale of the promise was indeed enormous: a $10 billion investment from the Taiwanese electronics giant, a 20 million-square-foot manufacturing complex, and, most importantly, 13,000 jobs.”

In a press release touting the factor in 2017, the White House employed the hard sell. Continue reading.

Trump Hotels Reap Hidden Profits From State Department

Donald Trump makes a big show of giving away his annual paycheck to some agency each year. He can afford to, since the Secret Service has rewarded him with two years’ worth of pay just in the money it has spent on golf carts. Really. And then there’s the money that the Air Force has dropped at Trump’s Scottish golf resort. And how Trump has doubled the dues at several of his clubs so that people wanting insider access have to pony up at least $200,000 to bend his elbow in the buffet line (for the buffets that they are still having despite COVID-19).

Assembling the full list of all the ways Trump has tapped his position to line his pockets over the past four years, is a project that will probably still be occupying scholars in the year 3020. However, there is at least one government department that seems to have taken a shot at assembling a compendium. The State Department has put together a 450-page tome showing all the ways it slipped dollars to the boss. 

That report is ready to go … they’re hiding it until after the election. Continue reading.

A rap sheet for a former president

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If Trump is prosecuted, obstruction of justice, bribery and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. could be among the charges.

The next attorney general of the United States faces two daunting decisions: whether to investigate possible criminal conduct by a former president and members of his administration, and if so, whether to file charges.

The Justice Manual directs federal prosecutors to bring charges if they believe that an offense has been committed, if the admissible evidence is enough “to obtain and sustain a conviction,” and if prosecution will serve a substantial federal interest.

It will be up to the attorney general to decide whether filing criminal charges against Donald Trump and his aides best serves justice, but public reporting suggests there is evidence that could support such charges. State prosecutors also may have evidence of illegal conduct. The statute of limitations for most federal offenses is five years. That means crimes that occurred as far back as 2016 could be charged until their anniversary date in 2021. Older offenses may also be charged if the conduct was part of an ongoing conspiracy — for instance, if a coverup continued within the five-year period covered by the statute. Trump has engaged in other deplorable conduct that probably does not amount to criminal activity. Hiding accurate information about the coronavirus epidemic, for example, may have contributed to the deaths of Americans, but the causal connection is probably too tenuous to charge him with crimes such as negligent homicide or manslaughter. Some say Trump’s conduct toward Russia is treason — including his silence following reporting about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan — but this is a nonstarter. Conduct cannot amount to treason unless a person provides aid and comfort to an enemy with whom our nation is engaged in armed conflict. Continue reading.

Trump again asks Supreme Court to shield tax records

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President Trump on Tuesday filed an emergency request to the Supreme Court asking the justices to shield his tax records from a New York grand jury subpoena.

The filing from Trump’s personal attorneys marks the second time the president has asked the court to block Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (D) from obtaining eight years of his tax records.

In July, the justices voted 7-2 to reject Trump’s argument that presidents have sweeping immunity from the criminal process, but said Trump could mount other legal objections in lower court proceedings. Continue reading.