trump u kasowitz

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817 primary on slapp dpl etp, evil pending

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NO LNX JOE CONASON

:{alternet

How Trump corrupted Pam Bondi

Pam Bondi speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

Joe ConasonNovember 23, 2024

Newspaper profiles of Pamela Bondi -- subbed in as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. attorney general following the scandalous implosion of Matt Gaetz -- often describe her with a phrase like "longtime loyalist."

The former Florida attorney general's unwavering fealty dates back to September 2013, when a political committee supporting her reelection campaign received a $25,000 check from the Trump Foundation. And the story behind that check foreshadows four more years of exceptionally corrupt administration, when the first felon returns to the White House. It is a tale that revolves around two of the most notorious scams pursued by the president-elect during his career as a "successful businessman," namely the Trump Foundation and Trump University.

Rather than an institution of higher learning, Trump U was a for-profit real-estate seminar that promised easy wealth to the suckers who paid huge sums to learn the Donald's investment secrets and received no instruction of any value whatsoever in return. Over the years before Bondi got that Trump check, thousands of defrauded consumers had complained to her office, demanding action.

And just three weeks earlier, then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman finally had announced the filing of a massive fraud case on behalf of New Yorkers ripped off by Trump University. According to Tristan Snell, the assistant attorney general handling the case, they hoped Florida would join New York's lawsuit "because it opened up the possibility that, if needed, we could pursue additional witnesses and documents" in the Sunshine State, where subpoenas would require Bondi's assistance.

Evidently that possibility also occurred to someone in the Trump Organization. Four days after the dramatic New York filing, Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff sent an email to the Bondi campaign finance director, seeking details of how to make a donation. Made out to "And Justice For All," the ironically named Bondi PAC, that donation arrived by mail on Sept. 13, 2013, along with a note signed by Trump that misspelled the candidate's name as "Biondi" and declared, "Dear Pam, You are the greatest!"

The check was drawn on the Trump Foundation -- a tax-exempt nonprofit organization prohibited from giving money to political campaigns or partisan committees. That was merely one of many examples of Trump's abuse of his foundation's tax-exempt status.

You may have surmised by this point that the Florida attorney general blew off her New York colleagues in seeking justice for the Trump U victims. Snell recalls that after sending the case documents to Tallahassee, "we never heard from the Florida AG's office again."

None of that hindered the legal team led by Snell -- one of very few officials ever to hold Trump accountable -- from winning a $25 million settlement from the Trump Organization after the 2016 election. The proceeds reimbursed Trump's victims for roughly 80% of what they had lost. Two years after he coughed up that punishing payment, the New York attorney general's office came after the Trump Foundation again, charging that its charitable activities were nonexistent and that its expenditures benefited Trump himself.

In the humiliating conclusion of that lawsuit, his lawyers agreed their client would shut down the foundation and pay the remaining millions in its accounts to bona fide charities.

So egregious were the depredations of Trump U that Republicans felt obliged to condemn its swindling. The National Review ran a scathing investigative report headlined "Yes, Trump University Was a Massive Scam." Sen. Marco Rubio, then a Trump rival, denounced Trump U as a "con job," and warned that "we cannot allow a con artist to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States." (The Florida senator's more recent sycophancy has now earned Rubio the opportunity to become secretary of state.)

Every Republican senator who votes to confirm Bondi as the nation's attorney general knows the saga of Trump University. As Snell sardonically asks, "Did Trump just happen to want to make a donation to Bondi a mere four days after the New York AG's case was filed? Really?"

He goes on to demand that journalists and senators interrogate Bondi about this scandal -- and explore its implications for her integrity, her subservience to the president, and her ability to carry out the attorney general's duties.

"We need to make sure this full story gets told -- and any profile of Bondi or analysis of her nomination that does not include this story is itself another example of corrupt complicity." Nobody, in the mainstream media or the United States Senate, should be able to claim they did not know.

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720 got covid bailout $?!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/ppp-small-business-loans.html

no lnx

Lobbyists, Law Firms and Trade Groups Took Small-Business Loans

The Trump administration began releasing details of which businesses received Paycheck Protection Program aid.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, under pressure from Congress, is releasing data about where Paycheck Protection Program loans have gone.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, under pressure from Congress, is releasing data about where Paycheck Protection Program loans have gone.Credit...Michael Reynolds/EPA

By Jeanna Smialek, Jim Tankersley and Luke Broadwater

Published July 6, 2020

Updated July 7, 2020

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, under pressure to reveal which companies received loans from a $660 billion program intended to keep small businesses afloat, on Monday released data showing that restaurants, medical offices and car dealerships ranked high among the top loan recipients.

The detailed information from the Paycheck Protection Program was confined to companies that received loans of more than $150,000. The administration said 86.5 percent of the loans were for less than that amount, so the snapshot captured only one sliver of businesses that tapped funds. So far, banks have made about 4.9 million loans through the program, with an average size of $107,000.

Nearly 5,000 businesses received individual loans between $5 million and $10 million, according to the data. The administration included ranges for the amounts, not specific figures.

And the figures did not include details on the roughly $30 billion in loans that were returned as companies realized that they were not eligible for the program, worried that they couldn’t meet program requirements or reacted to a public outcry about big firms getting funds.

Restaurants, medical offices and car dealerships were the top recipients of large loans from the program. More than 40,000 full- or limited-service restaurants received loans worth as much as $32 billion, according to the ranges provided by the government.

Sprinkled among the beneficiaries were businesses that are likely to attract scrutiny, including a fancy sushi restaurant at the Trump International Hotel in Washington; Kanye West’s company, Yeezy; and President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer.

Washington lobbying shops, high-priced law firms and special-interest groups also received big loans, according to the administration, the latest indication of how the government’s centerpiece effort to shore up mom-and-pop shops set off a race by organizations far afield from Main Street to secure federal money. The disclosure could further fuel outrage toward the program, which has been complicated by revelations that large, publicly traded companies were taking big loans and concerns that it might leave borrowers saddled with debt.

“My 1,000-foot takeaway is that the government was handing out free money and the line went around the corner,” said Aaron Klein, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “This is not your mom-and-pop shop on Main Street.”

The administration said the Paycheck Protection Program had helped to support more than 50 million jobs. The share of overall small-business payroll supported per state ranged from 72 percent in Virginia to 96 percent in Florida, according to the Treasury Department.

The program provides forgivable loans to companies that have 500 or fewer employees and meet certain requirements, such as using the bulk of the money to keep workers on the payroll. Lenders are responsible for reviewing recipients’ forgiveness applications to verify that they complied with the program’s rules.

More than 100 law firms received loans ranging from $1 million to $10 million, the data showed. The list included well-known names like Boies Schiller Flexner, the high-priced law firm run by David Boies, which received between $5 million and $10 million. “We don’t comment on our financials,” the firm said.

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Kasowitz Benson Torres, founded and run by Mr. Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, received a loan for between $5 million and $10 million. The firm represented Mr. Trump for over a decade before he was elected president, both in his business dealings and in other matters, such as helping him keep divorce records sealed. Mr. Kasowitz and the firm also represented Mr. Trump during Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

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Mr. Trump later diminished the role of Mr. Kasowitz in his dealings with Mr. Mueller’s investigators. A spokeswoman for Kasowitz Benson Torres said the loan, along with cost-cutting, “enabled us to preserve the jobs of our hundreds of employees at full salary and benefits without interruption.”

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The president also appears to have benefited from government support, at least indirectly. While the Trump Organization did not apply for loans under the program, the data showed that dozens of tenants at buildings owned by Mr. Trump or managed by his companies received funds.

One reported recipient was a hair salon in the president’s hotel in Chicago. More than 20 businesses listed at 40 Wall Street, an office building near the New York Stock Exchange that Mr. Trump has owned since the mid-1990s, also reportedly received government loans totaling at least $20 million. Among the recipients were law offices, financial service firms and nonprofit organizations.

Sushi Nakazawa, a restaurant at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, received a loan of between $150,000 and $350,000. The company did not respond to a request for comment about how it planned to use the funds.

Some loan recipients are connected to the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. The data show that a loan of between $350,000 and $1 million was made to Esplanade Livingston, a Kushner family entity that owns the land in Livingston, N.J., where the family’s Westminster Hotel is. In 2018, Mr. Kushner divested his stake in the entity, from which he once derived income generated by that hotel.

Princeton Forrestal, a real estate entity owned by various members of the Kushner family not including Mr. Kushner, received a loan of between $1 million and $2 million.

“Several of our hotels have applied for federal loans, in accordance with all guidelines, with a vast majority of funds going to furloughed employees,” said Pete Febo, Kushner Companies’ chief operating officer.

The Paycheck Protection Program, which was included in the $2 trillion stimulus bill passed by lawmakers in March, also benefited several members of Congress.

Car dealerships connected to Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania, received three loans, each between $150,000 and $350,000. Mr. Kelly, a multimillionaire, owns Mike Kelly Automotive Group, Mike Kelly Automotive L.P.; and Mike Kelly Hyundai, all of which accepted loans.

Andrew Eisenberger, spokesman for Mr. Kelly, said that the congressman had properly followed the rules of the disaster aid program and that the money would be used “to sustain the income of workers who would otherwise have been without pay or employment at no fault of their own during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Businesses associated with other members of Congress or their relatives, both Democrats and Republicans, received similar disaster aid. They included a farm and other businesses owned by Representative Vicky Harzler, Republican of Missouri, and her husband. Ms. Harzler cited the need “to ensure the continued ability to maintain the employment of all team members during this time.”

A New York shipping business owned by the family of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the wife of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, received at least $350,000, according to the data. A person familiar with the company, Foremost Group, said that the loan was for less than $500,000 and that no employees had been laid off during the pandemic. Ms. Chao has no formal affiliation or stake in the business. In 2008, she and Mr. McConnell received millions of dollars in gifts from her father, James, who ran the company until 2018.

Many of the biggest and most influential lobbying and political consulting firms received money — despite prohibitions intended to restrict access — most likely qualifying by highlighting lines of business that fell outside the restrictions.

Wiley Rein, which has a large lobbying practice focusing on trade issues, received between $5 million and $10 million,according to the data. Van Ness Feldman and Beveridge & Diamond, two law firms that focus on helping energy industry clients push their agendas in Washington, received loans between $2 million and $5 million, according to the administration.

A firm that raises money for Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee received a loan of more than $1 million, according to the data set, while a company that produces Mr. Trump’s political advertisements received between $350,000 and $1 million. So did a consulting firm started by President Barack Obama’s former campaign manager Jim Messina and one that Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign paid for communications consulting.

Several firms that advise companies on how to deal with the government, but are not officially registered to lobby, were also said to have received loans. They include companies run by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who served in the Clinton administration.

The administration listed loans worth between $350,000 and $1 million to a consulting firm started by former Senator William S. Cohen, a Maine Republican who also served in the Clinton administration as the secretary of defense, and one run by a homeland security secretary in the Bush administration, Michael Chertoff. And DCI Group AZ, a prominent political and corporate consulting firm, collected as much as $5 million.

An affiliate of Americans for Tax Reform, the influential conservative group that has been a vocal critic of government spending, received between $150,000 and $350,000, according to the government’s data. In a statement, the group said the foundation “was badly hurt by the government shutdown” and “does not engage in lobbying.”

A number of prominent private schools were listed as loan recipients, despite the controversy over whether such institutions should take the money.

In New York City, St. Ann’s School took a loan valued between $5 million and $10 million. Kent Place School, a private school in New Jersey, was reported to have received a loan worth between $1 million and $2 million.

Schools with political ties in the Washington area also received loans. Sidwell Friends, which has educated the children of presidents, received a loan worth between $5 million and $10 million, based on the data. Georgetown Preparatory School, which the Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch attended, received a loan worth between $2 million and $5 million.

Georgetown Preparatory’s president, the Rev. James R. Van Dyke, said, “We remain committed to doing all that we can to retain our immensely talented faculty and staff,” adding that many of them accept salaries and wages “lower than what they might earn in the for-profit sector or the public school system.”

St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, where Mr. Trump’s youngest son is a student, also received a loan.

Touring companies for rock bands also turned to the government for help as concert venues around the country went dark to prevent the spread of the virus.

A limited liability company called Eagles Touring Company II Foreign received a loan between $350,000 and $1 million. Documents filed in California show that the entity shares an agent with a similarly named company whose president is Don Henley, a founding member of the Eagles, the rock band that had to postpone its tour this spring.

Lil’ Jon Touring and Nickelback Touring 2, among other acts, received loans between $150,000 and $350,000. Lil Jon’s publicist, Tamar Juda, said that the artist had canceled over 75 shows since the beginning of the pandemic and that the funds allowed his core touring staff to remain employed.

Yeezy, which California business filings show is a holding company registered to Mr. West, received between $2 million and $5 million to support 106 jobs, based on the disclosures. The holding company appears to be linked to Mr. West’s apparel brand, having recently filed to trademark the phrase “West Day Ever” for use on clothing. Public relations firms that have worked for Yeezy did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

There was no apparent link between the amount of economic damage suffered by states and how successful the small businesses in them were at getting the loans from the program.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas all saw loan approvals of at least 90 percent of their eligible small-business payroll, even though they rank among the least-affected states in terms of unemployment claims during the crisis. Two of the hardest-hit states for claims, New York and California, saw loan approvals equal to about three-quarters of their eligible payrolls; by that measure, California companies would have received billions more from the program if they had seen approvals at the same rate as the Plains states.

Reporting was contributed by Kenneth P. Vogel, Eric Lipton, David McCabe, Steve Eder, Ben Protess, Stacy Cowley and Noam Scheiber.

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-responds-to-repackaged-rico-lawsuit-by-canadian-logging-company/

Greenpeace Responds to Repackaged RICO Lawsuit by Canadian Logging Company

by Rodrigo Estrada

January 30, 2018

Defendants in the controversial racketeering case [1] filed by Resolute Forest Products to silence forest defenders and environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, filed a motion to dismiss [2] the repackaged version [3] of the lawsuit yesterday. This action is in response to Resolute’s decision to refile meritless claims that were already dismissed on October 16, 2017 by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Greenpeace USA General Counsel Tom Wetterer said:

“It’s obvious that Resolute’s legal strategy has reached a dead-end. The Judge’s dismissal of this case last year made it clear that it is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, a meritless attack on freedom of speech and public advocacy. The court’s decision also awarded Greenpeace attorney fees under California’s anti-SLAPP statute.

“Resolute’s amended complaint does not address the many deficiencies that Judge Tigar identified in the company’s claims when he dismissed this case the first time in October. Unfortunately, Resolute’s management continues to waste the court’s time, its shareholders’ money, and other valuable resources that would be better used elsewhere — like in the implementation of solutions that protect forests, respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and stabilize jobs in local communities. We are confident that this repackaged lawsuit will meet the same fate as the one already dismissed.

“The misuse of racketeering laws with massive damage claims against advocacy organizations is part of a playbook developed by Trump’s go-to law firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres, to silence fair criticism of corporations. This firm not only represents Resolute, it also filed a strikingly similar lawsuit on behalf of Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the infamous Dakota Access Pipeline that was opposed by an inspiring indigenous-led movement. Corporate bullies and their mercenary lawyers will not prevail over the right of the people to speak up.”

Notes to editors:

[1] On May 31, 2016 Resolute Forest Products filed a CAD$300 million lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in the United States District Court for Southern Georgia, against Greenpeace International, Greenpeace, Inc., Greenpeace Fund, Inc., Stand.earth (formerly ForestEthics), and five individual staff members of these independent organizations. The case was transferred to Northern California on May 16, 2017 when Resolute failed to demonstrate that the case should be heard in Georgia. On October 16, 2017 the U.S. District Court for Northern California dismissed all of the company’s claims. On November 6, 2017 Resolute’s lawyers filed a repackaged version of the same meritless claims against Greenpeace, Inc., Greenpeace Fund, Greenpeace International, Stand.earth and the individual defendants in the same court.

This is Resolute’s second lawsuit against Greenpeace. In 2013, the company filed a CAD$7 million defamation case against Greenpeace Canada and two staff members in Ontario, which is still pending. Click here for more information about the existing legal cases between Resolute Forest Products and Greenpeace, or copy this to your browser: http://www.greenpeace.org/resolutelawsuits/

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racketeering suit ~ GP!?

https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2018/09/20/dakota-access-pipeline-developer-defends-racketeering-claims/

no lnx

Dakota Access pipeline developer defends racketeering claims

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and BLAKE NICHOLSON |

PUBLISHED: September 20, 2018 at 3:47 pm | UPDATED: September 25, 2018 at 11:26 am

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The company that built the Dakota Access oil pipeline says environmental group Greenpeace should be held legally accountable for violating federal racketeering laws.

Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners sued Greenpeace and two other groups for up to $1 billion last year, arguing they worked to undermine the $3.8 billion pipeline that’s now shipping oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Greenpeace recently asked to be dismissed from the case, after a federal judge dismissed the other two groups. But the company argued this week that there was plentiful evidence of “malicious criminal conduct” by Greenpeace.

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In court documents filed Tuesday, company attorneys allege that Greenpeace knowingly disseminated false information about the pipeline to obtain donations and incite unrest, including to company lenders and investors to hurt ETP financially. The company also alleges the environmental group organized and funded a violent protest faction in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

“Defendants’ RICO enterprise comprised three related components,”ETP attorney Jennifer Recine wrote in the court filing, arguing that Greenpeace was employing similar tactics against ETP pipeline projects in Pennsylvania and Louisiana.

Greenpeace argued in its dismissal request this month that ETP’s claims were “generalized and implausible.”

ETP filed the lawsuit last year against Earth First, BankTrack and three Greenpeace groups — Greenpeace, Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Fund.

The groups argued the lawsuit was an attack on free speech.

But in the documents filed Tuesday, Recine argued that ETP wasn’t trying “to limit anyone’s exercise of any legally protected conduct.” Rather, the company is seeking “to vindicate its own legal rights in the face of the Greenpeace defendants’ malicious criminal conduct.”

U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson dismissed BankTrack and Earth First as defendants in the case this summer. He said ETP failed to make a case that Earth First is an entity that can be sued. The judge said BankTrack’s actions in imploring banks not to fund the pipeline did not amount to radical ecoterrorism.

In July, Wilson denied a motion by Greenpeace to be dismissed. But he also ordered ETP to revise the lawsuit, which the judge said contained vague claims. Company lawyers did so last month.

Groups and American Indian tribes who feared environmental harm from the pipeline staged large protests that resulted in 761 arrests in southern North Dakota over a six-month span beginning in late 2016.

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http://www.kasowitz.com/people/jennifer-s-recine

GP RICO

Real Estate Disputes, Land Use and Environmental Actions.  Jennifer represents clients with real estate, land use and environmental matters involving the investment, development, construction, sale, and management of billions of dollars in real estate assets and infrastructure projects.

>- Beverly Hills Unified School District in its ongoing NEPA action against the Federal Transit Administration challenging the proposed route for the extension of the purple line subway in Los Angeles, CA, which is set to run under Beverly Hills High School.

• Obtained reversal of a taking of a parking lot from developer Steel Equities to satisfy the zoning requirements for Calpine’s newly constructed Long Island Power Plant on the grounds that it violated the Fifth Amendment by conferring a private benefit on Calpine.
• Defended a foreclosure action on behalf of distressed investors in Miami Savoy Hotel permitting them to purchase the debt for a substantial discount.
• Secured sole ownership for real estate investor Eric Hadar and the Eric Hadar Family Trust of what his adversaries called “invaluable” Manhattan real estate development sites and the “crown jewels” of the disputed partnership’s assets.
• Obtained the then largest attachment in New York City history for Donald Trumpagainst the owners of one of the last large scale real estate development sites in Manhattan.
• ...

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from am cyanamid:

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7/17 new tool:

http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/07/26/poison-papers-expose-decades-collusion-industry-regulators-hazardous-pesticides-chemicals

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BASF Corporation, Bayer Material Science LLC, Dow Chemical Company and Huntsman International LLC have been named in a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit brought by New York law firm Kasowitz:{, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP on behalf of the U.S. government.

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EcoWatch learned that the recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit was served on the chemical companies on Wednesday. The lawsuit was originally filed under seal in federal court in Northern California.

Kasowitz brought this action on behalf of itself and the federal government to recover more than $90 billion in damages and penalties under the FCA, which imposes penalties for concealing obligations to the government.

According to a copy of the lawsuit seen by EcoWatch, "Each of these companies is separately liable to the United States Government for billions of dollars in civil reporting penalties, which continue to accumulate by tens of thousands of dollars daily, and for billions of dollars in similarly increasing breach of contract damages."

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The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that it had reached a settlement with the New Jersey-based operators of a website called LendEDU, which falsely claimed to offer “unbiased” advice about student loans, personal loans, and credit cards. In fact, LendEDU gave higher ratings to companies that paid for the placement. LendEDU also touted positive reviews of their website on other sites,  reviews that were actually written by LendEDU employees or family members.

The FTC uncovers and penalizes scams like LendEDU on a regular basis. But the penalties imposed by the FTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other law enforcers are often pitifully weak, with small or no cash fines, as understaffed agencies get overwhelmed by powerful corporate lawyers representing the abusers, or succumb to lobbyist-driven political pressures. And many more cons go unpunished entirely.

Indeed, a good chunk of our economy involves scam artists separating Americans from their hard-earned dollars through dishonesty and boiler-room aggressiveness. And I don’t just mean sleazy websites, foreign inheritance email scams, and those endless phone calls peddling pharmaceuticals and low-cost health insurance.

Many mainstream corporations participate in the scamming — using misleading claims, high-pressure tactics, and outright fraud to sell bad deals to unsuspecting customers.

One of the companies that showed up high in scam LendEDU’s rankings was online lender SoFi. On Wednesday, the District of Columbia bar emailed its lawyer members (including me) saying it is “excited” to announce its latest “Member Benefits partnership”: We can refinance our student loans or get personal loans from Sofi. Never mind that many experts, such as former U.S. deputy under secretary of education Bob Shireman, believe that student loan refinancing is often a bad deal. Shireman asked aloud yesterday whether SoFi is providing the DC Bar with compensation for peddling this dubious “benefit.”

Similarly, many big companies offer their employees, as a benefit, supposedly discounted tuition rates at high-priced, low-quality for-profit colleges, schools that have a record of deceptive practices and leaving graduates deep in debt, without the career advancement they sought.

One of the nation’s biggest banks, Wells Fargo, recently engaged for at least five years in a massive systematic fraud — creating millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts for customers without telling them.

Many of us have friends or relatives miserably locked into perpetual fees for timeshare properties they don’t visit, purchased based on deceptive, relentless sales pitches.  Worse, many of the companies aggressively seeking to get you out of a timeshare are also a ripoff.

When you visit a department store, or fly on a plane, it’s clear that the main thing employees want you to do is sign up for their company’s credit card — with the hope that you will start running up debts, borrowing money from them at an exorbitant 20 or 25 percent interest rate.

Perhaps the biggest business con has been perpetuated by the oil, gas, and coal industries, which have spent decades actively concealing, and seeking to discredit scientific findings about, what they knew to be the truth: that burning fossil fuels is heating up the planet, endangering life on earth.

Given that Americans have proven so susceptible to blatant cons, perhaps it was only a matter of time before we voted a con man into the highest office in the land.

Donald Trump has profited from a wide array of blatant scams.

His Trump University was a predatory operation that, for starters, told prospective students that all instructors were hand-picked by Trump, when they were not. Trump University used high-pressure tactics to sell overpriced seminars. One of Trump University’s own sales managers testified, “I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.”  Trump paid $25 million to settle fraud charges brought by former students and New York’s attorney general.

Trump also fleeced people through the multilevel marketing schemes ACN and The Trump Network, which sold dreams and left would-be entrepreneurs worse off than when they started.

In addition to multiple business bankruptcies from his construction projects, Trump has ignored mountains of unpaid bills owed to contractors. There’s also much evidence that Trump properties have been used for money laundering schemes.

Trump promised the village of Balmedie, Scotland, that he would build “the world’s greatest golf course,” then proceeded to break every promise, cutting a touted $1.25 billion investment in the community to $50 million and a promised 6000 jobs to just 95, while bullying those who complained of environmental harms.

In December 2019, Trump agreed to pay $2 million to settle charges that he used the Donald J. Trump Foundation as a personal piggy bank, fraudulently using money raised from others for charitable purpose to pay personal expenses, business debts, and presidential campaign bills.

And experts reviewing Trump tax documents that have leaked out, despite his attempts to conceal them, have concluded that the returns suggest a pattern of fraud — a con that has denied the U.S. Treasury millions in revenues otherwise owed.

As president, Trump has governed like a con man, persisting with false promises, telling blatant lies, and padding his wallet with taxpayer dollars.

On Tuesday, Trump bragged that a New Hampshire rally the night before drew “probably had 40 to 50,000 people” — at a venue that holds 12,000. Washington Post researchers found that Trump made 16,241 false or misleading claims in his first three years. He continues to insist that Mexico is paying for a border wall, even though he keeps asking Congress for the money.

Trump has now been caught red-handed committing blatant abuses, including: leaning on FBI director James Comey to ease off a criminal investigation of Trump aide Michael Flynn’s dealings with Russia; pressing staff to fire Russia probe counsel Robert Mueller; conspiring with his lawyer to pay hush money to a porn star in order to boost his election chances; trying to extort Ukraine’s president into announcing a bogus investigation of political rivals; and today, expressly linking resolution of policy disputes between his White House and New York state to New York ending “all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment,” presumably referencing the state’s investigations of Trump. But with all the evidence of corruption and abuse of power out in the open, Trump simply insists it’s not true.

Trump also falsely asserted that Hurricane Dorian was headed to Alabama, used a Sharpie on a weather map to further his dangerous hoax, and then falsely denied making the alteration.

Trump has repeatedly sought to use his presidential powers to bring revenues to his businesses. He tried to hold the G-7 summit at his sweltering, starved-for-business Doral Resort in. Florida, until public outrage forced him to back down.  Meanwhile Trump has quietly forced taxpayers to spend as much as $650 a night per room to house Secret Service and other government employees at his properties while he takes endless vacation time there, even as his Trump Organization has claimed they are charging little or nothing. We’re also paying Trump to house federal employees at his hotels when Trump sons Don Jr. And Eric go on business trips overseas.

Trump has advanced his con on the nation by training tens of millions of supporters into unthinking bots who respond to cold hard facts about Trump abuses with the Trump mantra: fake news. His data-driven re-election operation is aimed at deepening this manipulation, and it’s backed up by millions in pro-Trump Super PAC funds from corporations and the wealthy, available after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited spending.

President Donald Trump is the ultimate outcome of an America that has become a nation of suckers, where big-money lobbying and lawyering, and the Trump administration’s trashing of reasonable regulations, hamper government from effectively countering business scams, health and safety risks, and environmental destruction; where tech giants like Facebook and Google refuse to take responsibility for the fraud business and political operations that provide much of their ad revenues; where right-wing Super PACs spend millions to run ads seeking to bolster perceived weak candidates in Democratic primaries.

The price we are paying for our scam culture is immense, as hard-working families devote much of their paychecks to paying debts for products they never should have bought in the first place, and the White House is occupied by a president who attacks the rule of law and does little to advance policies and protections that help every day Americans.

We need to educate ourselves about the difference between a good deal and a bad one, and how to see through frauds. And we need a government that will effectively take on all these con artists, whether they hail from dark corners of the Internet or from big offices on Wall Street, and hold them accountable. But that won’t happen as long as a Scammer-in-Chief occupies the Oval Office.

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pro publ

that the same shell company that Michael Cohen, a longtime personal lawyer for Donald Trump, had used to pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels had also received about $500,000 in 2017 from a firm linked to a Russian oligarch set off a frenzy of commentary on Twitter and cable TV.

At the heart of the story is an investment firm called Columbus Nova, which has close links to Renova Group, a conglomerate founded by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. A Columbus Nova spokesman has said the payments to Cohen were for unspecified investment consulting.

Now there’s a new wrinkle: Another longtime Trump personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, also represented Columbus Nova in recent years in a commercial case. A spokesman for Kasowitz said the case settled in early 2017.

As ProPublica reported last year, Cohen spent a short period in February 2017 working at the offices of Kasowitz Benson Torres in midtown Manhattan, alarming several lawyers at the firm who worried about the brash attorney’s reputation. That was at the beginning of the period, between January and August 2017, when Columbus Nova made its payments to Cohen.

Cohen told ProPublica last year that he used Kasowitz’s offices “because we were working on several matters together after the inauguration.” Both he and Kasowitz have declined to specify what they collaborated on.

Read More

Trump’s Russia Lawyer Isn’t Seeking Security Clearance, And May Have Trouble Getting One

Colleagues say Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s attorney on the Russia investigation, has struggled with alcohol abuse and engaged in behavior that left employees uncomfortable.

A Columbus Nova spokesman said that the investment firm was not introduced to Cohen by Kasowitz. The spokesman said Kasowitz worked on only one commercial matter for Columbus Nova and that it was a coincidence that the firm had used two lawyers who also represent Trump.

Asked whether any of Cohen’s brief time at the Kasowitz offices related to matters for Columbus Nova, Renova, or Vekselberg, a Kasowitz spokesman said “no.” The spokesman added, “The firm did not do any substantive work with Michael Cohen after he left the Trump Organization.” Cohen resigned from the Trump Organization in January 2017.

Cohen didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Any work Cohen did with Kasowitz in 2017 could take on new relevance since the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office last month. Kasowitz, who was Trump’s lead lawyer in the Russia investigation for a brief period last year, has reportedly still been involved in advising the president in the case.

Kasowitz continues to represent Trump in other matters. That includes a suit by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice” who claims Trump defamed her by calling her a liar after she asserted that he had made unwanted sexual advances. Kasowitz Benson Torres specializes in commercial litigation and has represented many large U.S. and foreign companies.

Kasowitz’s work for Columbus Nova stretches back to at least 2010 in related cases filed in New York and Illinois. In Illinois, Fifth Third Bank sued Columbus Nova and several affiliated entities, alleging that they had caused the bank to lose tens of millions of dollars on loans to a life insurance financing program that was “permeated … by fraud and embezzlement.” In the New York case, Kasowitz and three other attorneys at his firm filed a separate suit alleging that it was Fifth Third Bank that had committed fraud and caused losses.

The name of Andrew Intrater, the CEO of Columbus Nova and the cousin of Vekselberg, comes up repeatedly in the litigation.

Kasowitz’s spokesman said the litigation settled in 2017. The terms do not appear to be public.

“The firm represented Nina Investments LLC and its affiliates, Santa Maria Overseas, Ltd., Columbus Nova Investments IV, Ltd., and Renova U.S. Management LLC, in a commercial litigation with Fifth Third Bank, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, over a failed investment in a company called Concord Capital Management, LLC,” the Kasowitz spokesman said. “The litigation was commenced in 2010 and settled in early 2017.”

A spokesman for Renova, Andrey Shtorkh, told ProPublica that he is not familiar with Kasowitz. He described Renova Group as a client of Columbus Nova. However, Renova’s website previously described Columbus Nova as one of its holdings. Columbus Nova’s website previously described itself “as the US investment vehicle for the Renova Group.”

Vekselberg was among those hit with sanctions last month by the Trump administration in response to “malign activity around the globe” by the Russian government. The New York Times subsequently reported that Vekselberg was questioned by investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller.

Along with the payments from Columbus Nova, Cohen also received payments from corporations including AT&T and Novartis. AT&T said it hired Cohen “to provide insights into understanding the new administration.” ProPublica recently reported that Kasowitz used his access to the Trump administration to help another client, a New York investor, with a casino in Vietnam.

incompetent

==

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-trump-legal-teams-latest-gambit-could-spell-his-doom

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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/did-trumps-personal-lawyer-help-fire-key-us-attorney

6/17

There’s no shortage of important unanswered questions surrounding Donald Trump’s White House, but as we discussed yesterday, one of the more important lines of inquiry is why the president fired dozens of U.S. attorneys without notice or explanation.

Of particular interest are the circumstances surrounding Preet Bharara, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, which made him one of the most important and highest profile federal prosecutors in the United States, tackling cases ranging from terrorism to Wall Street to government corruption. After the 2016 election, Bharara wanted to stay at his post, and both Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions made the same commitment: the New York prosecutor could stay right where he was.

In March, Trump reversed course and fired Bharara anyway, and the federal prosecutor still has no idea why. Pro Publica reports this morning on one possible explanation.

Marc Kasowitz, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in the Russia investigation, has boasted to friends and colleagues that he played a central role in the firing of Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, according to four people familiar with the conversations.

Kasowitz told Trump, “This guy is going to get you,” according to a person familiar with Kasowitz’s account.

Kasowitz, it’s worth emphasizing, is an ally of the president who’s represented Trump in a variety of lawsuits, including the fraud allegations surrounding Trump University. He’s now responsible for overseeing the defense of the president, despite his lack of experience in cases like these, and by all appearances, he’s off to a rough start.

It’s entirely possible that Kasowitz was boasting to his friends and colleagues in a dubious way, exaggerating his influence to make his White House reach sound more impressive. That said, it’s at least plausible that Kasowitz would’ve been in a position to offer Trump occasional advice on legal matters, and he may have seen Bharara as a potential threat to his pal in the Oval Office.

Given that we have no other credible explanation for why Trump fired Bharara, it’s at least worth considering.

If, however, Kasowitz was directly involved in the firing of a federal prosecutor because he hoped to shield his client from legal trouble, it’s hard not to wonder whether Trump’s lawyer needs a lawyer.

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huh?

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/09/10/vogel-law-firm-dakota-access-racketeering-tigerswan-conflict

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/greenpeace-energy-transfer-2482128964.html

Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International, and others are facing another meritless attack from Trump's go-to lawyers in an attempt to silence advocacy work and attack free speech.

The latest corporation to sign on to the Kasowitz Benson Torres firm's bullying tactics is Energy Transfer Partners—the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In response to the powerful protests led by Indigenous communities and climate activists, the firm has filed a lawsuit claiming billions of dollars in damages on behalf of Energy Transfer. Here's what you need to know.

What is this lawsuit about?

In response to the powerful alliance of Indigenous communities and climate activists who protested Energy Transfer Partner's Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, the Kasowitz firm has filed a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). The goal of this suit is to silence opposition by misrepresenting what happened on the ground at Standing Rock—making outrageous and racist claims that big green organizations like Greenpeace orchestrated the Indigenous-led movement at Standing Rock.

This lawsuit is about silencing opposition in Donald Trump's America. While Greenpeace is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, its impacts aren't limited to us. This suit could have far-reaching consequences for journalists, advocacy organizations and anyone who values free speech. The Kasowitz firm is trying to challenge all of our abilities to speak out against corporate power and destruction.

This is the second year in a row that the Kasowitz firm has filed a meritless lawsuit against Greenpeace and other public interest advocates on behalf of a corporation. In 2016, the plaintiff was Resolute Forest Products, Canada's largest logging company. That lawsuit made similarly baseless legal claims in an attempt to mislabel legal advocacy as criminal conduct through the use of U.S. racketeering laws (RICO), and presented constitutionally-protected free speech as defamatory. A hearing to dismiss the Resolute lawsuit is scheduled for Oct. 10, 2017 in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

These suits are part of a pattern of legal bullying, as desperate corporations and political hacks try to silence activists, journalists and anyone speaking out against injustice. Energy Transfer must know that the end of the fossil fuel era is upon us, and these attacks are a last gasp effort to retain relevance and an illusion of power. What they haven't seemed to realize is that none of us will quit until these pipelines are stopped for good.

Remind me, what happened at Standing Rock?

In the spring of 2016, hundreds of Indigenous activists and leaders began gathering along the proposed route of the Dakota Access pipeline to call attention to threats to sovereignty and water supply. In the months that followed, it became the largest gathering of tribes in 100 years and sparked a worldwide movement to resist the pipeline's construction and fight for Indigenous sovereignty.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, alongside allies from across the country, filed legal injunctions with the Army Corps of Engineers to stop construction and conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Several financial institutions including Nordea and ING withdrew their support for the project, citing human rights and environmental violations after conducting their own investigations. In December, after a thorough review, the Obama administration denied the easement to cross under Lake Oahe, calling for a full EIS to look at alternative routes.

Despite the Obama administration's decision, in January, Trump made it one of his top priorities to greenlight construction of the pipeline without the EIS completed. Water protectors were removed from the camp, and in the weeks to follow documents revealed that Energy Transfer had hired mercenaries from private security firm TigerSwan to infiltrate the camp and deploy counter-terrorism tactics on water protectors.

Since construction, the pipeline has leaked three times, jeopardizing land and water. Activists across the country have found inspiration from Standing Rock and are actively resisting other tar sands and gas pipelines, including Kinder Morgan TransMountain and KXL.

What's the next step for this lawsuit?

Greenpeace will not back down in the face of this egregious misuse of the law. Firms like Kasowitz deploy these lawsuits in the hopes of silencing constitutionally-protected advocacy work and burdening organizations with additional costs. Greenpeace is on the line today, but these abusive tactics threaten anyone speaking out for social and environmental justice.

We will continue this fight in and outside the courtroom. Not only will we win this case, we will continue our important work challenging new oil and gas infrastructure, building powerful alliances, and fighting for free speech and public participation in our democracy.

On Oct. 10, the Resolute case will go before a federal judge in California. This will be a major test of Kasowitz's dubious legal strategy and an opportunity to show corporate polluters like Energy Transfer that this movement is more resilient than they anticipated.

Kelly Mitchell is the energy campaign director for Greenpeace USA.

bowe willing to buy dirt/ "evidence" from random PI, got scammed

also AIG greenberg

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/nyregion/24con.html

off bs

Michael Paul Bowen's practice focuses on complex civil litigation, white collar criminal defense, corporate investigation and regulatory matters.  He has litigated matters involving the international financial markets and market data distribution, securities fraud and regulation and shareholder derivative claims, government corruption charges, criminal conspiracy  and racketeering and grand larceny, commercial contracts, fraud and commercial torts, unfair competition law, antitrust, environmental insurance law, defamation and libel and civil RICO and conspiracy claims.  He has extensive trial experience, including trying to verdict complex multi-defendant conspiracy cases.

Notable Representations

• Fieldway Group, Inc., a real estate developer, in related multiple lawsuits against general contractor for defective construction and breach of contract and fraud claims in New York State Supreme Court in Nassau, Kings and Richmond County, trying the consolidated cases in the spring of 2011 to favorable multi-million dollar verdict.
• Real estate developer at trial in a New York County special proceeding concerning breach of contract in a complex transaction involving historic commercial property in mid-town Manhattan.
• Prevailing party at trial in 2012 in a business dissolution matter in New York State Supreme Court, Westchester County, involving claims of fraud, conversion, extortion and diverted business assets related to organized crime and a criminal RICO case prosecuted by the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office.
• Various individual entrepreneurs and business entities in multiple, separate criminal investigations by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
• Public companies in complex civil RICO lawsuits involving claims of illegal short-selling schemes, fraud, tortious interference, racketeering and conspiracy.
• Insurance company seeking recovery for securities fraud in the federal multi-district litigation relating to the collapse of Parmalat Finanziaria S.p.A.
• A not-for-profit institution victimized by systematic embezzlement in both the civil action for conversion and misappropriation and in the parallel state criminal investigation and prosecution.
• Bondholders seeking breach of contract damages stemming from a failed acquisition.
• Individual executives and entrepreneurs in state and federal courts facing various white collar criminal charges.

Government Services

From 1999 to 2006, Mike served as an Assistant District Attorneyin the New York County District Attorney's Office, where he tried 20 jury trials.  He prosecuted both white collar crime and violent crime, including securities fraud, grand larceny, government corruption, narcotics and firearm crimes, and criminal conspiracies.  Working with a state/federal joint task force, he prosecuted some of the first New York cases involving national and international Internet drug-trafficking and conspiracy and tried large multi-defendant conspiracy cases to verdict.

Professional Activities

• National Institute of Trial Advocacy
• Lecturer, PowerPoint and Trial Advocacy, NY County District Attorney CLE Program
• Lecturer, Proving Identity in Internet Drug Crimes, HIDTA/DEA Regional Conference

==

ref

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-28/how-a-canadian-timber-company-is-using-u-s-racketeering-law-to-go-after-greenpeace

Racketeering Law to Go After Greenpeace

And how Hustler Magazine may help the defense.

By Paul Barrett

July 28, 2017, 6:00 AM PDT

For several years, Greenpeace has been mounting a multimedia campaign against Canada's Resolute Forest Products, one of the largest timber-and-paper companies in the world. Called “Resolute: Forest Destroyer,” the campaign accuses the company of endangering the Boreal Forest, a vast evergreen swath that covers a third of northern Canada.

In response, Resolute has taken the extreme step of suing Greenpeace in the U.S. for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The suit, filed last year and pending in federal court in San Francisco, home to Greenpeace’s forest campaigners, seeks to prove that theenvironmental group is akin to a mob syndicate.The company says it has suffered a $100 million hit to its reputation. Given that damages can be tripled under RICO, a decision in Resolute’s favor would endanger Greenpeace’s very existence.

The suit has strong support in communities tied to the forestry industry. “This is the first time a company has stood up to an outside group and said we won’t take this anymore,” says David Canfield, the mayor of Kenora, a town in northwestern Ontario.

Resolute isn’t the first corporation to try this strategy. Chevron recently used the racketeering act against environmental activists who had sued it over oil pollution in Ecuador. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court left in place a lower-court ruling that protected the company from having to pay damages in the U.S. related to the Ecuadorian mess. Chevron proved that its activist foes had transformed their suit against the company into an extortion plot featuring bribery, fabrication of evidence, and the ghostwriting of judicial opinions.

By comparison, Greenpeace’s alleged offenses seem less dire, but that isn’t to say its assertions have been airtight. For one thing, Resolute isn’t “destroying” the Boreal. According to the government agency Natural Resources Canada, less than 0.5 percent of the country’s forest acreage is harvested annually (and only a minority of that is taken by Resolute).

With the exception of logging roads, 100 percent of forest that’s harvested is regenerated naturally or by seeding or planting, the agency says. “‘Destroying’ means something: It's going away and not coming back,” Resolute’s lawyer, Michael Bowe, says. The Boreal, he adds, isn’t disappearing in that fashion.

“The idea that we’re the ones doing damage is patently false and malicious,” says Seth Kursman, Resolute’s spokesman. The company accuses Greenpeace of other distortions—misrepresenting trees felled by natural causes as having been illegally cut down; predicting that Resolute activities will lead to a caribou “death spiral,” when the animals at risk are in western Canada, far from Resolute’s operations in the east; and blaming the company for hastening climate change when, Resolute claims, the old-growth forest that loggers take down absorbs dramatically less carbon dioxide than young forest growth that results from seeding, planting, or natural regeneration.

In keeping with RICO, the suit holds that Greenpeace has run something like a protection racket by threatening the company’s corporate customers with boycotts if they don’t cut ties with Resolute over these issues. Resolute says it has lost $100 million in revenue because of such threats—the basis of its damages claim. The company also accuses Greenpeace of fraudulently inducing “many millions of dollars” in donations from “regular working-class people who have been duped” into believing their money prevents forest loss, climate change, and caribou suffering. When I question whether Resolute has standing to vindicate the rights of Greenpeace contributors, Bowe responds that donors were harmed by the racketeering “enterprise” and are therefore properly included as victims. While he acknowledges that his evidence may not have the earmarks of traditional organized crime,  he hastens to add, “I don’t think you have to have a Chevron case to have a RICO case.”

Greenpeace General Counsel Tom Wetterer says that the group stands behind its past statements and actions. But in its legal papers, the organization claims it can win the case without having been error-free in its claims about Resolute. The defense argument begins with the idea that Resolute has dressed up a garden-variety defamation suit as a racketeering case.When viewed properly under U.S. defamation law, the defense says, Greenpeace’s attacks on the company—including boycott threats—constitute protected free speech. And when statements relate to issues of public concern, the First Amendment protects accusatory language employed “in a loose figurative sense.” That last point comes from the holding of a 1974 Supreme Court decision on labor organizing, which also said “rhetorical hyperbole” and “vigorous epithet” are protected. Activists, Greenpeace adds, aren’t obliged to “hew to strict literalisms or scientific precision.”

So, even if Resolute hasn’t literally “destroyed” the forest or pushed caribou into a “death spiral,” Greenpeace feels entitled to say that it did—and the U.S. judiciary may agree. “We’re doing legitimate advocacy work,” says Wetterer.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 11 other media organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Greenpeace. They point to a 1988 Supreme Court decision that protected Hustler’s right to publish a parody ad depicting the late conservative Christian evangelist Jerry Falwell as an incestuous drunk. “In the world of debate about public affairs,” the court’s unanimous ruling read, “many things done with motives that are less than admirable are protected by the First Amendment.”

A federal judge is expected to hear Greenpeace’s motion to dismiss the Resolute suit this fall. Unsettling though it may be to watch a litigant wrap its free-speech fate in a revolting porn magazine, I predict Greenpeace will have the better of the constitutional argument. The First Amendment offers activists a strong shield.

As a final observation, though, it’s worth noting that in a different context, Greenpeace has taken a narrower view of protected expression. On ExxonSecrets.org, a website it sponsors, the organization says that the oil company ’s past support for climate-change denial doesn’t deserve First Amendment insulation. There is a “responsibility that goes with freedom of speech, which is based around honesty and transparency,” Greenpeace asserts. “Freedom of speech does not apply to misinformation and propaganda.” Those lines sound an awful lot like something Resolute would say.

==

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-lawyers-sue-greenpeace-over-dapl-making-jaw-dropping-accusations

Still reeling from a D.C. district court loss in June, Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), has sued Greenpeace and other environmental groups in a $300 million racketeering case, accusing them of inciting terrorism, fraud and defamation and violating state and federal RICO laws.

On Tuesday, ETP released a statement alleging that Greenpeace, BankTrack and Earth First "manufactured and disseminated materially false and misleading information about Energy Transfer and the Dakota Access Pipeline for the purpose of fraudulently inducing donations, interfering with pipeline construction activities and damaging Energy Transfer's critical business and financial relationships."

In its 187-page complaint, ETP alleges that "putative not-for-profits and rogue eco-terrorist groups who employ patterns of criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation to target legitimate companies and industries with fabricated environmental claims and other purported misconduct" caused the Fortune 500 natural gas company to lose "billions of dollars."

The Dallas-based firm made other outrageous claims against the groups, including funding terrorism and "using donations to fund a lucrative drug trafficking scheme inside the camps."

ETP is represented by the law firm Kasowitz, Benson & Torres LLP. Partner Marc Kasowitz is a member of the legal team representing the president in the ongoing congressional and special counsel investigation into possible collusion between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russian state actors.

This is the second consecutive year Trump's attorneys have filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace. In 2016, Resolute Forest Products, a paper and pulp company based in Montreal that was stripping grounds in Northern Ontario and Quebec, filed a suit against the group for defamation and threatening its customers.

Responding to Tuesday's ETP filing, Greenpeace attorney Tom Wetterer said Trump's lawyers are "apparently trying to market themselves as corporate mercenaries willing to abuse the legal system to silence legitimate advocacy work." He added:

This complaint repackages spurious allegations and legal claims made against Greenpeace by the Kasowitz firm on behalf of Resolute Forest Products in a lawsuit filed in May 2016. It is yet another classic “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” (SLAPP), not designed to seek justice, but to silence free speech through expensive, time-consuming litigation. This has now become a pattern of harassment by corporate bullies, with Trump’s attorneys leading the way.

The Dakota Access Pipeline has been a source of contention since 2014, when ETP applied for a 1,200-mile land grant to build in North and South Dakota on the Standing Rock Reservation, the sixth largest Native American reservation in the U.S. in terms of land area. The reservation encompasses the Black Hills, sacred land for the Sioux, who argue that the pipeline would not only damage their sacred sites, but would threaten the Missouri River, their only water supply.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the pipeline permit, thousands flocked to the convergence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers to peacefully protest the construction, establishing the Standing Rock encampment in April 2016.

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dept ed has student loan and pvt college ppl inside wire

==

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/marc-kasowitz-trump-russia/528147/

...

Kasowitz himself has a long history of working high-profile cases, ranging from tobacco company lawsuits in the 1990s to those of large banks and insurance companies in recent decades. In the mid-2000s, he represented the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in a negligence lawsuit brought by victims and their families over the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. More recently, he signed on in March as lead attorney for OJSC Sberbank, one of Russia’s largest state-run banks, in a fraud lawsuit involving the institution’s takeover of a granite-mining company.

But he’s perhaps best known for his long history representing Trump in a multitude of legal matters. In that role, he’s been an aggressive defender of the real-estate businessman’s interests and reputation. At times he’s played a role in the Trump University fraud litigation saga, which ended in January with a $25 million settlement from Trump. In 2006, he sued Trump biographer Timothy O’Brien on his client’s behalf, claiming the author had inaccurately described Trump’s net worth as a paltry $1 billion. (A New Jersey court eventually tossed out the lawsuit.)

Another high-profile incident came during last year’s presidential campaign when the Times published interviews in October with two women who accused Trump of inappropriately groping them years earlier. Trump immediately threatened to sue the newspaper in retaliation. In a letter to the newspaper on Trump’s behalf, Kasowitz called the article “per se libel” and asked the newspaper for “a full and immediate retraction and apology.”

David McCraw, the Times’s legal counsel, responded by noting that American libel law exists to protect a person’s reputation from malicious attacks. “Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself,” McCraw wrote. If Trump believed the First Amendment would allow him to punish the Times for its reporting on a subject of national interest, he added, “we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight.” No lawsuit has been filed.

Trump is not the first president to rely on outside legal help during his time in office. Richard Nixon hired a stately Massachusetts lawyer named James St. Clair to defend him during the Watergate scandal. Bill Clinton also relied on a team of attorneys to help him navigate through scandal throughout his presidency, including Robert Bennett, who represented him during the Paula Jones lawsuit, and Greg Craig, who led the lawyers defending Clinton in his impeachment trial.

In selecting Kasowitz, Trump ultimately opted against an attorney with more experience in criminal-justice matters or one who brings a stronger familiarity with federal law enforcement’s practices and procedures. Instead he’s selected what he’ll likely value most in the months and perhaps years to come: a familiar ally in what could become the legal fight of his life.

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-greenpeace-dapl-2476132561.html

Trump Attorney Sues Greenpeace Over Dakota Access Pipeline in $300 Million Racketeering Case

By Steve Horn

Energy Transfer Partners, owner of the Dakota Access pipeline, has filed a $300 million Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit against Greenpeace and other environmental groups for their activism against the long-contested North Dakota-to-Illinois project.

In its 187-page complaint, Energy Transfer alleges that "putative not-for-profits and rogue eco-terrorist groups who employ patterns of criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation to target legitimate companies and industries with fabricated environmental claims and other purported misconduct" caused the company to lose billions of dollars."

In the case, Energy Transfer is represented by lawyers from the firm Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP,one of the namesakes of which is Marc Kasowitz. Kasowitz is a member of the legal team representing President Donald Trump in the ongoing congressional and special counsel investigation of his 2016 presidential campaign's alleged ties and potential collusion with Russian state actors. The press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit details that Kasowitz attorney Michael J. Bowe is leading what the firm describes as an ongoing probe into the environmental groups' "campaign and practices."

Trump Connections

Bowe, according to multiple press accounts, is serving as Kasowitz's deputy in the ongoing Russia investigation. He also represents Resolute Forest Products and co-plaintiffs in its ongoing RICO lawsuit against Greenpeace, Stand.earth and other defendants involved in a corporate social responsibility campaign revolving around Resolute's forest-originated products.

Bowe, furthermore, is an attorney-of-record in a $50 million defamation lawsuit filed against freelance journalist Yashar Ali by suspended Fox News anchor Eric Bolling. Ali published a freelance article commissioned by the HuffPost on August 4 in which multiple sources told Ali that Bolling had sent a litany of unsolicited lewd text messages to Fox News' female employees.

Another attorney of record for the latest Greenpeace lawsuit, Jennifer Recine, formerly represented Trump"against the owners of one of the last large scale real estate development sites in Manhattan" and helped him win "the largest ever attachment in New York City history," according to her biographical sketch on the Kasowitz Benson Torres website. Bowe also lists that detail on his Kasowitz biography.

According to a New York Times article published in June, Marc Kasowitz represented Trump during the Trump Organization's financial travails in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and has served as his attorney in other recent matters. He even considered setting up an office in the White House, though he serves as Trump's personal attorney and not White House legal counsel.

"Kasowitz has been central to Mr. Trump's recent legal battles, helping his client keep divorce records sealed and representing him in the Trump University fraud lawsuit, in which Mr. Trump ultimately agreed to pay $25 million to settle claims from former students that the institution had cheated them out of tuition money," reported The Times. "In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Mr. Kasowitz threatened to sue The New York Times for libel on Mr. Trump's behalf over a story in which two women accused Mr. Trump of inappropriate touching years earlier."

Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren was a major campaign donor to President Trump, giving him more than $100,000 in campaign contributions.

'Meritless Lawsuit'

In its press release, the legal team for Energy Transfer Partners says that a website "will be established to catalog information and publish progress reports on the case and, when necessary, to set the record straight as the facts warrant."

A similar website has been set up in the Resolute Forest Products case. In a press release, Energy Transfer Partners accuses Greenpeace and other groups of "inducing and directing violent and destructive attacks."

"The alleged Enterprise is comprised of rogue environmental groups and militant individuals who employ a pattern of criminal activity and a campaign of misinformation for purposes of increasing donations and advancing their political or business agendas," Energy Transfer Partners says in its press release about the lawsuit. "In addition to its misinformation campaign, the Enterprise directly and indirectly funded eco-terrorists on the ground in North Dakota. These groups formed their own outlaw camp among peaceful protestors (sic) gathered near Lake Oahe, and exploited the peaceful activities of these groups to further the Enterprise's corrupt agenda by inducing and directing violent and destructive attacks against law enforcement as well as Plaintiffs' property and personnel."

The "eco-terrorist" language mirrors that used by law enforcement and the public relations firms it and Energy Transfer Partners paid during the height of protests at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. In response to a request for comment from DeSmog, Bowe said that the alleged RICO conspiracy had a global reach.

"The complaint alleges the manufacturing and aggressive worldwide dissemination of a completely phony narrative inconsistent with overwhelming and incontrovertible facts," said Bowe. "We intend to successfully prosecute the case to its conclusion, vindicate this good company, and compensate it for the substantial harm it has suffered."

Greenpeace, though, sees the lawsuit as an act of "bullying" and in the category of "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation," or SLAPP.

"This is the second consecutive year Donald Trump's go-to attorneys at the Kasowitz law firm have filed a meritless lawsuit against Greenpeace," Greenpeace USA General Counsel Tom Wetterer said in a press statement. "They are apparently trying to market themselves as corporate mercenaries willing to abuse the legal system to silence legitimate advocacy work. This has now become a pattern of harassment by corporate bullies, with Trump's attorneys leading the way."

Reposted with permission from our media associate DeSmogBlog.

==

BASF Corporation, Bayer Material Science LLC, Dow Chemical Company and Huntsman International LLC have been named in a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit brought by New York law firmKasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP on behalf of the U.S. government.

EcoWatch learned that the recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit was served on the chemical companies on Wednesday. The lawsuit was originally filed under seal in federal court in Northern California.

Kasowitz brought this action on behalf of itself and the federal government to recover more than $90 billion in damages and penalties under the FCA, which imposes penalties for concealing obligations to the government.

According to a copy of the lawsuit seen by EcoWatch, "Each of these companies is separately liable to the United States Government for billions of dollars in civil reporting penalties, which continue to accumulate by tens of thousands of dollars daily, and for billions of dollars in similarly increasing breach of contract damages."

==

==

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-russia-lawyer-marc-kasowitz-alcohol-security-clearance

The ongoing investigations into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia involve reams of classified material. Yet Marc Kasowitz, the New York lawyer whom President Donald Trump has hired to defend him in these inquiries, told ProPublica through a spokesman that he does not have a security clearance — the prerequisite for access to government secrets. Nor does he expect to seek one.

Several lawyers who have represented presidents and senior government officials said they could not imagine handling a case so suffused with sensitive material without a clearance.

“No question in my mind — in order to represent President Trump in this matter you would have to get a very high level of clearance because of the allegations involving Russia,” said Robert Bennett, who served as President Bill Clinton’s personal lawyer. Like many Washington lawyers, Bennett has held security clearances throughout his career.

As the spotlight on Russia intensifies with new email disclosures that his son, son-in-law, and then-campaign manager met in June 2016 with a Russian attorney who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton, Kasowitz’s lack of a security clearance could hinder the president’s legal and political response to the scandal.

One possible explanation for Kasowitz’s decision not to pursue a clearance: He might have trouble getting one.

In recent weeks, ProPublica spoke with more than two dozen current and former employees of Kasowitz’s firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, as well as his friends and acquaintances. Past and present employees of the firm said in interviews that Kasowitz has struggled intermittently with alcohol abuse, leading to a stint in rehab in the winter of 2014-15.

Several people told ProPublica that Kasowitz has been drinking in recent months. (The vast majority of those who spoke to ProPublica for this article declined to be quoted by name, citing Kasowitz’s penchant for threatening lawsuits.)

Experts on federal security reviews told ProPublica that recent episodes of alcohol abuse are a major barrier to receiving clearance, a process that involves government agents poring over a person’s past and interviewing family, friends and colleagues. Investigators typically raise flags about behaviors that might make someone vulnerable to blackmail or suggest poor judgment.

Kasowitz’s spokesman said he doesn’t need a clearance. “No one has suggested he requires a security clearance, there has been no need for a security clearance, and we do not anticipate a need for a security clearance,” the spokesman said. “If and when a security clearance is needed, Mr. Kasowitz will apply for one with the other members of the legal team.”

Kasowitz’s spokesman did not directly respond to questions about whether he has struggled with alcohol abuse, but said the attorney is able to drink in moderation without a problem.

While not a government employee, Kasowitz has become a public face of the administration on the Russia case. Last month, he went before the cameras to deliver the president’s response to the landmark testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey. White House officials have regularly referred media inquiries about Russia-related matters, including queries about Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn, to Kasowitz.

In Washington, where every word and action of the president’s lawyer is scrutinized, Kasowitz is a neophyte. Instead of negotiating deals among the capital’s power brokers or fending off FBI investigations, Kasowitz, 65, built a lucrative practice in civil court suing banks and representing, among others, a leading tobacco company.

Kasowitz has been described by colleagues in the scrappy world of New York lawyers as the “toughest of the tough guys.” Bloomberg News called him a “Pit Bull Loyal to The Boss” while The New York Times described him as “the Donald Trump of lawyering.” His aggressive legal style has spurred rebukes from two judges.

For over 15 years, he represented Donald Trump, earning the president’s loyalty through his eager pugilism. Kasowitz has defended him in the Trump University fraud lawsuit. He fought to keep records from Trump’s 1990 divorce private, and threatened to sue The New York Times for publishing a story in which women accused Trump of unwanted touching and sexual assault. He also recently represented Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly after multiple women accused O’Reilly of sexual harassment.

Before representing Trump in the Russia inquiry, Kasowitz was informally advising the president. He has told friends he recommended firing Preet Bharara because the crusading prosecutor posed a danger to the administration. He has told people Trump wanted him to be attorney general.

Trump reportedly sought a classic Washington lawyer to represent him on Russia before choosing Kasowitz. Initially Kasowitz was reluctant to take it on. “He didn’t seek this,” said Joseph Lieberman, the former senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate who is now senior counsel at the firm. “In the end, the president said, ‘I need you. I know you and trust you.’”

Lieberman and Kasowitz grew up in the same neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. The future senator used to see Kasowitz’s father, who ran a scrap-metal business, walking through the neighborhood, greeting everyone as he went. Kasowitz went to Yale to study American history and then to Cornell Law School. After graduating in 1977, he started his law career in New York. In 1993, Kasowitz broke off from the prominent firm Mayer Brown to found his own firm.

As the firm met with early success, Kasowitz became wealthy. He brags to friends he makes anywhere from $10 million to $30 million per year. He owns an apartment in a white-glove building on Park Avenue and a mansion in Westchester County. He travels by private jet and, when in New York, is driven around in a black Cadillac SUV. He owns at least two horses, according to a lawsuit Kasowitz once filed against his daughter’s equestrian stable.

From the start, Kasowitz Benson had a hard-drinking culture that its leaders epitomized.

“It’s like a time warp,” said one former employee, citing the firm’s “macho, scotch-drinking, fist-fighting” ethos. Multiple former attorneys said they saw Kasowitz under the influence at the office, an accusation Kasowitz denies.

Associates would vie to join powerful partners in Kasowitz’s inner circle during the day at the Palm West Side, the steakhouse just across the street from the firm’s offices, and more recently, at another midtown steakhouse a couple of blocks away called Gallaghers. A framed magazine profile of Kasowitz hangs on the wall across from the bar at the Palm. Three former employees at the firm recall attorneys having to go across the street to the restaurant during the workday to consult Kasowitz on work matters, as he held court, drinking and eating. In response to questions, a spokesman for Kasowitz disputed that, saying he never had a drink during the day at the Palm outside of lunch and dinner and never handled firm business while at the restaurant.

Former employees pointed to reckless behavior by Kasowitz while drinking. ProPublica spoke with 10 people who attended the firm’s holiday party on Dec. 10, 2013, at the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan. Spouses and significant others were not invited.

Kasowitz, according to an attendee, was visibly inebriated, appearing to have a hard time standing on his feet without support. During the festivities, Kasowitz and a much younger woman not employed by the firm hit the dance floor. According to multiple eyewitnesses, they danced intimately in a way many employees felt was inappropriate for a work event. One person described it as “dirty dancing.” Some employees had seen Kasowitz’s dancing partner before: the then-25-year-old woman had been a hostess at the Palm. “It made women feel uncomfortable,” said one former female attorney who attended the party.

Kasowitz’s spokesman, Michael Sitrick, initially said Kasowitz “does not recall whether he danced with her at a holiday party over 3.5 years ago.” Later, he said that the descriptions of Kasowitz dancing at the party were “untrue.” Kasowitz said in a statement he never had “a romantic relationship” with the woman, “who many of us came to know (as we have many others) because she worked at the Palm Restaurant across the street from our offices.”

Kasowitz has been married for 25 years to Lori Kasowitz, a former Mayer Brown administrator and regular on the Manhattan charity circuit. The couple has one daughter.

Sitrick supplied eight statements from Kasowitz employees attesting to his character and behavior at the party and denying the allegations about the young woman. He said ProPublica could not quote the employees’ statements by name without their permission. ProPublica reached out to all of them. Two declined to be named, and six did not respond to requests to use their names.

That was not the only dramatic incident involving Kasowitz and the Palm hostess. Late one Thursday night in March 2013, the same woman was arrested for felony assault at Beauty & Essex, a lower Manhattan restaurant and club, after allegedly throwing a bottle that hit another woman in the head, according to NYPD records. A former partner in the law firm said that Kasowitz was with her and sustained an injury. Afterwards, Kasowitz walked around the office with two black eyes looking “like a raccoon,” according to the former partner.

Asked about that incident, Sitrick did not answer directly. He said Kasowitz attended a dinner at a restaurant where the woman was in attendance. As Kasowitz was leaving the restaurant, he was “assaulted by a total stranger,” Sitrick wrote in a statement. The Palm hostess was not involved in that assault and Kasowitz’s assailant was arrested, the spokesman said.

According to current and former attorneys at the firm, Kasowitz hit a low point in the winter of 2014-15. He abruptly left New York for Florida, where he owned a mansion at the Equestrian Club Estates in Wellington. Kasowitz sought alcohol treatment at the nearby Caron, a high-end rehab facility, according to two people who heard it from Kasowitz himself.

According to Sitrick, that winter had been difficult for Kasowitz because of the death of his father and that he had “sought out counseling” like “millions of Americans.” The spokesman did not answer directly whether Kasowitz was in rehab that winter but said he was not “at Caron in January 2015.”

Anyone whose job involves classified information, from White House officials to State Department diplomats to outside contractors, must get a security clearance. The applicant fills out paperwork disclosing where he or she has lived, worked and traveled abroad, as well as any contacts with foreign government officials. The form also asks about substance abuse, criminal history and mental health.

The government then undertakes an investigation that can take anywhere from weeks to over a year, depending on the position. In the case of White House positions, the FBI does the investigation. Agents comb through educational and financial records and speak to neighbors, former employers and associates. They then present a recommendation to the hiring agency, which makes the final call.

It’s not clear who currently makes decisions on clearances for White House hires. Spokeswoman Hope Hicks told ProPublica that the Trump administration does not comment on security clearance issues.

Alcohol abuse is one of many issues examined as part of the security clearance process. The standard form that those seeking clearance must fill out asks whether in the last seven years “your use of alcohol had a negative impact on your work performance, professional or personal relationships, your finances, or resulted in intervention by law enforcement.” According to the official security clearance guidelines, “Alcohol-related incidents at work, such as reporting for work in an intoxicated or impaired condition, [or] drinking on the job” can be a reason to withhold clearance.

While all clearance decisions are subjective, “You probably wouldn’t get your clearance if you had serious drinking problems in the last five years,” said Sheldon Cohen, a longtime Washington, D.C, security clearance lawyer.

The security clearance guidelines also flag personal conduct “that creates a vulnerability to exploitation, manipulation, or duress by a foreign intelligence entity.”

In 2016, over 1,100 people appealed their denial of security clearance. Alcohol and drug use were common reasons for such denials.

Attorneys representing clients in Washington frequently are required to seek security clearances in matters ranging from Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi hearings to employment disputes involving undercover CIA agents.

Already, there’s ample evidence that many aspects of the Russia case involve classified material. When former FBI Director James Comey testified about his interactions with President Trump, he said that he took notes after one classified briefing. “I wrote that on a classified device,” he said.

Adm. Michael Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency, testified last month of his interactions with Trump that could relate to the obstruction of justice issue: “Those conversations were classified.”

Meanwhile, congressional intelligence committees looking at the Russia issue have been scheduling hearings with key witnesses in classified sessions. A congressional meetingwith special counsel Robert Mueller also took place in a classified setting.

In a statement, Kasowitz said that “we are unaware of and not involved in … any investigation involving ‘highly classified’ (or even classified) information.”

The firm has gone through multiple rounds of punishing layoffs. In the past six years, the number of lawyers has shrunk from around 370 to 260 today. Several major rainmakers have departed, including two of the most prominent women at the firm: Eleanor Alter, a well-known divorce lawyer, and Robin Cohen, who led Kasowitz’s insurance group.

Now its founder’s increasingly high-profile relationship with Trump has some partners worried that it could damage the firm’s brand and future business prospects.

Last year, with Election Day weeks away, Kasowitz fired off a letter threatening to sue The New York Times for a story in which women accused Trump of unwanted touching and sexual assault.

Kasowitz’s letter to the Times dismissed the women’s accounts as “false and malicious allegations” and demanded a retraction.

“People were embarrassed by the letter,” said one former attorney at Kasowitz’s firm.

The Times stood by its story. No lawsuit has been filed.

In February, several lawyers were upset when Michael Cohen, the former personal injury lawyer and real-estate investor who is best known as Trump’s former in-house attorney, arrived at the office.

“I came to see him because we were working on several matters together after the inauguration,” Cohen told ProPublica regarding his multiple visits to Kasowitz. Former employees say the firm briefly converted a conference room for Cohen to use as an office, with his nameplate on it.

Cohen said the “multitude of legal matters” he and Kasowitz were discussing included working as co-counsel for a client. Asked if anything came of those talks, Cohen said yes.

Sitrick, the Kasowitz spokesman, said, “Michael Cohen never worked for the firm or occupied any office at Kasowitz Benson.” He added: “They were working together on one civil matter for President Trump.” He didn’t specify what it was.

During roughly the same period that Cohen was visiting the firm, The New York Times reported that he was under FBI scrutiny in the Russia case. Cohen has denied wrongdoing.

One Kasowitz Benson partner, Zachary Mazin, departed in May for another firm, McKool Smith. In a private Facebook post, Mazin praised many of his former colleagues, but said that he and his wife concluded their family could not be associated with the firm. “As the extent of the Firm’s support for Trump’s presidency became clear, Amanda and I concluded that we would not be living our values if I stayed,” he wrote, adding: “Our most important consideration was the message that this choice sends to our daughters, both now and when they look back on this moment as adults.”

When Kasowitz traveled to Washington to respond to the Comey testimony, he brought at least two other lawyers from the firm with him.

In the rush to respond to the former FBI director’s testimony accusing President Trump of inappropriate meddling, a team of Kasowitz lawyers, along with another spokesman, Mark Corallo, drafted a statement that was riddled with errors. It started with the widely mocked misspelling, “Predisent Trump.”

Corallo said in an email that the statement went out to reporters with typos because of a technical glitch.

The day after the June 8 Comey hearing, sources linked to the Kasowitz team toldreporters they would file a complaint against the former FBI director for giving what they described as “privileged information” to the press. Three weeks later, that plan fizzledentirely.

In recent weeks, employees say, Kasowitz has tried to calm fears within the firm, holding a series of town hall-style meetings.

“You can work toward steering this president toward the best possible decisions whether or not you agree with his politics,” Kasowitz said at one such event, according to a person familiar with his remarks.

President Trump selected Kasowitz Benson to represent him despite high-profile instances in which judges criticized the firm for ethically questionable tactics.

In one particularly heated case, the firm sued investors on behalf of a Canadian insurer, Fairfax Financial Holdings. The company accused the hedge funds and others of conspiring to release information that would send the stock lower. Michael Bowe, Kasowitz’s deputy on the Russia case, was the firm’s lead lawyer.

In 2006, employees of Kasowitz’s in-house investigative arm, KBTF Consulting, tried to ensnare employees of Morgan Keegan, a broker-dealer whose insurance analyst was publishing critical research on Fairfax, according to a court document. They wanted to find out if Morgan Keegan gave certain clients access to its analysis before making its reports public. Kasowitz employees, including two lawyers who worked for the investigative arm, created a fake hedge fund called Blackwood Group Capital Partners. Posing as investors, the Kasowitz private investigators met with the Morgan Keegan analyst who covered Fairfax, asking if they could have advance copies of his reports. He said no.

The Morgan Keegan attorneys tried to get Kasowitz’s firm thrown off the case, a request the judge rejected. But the judge said he was troubled by what the Kasowitz firm had done.Years later, Morgan Keegan hired a Rutgers law professor, John Leubsdorf, to assess whether the Kasowitz employees violated New Jersey ethical standards. The state bars attorneys from misrepresenting themselves. Leubsdorf called the firm’s conduct “inconsistent with the standards of professional responsibility.”

“I was brought up as a person and as an attorney to think you tell the truth, that that’s the only way you can deal with life. You tell the truth and, right, wrong, or indifferent, the truth will prevail. I don’t recall as an attorney ever participating in a deception such as [this] one,” Stephan Hansbury, a judge for the Superior Court of New Jersey, said at a 2011 hearing. “I don’t think that was an appropriate use of an investigator. I don’t think you’re supposed to go out and create evidence in order to justify a case. That’s not what the law allows.”

In 2007, Kasowitz had to defend his law firm from allegations of unethical conduct when another firm accused his team of violating a protective order in a legal proceeding. The order barred disclosure of bank records obtained during discovery in a federal shareholder lawsuit against Kasowitz’s client, a Canadian pharmaceutical company then known as Biovail.

But when Kasowitz’s law firm filed a separate complaint in New Jersey state court on behalf of Biovail, it used the bank records from the federal proceeding to bolster its case. Lawyers for the bank cried foul and in February 2007, Kasowitz had a testy conference call with Richard Owen, the U.S. district judge overseeing the federal case.

Owen was furious: “You get a whole bunch of the bank’s records and you’re sitting there drafting a complaint in New Jersey and you’re saying nobody ever said, ‘Where the hell did we get these records from, how come we have them?’” he asked Kasowitz, according to a court transcript of the call.

Kasowitz said his law firm did not know about the protective order and countered that the documents were not marked “confidential.” Owen did not see that as a good enough excuse and the two men went back-and-forth. Finally, Owen lost his temper.

“The record may show I hung up on Mr. Kasowitz,” said Owen, who has since died.

Kasowitz’s spokesman said the firm did nothing wrong in either case.

Eventually, Biovail fired Kasowitz’s legal team over the issue, only to rehire the firm a few months later. The firm was not sanctioned by Owen.

How Kasowitz’s aggressive style will play during the Russia inquiry is unclear — especially without a security clearance. On Monday, President Trump tweeted, “James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal!”

If that allegation were true, Trump’s own lawyer wouldn’t be able to review the material.

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OMG 2x

http://www.twcnews.com/tx/austin/politics/2016/06/2/ap--greg-abbott-given--35k-gubernatorial-campaign-donation-after-trump-university-probe-in-texas-dropped.html

WASHINGTON -- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott received a $35,000 donation to his successful gubernatorial campaign from Donald Trump. This after a Texas probe into Trump University was dropped in 2010, according to the Associated Press.

The AP reported that Abbott, a Republican, was serving as Texas Attorney General at the time, and opened a civil investigation of "possibly deceptive trade practices" into Trump University, but quietly dropped it when the organization agreed to end its operations in Texas.

Trump subsequently donated $35,000 to Abbott's successful gubernatorial campaign, according to records obtained by the AP.

The AP reported that a spokesman for Abbott declined to comment.

**Former Texas Official: Abbott Not Involved in Trump University Decision**

Trump University guides unsealed this week by a federal judge in southern Californiaundercut Trump's portrayal of his one-time real estate seminar course as an uncontroversial operation. Instead, the manuals reflect boiler-room sales tactics -- the proceeds of which went largely to Trump.

The manual for the staff at Trump University events was precise: The room temperature should be 68 degrees. Seats should be arranged in a theater-style curve. And government prosecutors had no right to see any documents without a warrant.

Instructing employees how to stall law enforcement investigations might seem like an unusual part of running a real estate seminar company. But at Trump University -- which drew investigations by Democratic and Republican attorneys general alike -- it was par for the course.

One guide encouraged staff to learn prospective enrollees' motivations in order to better sell them on products: "Are they a single parent of three children that may need money for food?" the guide asked. When people balked at paying for expensive courses, the suggested response for Trump University staff was harsh.

"I find it very difficult to believe you'll invest in anything else if you don't believe enough to invest in yourself and your education," the guide offered as a recommended response.

Those who bought into Trump University ended up paying as much as $34,995 for what was purported to be private mentoring with supposed real estate experts -- some of whom Trump himself later acknowledged were unqualified.

"It's fraud. ... straight-up fraud," said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman during an MSNBC interview on Thursday morning.

Schneiderman is suing Trump over Trump University in separate but similar case.

"He was clearly in charge of pitching this scam university to people," said Schneiderman.

With past Trump-affiliated business failures and controversies, Trump has often distanced himself by noting that his only financial involvement was a branding agreement. In the case of Trump University, however, Trump's ownership is not in dispute — Trump wanted the business for himself.

When future Trump University President Michael Sexton pitched Trump on the deal, he wanted to pay Trump a flat fee in a licensing deal. Trump rejected that, Sexton said in a deposition.

Trump "felt this was a very good business, and he wanted to put his own money into it," said Sexton, who ended up receiving $250,000 a year from Trump to run a business in which Trump held more than a 90 percent stake. The design of the Trump University operating agreement "was entirely in the hands of the Trump legal team," Sexton said.

Other court records and depositions showed that Trump and senior members of the Trump Organization were responsible for reviewing and signing all checks — and that Trump withdrew at least $2 million from the business.

Trump reviewed the advertising for Trump University's courses, Sexton said. And he did not believe Trump ever looked at what the three-day seminars included.

"Mr. Trump is not going to go through a 300-page, you know, binder of content," Sexton said.

The impression of Trump's involvement given to potential customers was quite different, according to a script for Trump University telemarketers.

"You know who my boss is, right?" the script reads. "Mr. Trump is on a mission to create the next wave of independently wealthy entrepreneurs in America. Is that YOU?"

Trump has defended Trump University by citing surveys in which 98 percent of students reported being pleased with the program. But those surveys took place before students had experienced the full program and were not anonymous, plaintiffs lawyers have said. A higher percentage demanded refunds later.

As scores of students complained that Trump University was a ripoff, the Better Business Bureau in 2010 gave the school a D-minus, its second-lowest grade. State regulators also began to take notice.

Besides the probe that led to Schneiderman's suit, and Abbott's investigation, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi briefly considered joining with Schneiderman in a multi-state suit against Trump University.

Three days after Bondi's spokeswoman was quoted in local media reports as saying the office was reviewing the New York lawsuit, theDonald J. Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution to a political fundraising committee supporting Bondi's re-election campaign.

Bondi, a Republican, soon dropped her investigation, citing insufficient grounds to proceed.

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Tampa-based college Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA), whose co-CEO was the chief operating officer of controversialTrump University,has emailed its employees regarding an article that Republic Report published earlier this week. UMA CEO Steven Kemler wrote to his staff (see images below) that Republic Report‘s article “presented an unbalanced perspective about UMA” and directed all employees to “please refer any media or other external inquiries” to an email address for a company spokesperson.

As we reported on Monday, Ultimate Medical Academy’s co-CEO, David Highbloom, was the chief operating officer of Trump University, while April Neumann, UMA’s vice president for corporate alliance & career services, was Trump University’s director of operations. Another UMA vice president was an intern with “the Trump organization,” and at least one former UMA employee also previously worked for Trump U., which has been sued for fraud by former students and New York’s attorney general.

Donald Trump shut down Trump University in 2010. UMA appeared to be seeking to distance itself from Trump in a statement to me Monday that read, “To the best of our knowledge, only three of our hundreds of employees have worked for Trump University and none have worked at any Trump entity in the last five years.”

Kemler’s email indicating the employees should not talk with reporters echoes similar warnings to staff in the Trump University “playbook“ that was disclosed in the lawsuits against the Trump school. The playbook stated

You are specifically prohibited from speaking with any journalist, reporter, author, blogger, newspaper, or media outlet with regards to Trump University, Trump Organization or Mr. Trump... UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD A TRUMP UNIVERSITY TEAM MEMBER EVER SPEAK TO THE MEDIA OTHER THAN TO INFORM THEM OF THE APPROPRIATE CONTACT AT THE CORPORATE OFFICE... Immediately email Josef Katz media information including name, media affiliation and phone number, and cc April Neumann and Michael Sexton... No matter how much confidence you have in Trump University, you should not say anything.... Reporters are rarely on your side and they are not sympathetic... If a problem arises, immediately contact April Neumann.

UMApress

As I reported Monday, UMA, which offers programs in medical assisting, medical office assisting, and related fields and has been getting more than $150 million annually in taxpayer-funded student grants and loans, has faced numerous student and staff complaints about its recruiting practices. I also noted that UMA was a for-profit company but had recently been acquired by a new non-profit organization, in a transaction, whose key details remain undisclosed, that involved the largest owners of the for-profit company temporarily taking control of the non-profit and transferring some payments to the for-profit.

UMA has 13,000 students, approximately 90 percent of whom train for medical careers exclusively online, with the rest studying at campuses in Clearwater and Tampa, Florida.

Kemler’s email tells employees that the Republic Report article “was the first time we received less-than-positive press” and that the article “did not include coverage of the successful student outcomes and the great work we are doing to help students.”

Since we published our article on Monday, several former UMA employees have contacted me to discuss their experiences at UMA; for now I will say only that they have a different view of the institution than Kemler. Former staff from outside lead generation companies also talked with me about selling UMA programs over the phone to students who had provided their contact information to bait and switch websites that promised jobs, rather than slots in career colleges.

According to the Department of Education’s College Scorecard tool, just 42% of UMA’s former students earn more than a high school graduate. Graduates of UMA, which generally offers lower tuition prices than some comparable for-profit colleges, still end up with an average of $13,224 in federal student loan debt.

huffpo

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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/67444ec825f3460ba4aadefc0d29d22f/trump-university-model-sell-hard-demand-see-warrant

Attorney General Pam Bondi said groups like the Republican Attorneys General Association helped her grow close to her counterparts in other states, such as South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, second from left. She joined many of RAGA's members in challenging federal laws such as the Affordable Care Act, as well as state measures such as bans on assault weapons in Connecticut.

Mark Wilson, CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, said Bondi's emphasis on street crime and social issues has served Florida's economy well.

"You don't want an attorney general that wakes up every day and doesn't look at drug abuse and doesn't look at human trafficking and sex crimes, and instead attacks job creators," Wilson said. "That's what they have in New York and they're losing to us."

Wilson was referring to New York's Democratic attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, who played an important part in the story of Bondi's political rise.

It was Schneiderman's lawsuit two years ago against Trump University that triggered months of bad publicity for Bondi — and forever linked her political fortunes to Trump himself.

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http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-loretta-sanchez-kamala-harris-senate-negative-campaigning-20160924-snap-story.html

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