Fahrenthold, David WaPo

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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/new-report-shows-how-trump-businesses-took-money-from-the-government-even-while-they-closed-down/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/new-report-shows-how-trump-businesses-took-money-from-the-government-even-while-they-closed-down/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">when Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, he insisted that if he won the election, there would be a strict separation between the federal government and his business interests — that he would be “completely isolating” himself from his businesses. <b>But according to Washington Post reporters David A. Fahrenthold and Josh Dawsey, the president’s high-end properties have “charged the U.S. government more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-spending-bedminster/2020/09/17/9e11e1c2-f6a0-11ea-be57-d00bb9bc632d_story.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">$1.1 million in private transactions</a> since Trump took office” in January 2017.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Documents showing $1.1 million in charges, Fahrenthold and Dawsey report in the Post, were released by the U.S. Secret Service after the Post filed a public-records lawsuit. Those documents included receipts and invoices from Trump’s businesses, and the Post reporters note that “$188,000 in previously unknown charges” increases the Post’s “running total of payments to Trump’s properties related to the presence of Secret Service agents.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One of those businesses is the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey,</b> which “charged the Secret Service more than $21,800 to rent a cottage and other rooms” while it was closed to the public because of the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump, according to Fahrenthold and Dawsey, did not visit his Bedminster property while it was “closed and otherwise off limits to guests,” but his daughter, White House Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump, reportedly did.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fahrenthold and Dawsey explain, “The family visited the club in April to celebrate Passover, a period that overlaps with several of the largest Secret Service charges. At the time, both the District of Columbia — where Ivanka Trump lives — and New Jersey had imposed ‘stay-at-home’ orders, telling residents to avoid travel except under limited circumstances." t</font><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">he Post reporters, however, note that the Secret Service does not appear to have violated New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s stay-at-home order, which employees of the federal government were exempt from.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the government watchdog group Public Citizen, finds it “appalling” that Trump’s businesses are profiting at the expense of taxpayers — especially in light of the toll that the coronavirus pandemic has taken on state budgets.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gilbert told the Post, “The waste inherent in this is appalling…. They’re nickel-and-diming the American people at a moment when every penny counts.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Fahrenthold/Dawsey article published on Thursday isn’t the first time the Post has reported on the Bedminster business making money from taxpayers, but the Post reporters point out that “the new documents show that the rentals lasted much longer than previously known. Instead of lasting only for the summer months, when Trump usually visited, the rentals stretched from May to the end of October, the new documents show.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a former Trump official, the Secret Service chose to rent out rooms for six months at a time because the president did not announce his travel schedule far in advance. That source, presumably interviewed on condition of anonymity, told the Post, “We always had space reserved at Bedminster weeks before the president arrived, just in case. If he came in the Oval on, let’s say, on a Wednesday, and said, ‘I want to go this weekend,’ you have to be ready.”</font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to be fair, WH sez will colect and pt out inaccuracies, which is SOP fair, but they haven't yet?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/white-house-threatens-journalist-with-a-dossier-over-report-exposing-trumps-self-dealing/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/white-house-threatens-journalist-with-a-dossier-over-report-exposing-trumps-self-dealing/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">white House threatens journalist with a ‘dossier’ over report exposing Trump’s self-dealing</font></div><div>
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson August 27, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump promised that he would “completely isolate” himself from the Trump Organization if elected president. But the Washington Post and other media outlets have done a great deal of reporting on the many ways in which Trump’s properties — from Mar-a-Lago in South Florida to his hotels and golf resorts around the world — have profited from his presidency. Some of that reporting can be found in an article that was written by reporters <b>David A. Fahrenthold</b>, Josh Dawsey and Joshua Partlow and published by the Post on Thursday morning, and one of the article’s revelations is that<b> a White House spokesman resented the Post’s investigation so much that he was willing to threaten Fahrenthold with a “dossier.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a written statement to the Post, the journalists report, Deere said:<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> “The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop. Please be advised that we are building up a very large ‘dossier’ on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.”</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></b></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[[</font><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Manuel Roig-Franzia</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">@RoigFranzia</font></font></font></font></div><div style="">Here are the only 3 lines needed for the @Fahrenthold dossier: “One of America’s greatest journalists. Irreproachable ethics and scrupulously fair. End of dossier.”</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">David Fahrenthold</div><div style="">@Fahrenthold</div><div style="">Sadly, the White House is exempt from FOIA (I wish it wasn't -- i'd like to see what the White House has paid to Trump properties from its own budget).</div><div style="">But if you know anything about a dossier the White House has supposedly compiled on me, let me know (or send me a copy)! https://twitter.com/htsuka/status/1299039276085075970]]</div></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In that statement, Deere insisted that Trump has “turned over the day-to-day responsibilities of running the company, though he was not required to, (and) has sacrificed billions of dollars.” But Fahrenthold, Dawsey and Partlow, in their article, make it abundantly clear how much Trump’s businesses have profited from Trump’s presidency.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>“Trump has now visited his own properties 270 times as president</b>, according to a Washington Post tally — with another visit planned for Thursday, when he is scheduled to meet GOP donors at his Washington hotel,” the Post reporters explain. <b>“Through these trips, Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel</b>, according to a Post analysis.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One of the Trump Organization’s profitable customers, according to Fahrenthold, Dawsey and Partlow, has been the U.S. Secret Service.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“New federal spending documents obtained by the Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service — a <b>kind of captive customer,</b> required to follow Trump everywhere,” the reporters note. “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In addition to the rentals at Mar-a-Lago, the documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily ‘resort fees’ to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and, in another instance, asked agents to pay a $1300 ‘furniture removal charge’ during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Post journalists observe that Trump can cause his businesses to profit — at the expense of U.S. taxpayers — merely by setting foot in them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The most frequent way Trump is known to have helped his properties has been just to visit them, with the vast, big-spending presidential entourage in tow,” they explain.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Post, “One would think that if he was trying to completely isolate himself from his businesses, he wouldn’t talk about his business —  he wouldn’t promote his business, he wouldn’t go to his businesses…. (But) his businesses have been a constant presence in his presidency. No, the idea that he was going to isolate himself completely — it’s been quite the opposite.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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