emoluments

belated? 12/18 PRIMARY 5 25 SEE CORRPUT 3

SEE CORRUpT 3 525 KLEPTO- KAKI- CRYPTO-CURRENCY

SEE FOREIGN DONOR ARAB QATER

merri ok

see mar-a-lago

originally referred to foreigners?

see FARA, foreign donor

i want to include $ from hotels (see real estate) from corps eg heartland

neglected

---

an 6 25

Bulwark Policy Editor Mona Charen says Americans do more damage than they know when they dismiss gross corruption as “everybody does it” —because everybody doesn’t.

“It’s perfectly clear why Trump and his many enablers rely on whataboutism. It’s the easiest deflection,” Charen writes. “What is the proper response to Trump’s iniquitous treatment of women? What about Bill Clinton? How can one evaluate his pardons of the January 6th insurrectionists? What about all those who rioted in protest of George Floyd’s murder and were never prosecuted? (They were.) Was Trump’s refusal to return highly classified documents a serious breach? What about Joe Biden keeping files in his garage?(Biden returned them when asked.) Is Trump corrupting the rule of law with his pardons of friends, donors, and political allies? *What about Joe Biden’s pardons of Hunter and his entire family?”

Many people, when caught in a lie or transgression admit their guilt and seek to repair the damage, said Charen. “That’s how mature people and societies stay civilized. … But “truly depraved people don’t take that route. Trump uses whataboutism not just to change the subject or disarm the accuser … but also to breed cynicism.”

Cynicism is corrosive because it invites the very thing it scorns, said Charen. “Once you elect a sociopath and agree with his jaundiced view that everyone is corrupt, you’ve lost any chance of upholding basic values.

IFrame Content

“Yes, Biden’s pardons of his family were grubby, but they were a few pebbles compared with Trump’s avalanche of corruption,” Charen concedes, however, “… Trump’s corruption is so off the charts (a Qatari luxury jet, hundreds of millions in memecoins and tokens, bidding wars to dine with him as his club) that it defies comparison.”

Charen ticks down a list of the president’s worst: “Through the memecoin, anyone anywhere for any reason can put hundreds, or thousands, or millions of dollars directly into Trump’s pocket. Not into a campaign fund, not into a political party, but into the hands of the president. And as we witnessed on his Middle East trip, eager foreign leaders and businessmen are lining up to do so. Vietnam, hoping for relief from tariffs, is in talks to help Trump build a luxury golf course. Due almost entirely to his crypto holdings, Trump has, by one estimate, doubled his net worth in just four months.”

The Bulwark podaster says the Constitution could not be clearer that “no person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state.” But that doesn’t appear to be preventing the administration from disbanding the Justice Department unit devoted to ferreting out crypto crime just in time for the Securities and Exchange Commission to drop an investigation into one of Trump’s largest donors “—the one who donated top dollar (or memecoin) to have dinner with Trump at his country club outside D.C.,” she said.

If Americans do treasure honesty, integrity, the rule of law and decency, Charen said they must be prepared to reject whataboutism and risk mockery by insisting that no, not everybody does it, and we don’t want to accept the kind of society in which that is assumed.

“We must disenthrall ourselves from the whataboutism mindset,” she said. “There are honorable politicians. There are honest businessmen. There are police and soldiers and teachers and programmers and athletes and judges of integrity. Millions of Americans are appalled and deeply embarrassed by the kakistocracy we’ve elevated. Hold on to that outrage. It’s the road back from this disaster.”

Read the full Bulwark report here.

===

---

AN 525 qatar lux jet trump keep after; trump will visit none of std 3 mil ally on trip

Trump—no stranger to allegations of blatant corruption—faced an onslaught of criticism on Sunday in response to ABC Newsreporting that his administration is preparing to accept "what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government."

Ahead of Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, sources told ABC that the administration "is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar—a gift that is to be available for use by... Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation."

The unnamed sources also explained that "lawyers for the White House counsel's office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution's prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts 'from any king, prince, or foreign state.'"

"Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking. It makes clear that U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale."

ABC's revelations about the $400 million "flying palace" follow The Wall Street Journalreporting earlier this month that "the U.S. government has commissioned L3Harris to overhaul a Boeing 747 formerly used by the Qatari government... into a presidential jet."

IFrame Content

The White House, Boeing, and L3Harris declined to comment on the Journal's report. Similarly, on Sunday, the White House, Justice Department, and a spokesperson for the Qatari Embassy did not respond to ABC's inquiries.

However, as The Associated Pressreported Sunday:

Hours after the news, Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar's media attaché, in a statement said, "Reports that a jet is being gifted by Qatar to the United States government during the upcoming visit of President Trump are inaccurate.""The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar's Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense," the statement said. "But the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made."

Amid the uncertainty, a range of people across the internet blasted the supposed plan, slamming it as "indefensible," "incredibly illegal," and "comically corrupt." Some critics pointed out that the reporting comes after the Trump Organization, the Saudi partner DarGlobal, and a company owned by the Qatari government last month reached a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar.

Journalist Mike Rothschild said that "this is spectacularly corrupt, a level of greed and depravity that is breathtaking, even for Trump. Air Force One—the people's plane—is going to be a flying palace donated by Qatar. No American should accept this."

Some critics highlighted security concerns. One legal expert declared, "An emolument and security risk all wrapped up in one!"

Robert Weissman, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "Trump's plan to accept a luxury plane from Qatar is blatantly unconstitutional, a textbook violation of the emoluments clause. The concern with foreign gifts is that they can sway a president's policy and predilections—and there's little doubt that Qatar wants to gift Trump a 'palace in the sky' for exactly that reason."

Weissman continued:

"The legal counsel who advised that this gift is OK because Trump will take personal control of it (through his library) only after leaving office should resign immediately, in shame and disgrace. The situation is no different than if the Qataris gave $400 million in cash to Trump and told him to keep it under his bed until 2029, when he could spend it freely. Except possibly it's worse, because he will use the plane in the interim, at great cost to the U.S. taxpayer, who will have to upgrade it.Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking. It makes clear that U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale. The juxtaposition with cancelled foreign aid grants and programs for poor and vulnerable people—cancellations that will cost millions of lives unless reversed—could not be starker or more morally grotesque.

"Is taking a gift from a foreign government this big a bribe or bad judgment? Or just Trump?" Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) asked on social media. "Wish the MAGA movement cared about ethics in their president."

Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) said: "The level of corruption from President Trump and his White House is unlike anything we have ever seen in American history. It is appalling and criminal. Openly taking bribes."

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) noted that the reporting comes amid issues at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

"While ordinary Americans' flights are grounded because of problems at the FAA, Trump is taking a $400 million bribe in the form of a 'palace in the sky' from a foreign government," Casar said. "Over and over: He gets paid. Everyone else gets screwed."

NOW READ:This is the only way to defeat the morbidly rich

---

no lnx

an 1 25

The evolution of political bribery — and the real reason for the $Trump coins

Thom Hartmann January 23, 2025

Both Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon took cash bribes while in the White House and before. Agnew’s dated back to shakedowns he did as Maryland governor, while Nixon helped Jimmy Hoffa get out of a prosecution and allegedly ran interference for a group of milk producers.

Since then, bribing politicians has gotten a lot easier thanks to five Republicans on the US Supreme Court. Their Citizens United decision, decided 15 years ago this week, legalized political bribery so long as it is done through campaign, PAC, or SuperPAC funds.

But for some people there’s just never enough money.

Donald Trump had been running small-time hustles to make money for decades, selling sneakers, bibles, steaks, vodka, water, etc., and he expanded these schemes when he became president in 2016 to let his followers give him money in exchange for what they thought were collectable assets.

Remember, back in 2000, when he was first seriously considering running for president (on the Reform Party ticket), he said:

“It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”

After his son-in-law got $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, though, and his companies made an estimated $2.4 billion during his last presidency, it appears that Trump decided the small stuff was for pikers so he’s going to crank the door wide open to serious tens-of-billions-of-dollars money.

First, he and his son-in-law are working with several foreign governments, including Bulgaria and Vietnam, to build Trump properties that will fatten Trump‘s wallet. This, in itself, is a blatant example of how foreign governments can buy influence with his administration.

But then he kicked the door to corruption even wider.

A “fungible crypto asset” like the new $TRUMP coin (and the $MELANIA coin) is essentially a digital picture that’s limited in its issue to a certain number of items. Each individual “coin” is separately kept and can be traded on the Solana blockchain, guaranteeing there won’t be counterfeits.

So, what people are buying when they pick up $TRUMP coins are essentially tiny digital pictures of his face with the words “fight, fight, fight!” They have no intrinsic or underlying value, and are not backed by any asset, crypto or otherwise. Their “collector value” — which is how they’re being hawked on his website — is equally sketchy, particularly if there will be a billion of them in circulation.

Bottom line: it appears that $TRUMP coins are simply a way “friends of Trump” can funnel cash to him and he can verify their transfer so he could, if he chose, help them out.

Trump initially issued 200 million of the coins, and they’re currently trading at $33.69 each (down from $75.35 earlier in the week), meaning the market value or capitalization of $TRUMP is currently $7.59 billion, exceeding even the more generous estimates of Trump’s previous net worth.

When he releases another 800 million over the next three years it appears he’ll make tens of billions more, so long as people or governments keep buying/trading them.

Thus, anybody who wants to give Trump a large amount of money, presumably in exchange for his good will or even a specific change in policy or position, now no longer has to visit the White House with a briefcase full of cash like Jimmy Hoffa and the milk guys did.

All they have to do is drop a few million or billion on $TRUMP and, because the Solana blockchain is public, Trump can immediately see who’s giving him cash. The rest of us can’t though: the blockchain only identifies the purchaser’s wallet, which is typically an obscure set of numbers. But if that purchaser has told Trump which wallet is theirs, he can track down who spiffed him and who didn’t.

The Founders of our republic were very concerned about this type of scenario. Alexander Hamilton wrote, in Federalist 22:

“Evils of this description ought not to be regarded as imaginary. One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption. …

“In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust… Hence it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments. How much this contributed to the ruin of the ancient commonwealths has been already delineated.”

This led to the Constitution containing the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, that explicitly says:

“[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Interestingly, Alexander Hamilton believed the clause didn’t apply to the president or vice president; when he was Secretary of the Treasury, the Senate asked him to clarify by submitting a list of office holders who were subject to the clause’s provisions. His list only included political appointees.

The Supreme Court has never issued a decision on the Emoluments Clause, either, adding to the ambiguity of the state of the law.

To solve the problem of this uncertainty, in 1966 Congress passed The Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act which specifically identified the president and vice president as “employees” of the US government who may not, under penalty of prosecution, accept any gift with more than minimal value without congressional approval.

Enforcing that law, though, would require Trump’s Attorney General to investigate his cash flow and then prosecute him, something that’s unlikely given how he will apparently (based on how Pam Bondi avoided answering direct questions) only appoint people to that position who promise loyalty to him above the Constitution or the good of our nation.

And any sort of congressional investigation of Trump taking what may appear to be bribes is equally unlikely; he’s made it clear that he and Elon will destroy any elected Republican in their next primary who tries to hold him accountable.

On top of all that, the $TRUMP coin is just a small part of a much larger and rather sprawling collection of internet- and blockchain-based crypto operations Trump and his family are involved with that could make them billions. Wendy Siegelman does a deep dive into them over at her brilliant Substack newsletter.

With the $TRUMP coin vehicle that enables foreign governments, princes, and even domestic billionaires or companies to shovel millions or even billions directly into Trump’s pockets, it appears that he’s decided to leave his working class MAGA followers in the dust and redirect his efforts toward the truly morbidly rich.

After all, he can’t run for election again (and will be 82) in 2028 (unless he pulls a Putin and runs for VP); he no longer needs his MAGA followers, at least as a revenue source, for the moment.

In his inaugural speech, Trump referred to his second presidency as the start of a “golden age” for America. Most likely, though, it’ll just be a golden pile of cash filling the money bin of the most corrupt president in American history…

===

jan 2024

alternet-no lnx

'Gives the game away': Dem says Eric Trump admitted to taking money from foreign countries

Rep. Jamie Raskin in 2022 (Creative Commons)

Alex HendersonJanuary 05, 2024

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released a report showing that during Donald Trump's four years as president, his businesses received at least $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments and officials from 20 different countries — among them, China, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Democrats, in the report, argue that the payments were a violation of the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clause, which forbids federal government officials from accepting money or gifts from foreign governments without Congress' permission.

On X, formerly Twitter, the former president's son Eric Trump said of the report, "What a joke! All foreign government profits, for stays at our hotels and other properties while my father was in office, were voluntaraly[sic] donated to the United States Treasury."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) was vehemently critical of Eric Trump's response to the House Oversight report during a Friday morning, January 5 appearance on CNN.

Raskin told CNN's John Berman, "I love that excuse because what he's saying is: Trust us, we'll go through all the numbers. And they put in, I think, a half a million dollars — which kind of gives the game away. They know they're taking millions of dollars in unlawful, unconstitutional foreign government payments. But he says: Trust us, we'll do our own accounting. We're not going to show it to you, but we'll give some money back."

The Maryland Democrat continued, "The Constitution doesn't say that you can't keep profits from foreign governments; the Constitution says you can't keep any payments at all without going to Congress to have it accepted. We're talking about an unbroken line of presidents accepting that and always coming to Congress to say: We received some trinkets, we received a statue, we received a painting — whatever it is. And then, it's up to Congress to decide what to do with it."

READ MORE: NY appeals court upholds Judge Engoron’s ruling that Trump committed 'widespread fraud'

Watch the full video below or at this link.

'Gives the game away': Dem says Eric Trump admitted to taking money from foreign countries

www.youtube.com

===

VP ireland

connolly oversight

kids says govt regs req charge, so 50buck min for housekeeping

---

Fox’s purported “news side” glosses over report on Trump’s business payments from foreign governments | Media Matters for America

Jeanine Pirro says Donald Trump was "entitled" to receive millions of dollars from China while president | Media Matters for America

---

an 1 24

Trump took millions from China, Saudi Arabia, other foreign governments as POTUS: report - Alternet.org

badash

while serving as President of the United States, Donald Trump’s businesses accepted millions of dollars from numerous foreign governments, including China and Saudi Arabia – the very acts House Republicans have baselessly alleged Joe Biden performed as Vice President and as a private citizen before being elected President, despite having provided no actual proof.

“Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China,” The New York Times reported Thursday. The paper calls it “concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him.”

The Wall Street Journal adds that the “report, underpinned by documents provided to House investigators by the accounting firm Mazars USA, offers a fuller picture of how Trump’s businesses benefited during his presidency as foreign officials may have tried to curry favor with Trump.”

In a break with tradition, as President, Donald Trump’s first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia (video below), in May of 2017. One month earlier, Trump met with China’s President Xi at Mar-a-Lago. Ivanka Trump received patents from China that same day.

The 156-page report, “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” was produced by the House Democrats on the Oversight Committee under Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor. He calls the findings and conclusions in the report “astounding,” and says “they demand urgent action by the Congress and by the American people.”

The Journal offers staggering details from the report.

“Hundreds of pages of expenses seen by the Journal include at least $210,000 in real estate and lodging fees by Saudi Arabia in 2018, the same year Trump publicly doubted U.S. intelligence assessments that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,” the WSJ writes. “And a few months earlier, a Saudi delegation paid $2,000 for coffee table flowers and towers of cookies at the same hotel.”

“Newly disclosed receipts also show that Hainan Airlines Holding, which then had connections to China’s leadership, incurred $195,662 in charges at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas during a 14-month period beginning days before Trump was elected in 2016,” the Journal adds. “Malaysia paid for a $10,000-per-night suite in Trump’s Washington hotel in September 2017 for then-Prime Minister Najib Razak while he was under a U.S. investigation for his role in a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal that ultimately helped topple his government. Malaysia’s spending caused a 70% jump in average nightly room revenue at Trump’s Washington hotel compared with other nights that month, the report said.”

Ranking Member Raskin writes in the report: “By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous Commander-in-Chief.”

“Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts ‘of any kind whatever’ from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains ‘the Consent of the Congress’ to do so,” he observes. “Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent. This report sets forth the records showing foreign government money—and all the spoils from royals we can find—pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition.”

Watch video of Trump being honored by Saudi Arabia during his first foreign trip below or at this link.

---

AN 7 23

A government watchdog group Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) published a bombshell report on Thursday that former President Donald Trump raked in millions of dollars from five Middle East nations while he was in the White House.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Kuwaitwere all identified as having deep monied ties to Trumpworld, which CREW uncovered from the indicted ex-commander-in-chief's income disclosures.

CREW's discovery comes amid investigations into allegations made by Trump and congressional Republicans that President Joe Biden and his family engaged in corruption in Ukraine and China.

"Trump made at least $9.6 million from countries in the Middle East during his presidency, according to years of reporting and a CREW analysis of his tax returns," CREW found. "That means Trump pulled in at least six times his official presidential salary in side income from the Middle East alone during his time in office. The total is likely much higher, but public reporting only sheds light on the most high-profile instances of profiteering, and he is only required to report certain types of income on his tax returns."

Trump's refusal to divest, or separate, himself from his family's financial entanglements sparked "an endless number of c**onflicts of interest by blurring the lines between the government and his businesses," CREW explained. "The profiteering paid off, and Trump raked in tens of millions from international business interests during his time in office."

Trump and his friends on Capitol Hill "frequently visited and held events at his clubs, hotels and golf courses, advertising to those looking to influence the government that Trump properties were open for business. Foreign governments and officials in particular took advantage of the open opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the president," CREW revealed.

"The $9.6 million that we know Trump made from Middle Eastern countries during his presidency is likely just the tip of the iceberg. CREW tracked conflicts of interest involving multiple countries that are not even present on his tax returns.For example, officials from Iraq, Oman and Yemen made visits to Trump properties while he was president. Because we don't know the total cost for these visits, we did not include them in the tally," wrote Crew. "What we do know is that becoming president was Trump's best business decision, and his tax returns show how great the office was for his bottom line. As the 2024 election creeps closer, foreign interests including those in the Middle East are already buying access to Trump and pouring money into his pockets."

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/12/donald-trump-north-korea-debt/

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/trump-organization-billed-secret-service/

---

11 22 an ah

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised that if he won, there would be a strict separation between his businesses and his political activities. But according to reporting in the New York Times, foreign officials from six different countries “spent more than $750,000” at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. “when they were seeking to influence his administration, renting rooms for more than $10,000 per night.”

Times journalists Luke Broadwater and Eric Lipton, in an article published by the Times on Monday, November 14, report, “The governments of Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China spent more money than previously known at the Trump International Hotel at crucial times in 2017 and 2018 for those countries’ relations with the United States, according to the documents, which were obtained by the House Oversight Committee and released on Monday.”

The foreign officials, according to Broadwater and Lipton, were big spenders.

“The Malaysian prime minister, for instance, hired a $1500 personal trainer during his stay at the Trump hotel in 2017,” the Times journalists note. “The Saudi Ministry of Defense rented several suites, costing $10,500 each, with rooms reserved under the name ‘His Excellency.’ Qatari officials spent more than $300,000 there in the weeks leading up to a meeting with Mr. Trump in 2018."

Broadwater and Lipton add, “The documents build on the public record of how Mr. Trump’s hotel brought in millions during his presidency from foreign governments. The Oversight Committee has previously estimated that the hotel received more than $3.75 million from foreign governments from 2017 to 2020, raising concerns about possible violations of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause.”

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Oversight Committee, told the Times that the documents “sharply call into question the extent to which President Trump was guided by his personal financial interest while in office rather than the best interests of the American people.”

“It paints an extremely troubling picture,” Maloney commented to the Times.

Broadwater and Lipton report, “The (House Oversight) Committee disclosed the latest documents as it released a letter from Ms. Maloney to the National Archives seeking additional documents about the Trump hotel and communications with foreign governments. The National Archives confirmed on Monday that it had received the letter. Ms. Maloney said the additional documents were needed to ‘determine whether former President Trump distorted U.S. foreign policy to serve his own financial interests at the expense of the American people and in violation of his oath of office.’”

---

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.

---

Trump’s DC Hotels lost $70 million during his presidency 'despite reaping millions in payments from foreign governments'

Alex Henderson

October 08, 2021

During the 2016 presidential election, it wasn't uncommon to hear Republicans say they were voting for Donald Trump because "he's a smart businessman." But the Trump Organization has had its ups and dowNS...

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/emoluments/

scotus

aha: i got that this was transactional before, but now i see also extraction/extortion; capitalism, he is ultimate / apotheosis of me vs we.

grifter libtards decry gubmint but 1st to line up to suck off taxpyer resources/ buffer/commons

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/donald-trump-hunger-games-meme/

truscott 4

Remember this number: $3.

That's how much Trump charged the federal government for a glass of water in April of 2018 when he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. According to the Washington Post, Trump's company also charged the government "$13,700 for guest rooms, $16,500 for food and wine and $6,000 for the roses and other floral arrangements," over the two days he held meetings with Abe at the resort. But one day, Trump was scheduled to meet with Abe without aides and advisers, with no meal service or cocktails or any other celebratory nonsense. Just the two leaders, alone in a room, talking. According to the Post, the bill for that day contained a line item reading, "Bilateral meeting. Water. $3.00 each."

Donald Trump has been paid "at least $2.5 million by the U.S. government," since taking office, according to official documents obtained by the Post. Trump has made more than 280 visits to his own hotels and golf clubs over the last four years, and the payments covered costs for "hotel rooms, ballrooms, cottages, rental houses, golf carts, votive candles, floating candles, candelabras, furniture moving, resort fees, decorative palm trees, strip steak, chocolate cake, breakfast buffets, $88 bottles of wine and $1,000 worth of liquor for White House aides." according to the Post.

And water. A total of six bucks for water, no charge being too small to make it onto a bill to the government for a payment going straight into the pocket of the man who owns the Trump Organization and everything it comprises, including his resort in Palm Beach.

It's apparently a good part of what the Trump base likes about him — his appetites, his pure, unadulterated, money-grubbing-right-down-to-$3-for-water greed. Trump has wanted more his entire life. He wants more money, of course. He has spent a lifetime in pursuit of more money, and then some more, and more and more. He borrowed so much money in pursuit of even more money that it drove him into bankruptcy, several bankruptcies in fact. Today, as president, he is said to be in debt for nearly $1 billion to banks and other lenders, a debt that will come due within the next few years, according to the New York Times and other reports.

Trump wants more fame, a drive that started off with mentions in gossip columns like the New York Post's "Page Six," during the years he was coming into his own as a builder in New York City. He used to call gossip columnists and plant items about himself, posing as a PR person, and then he would call the columnists the next day and comment on their mention of him in order to gain yet another column inch or two in the tabloids. Some said he ran for president back in 2016 to "burnish his brand," to achieve even more fame and use it to make even more money. Since he became president, he has been relentless in his pursuit of attention, tweeting at all hours, criticizing cable networks who don't give him enough coverage, calling in to shows like "Fox & Friends" and "Hannity" both to reward them for the coverage they've already given him, and to get more coverage.

He wants more women, from wife No. 1, Ivana, when he was just starting out, to wife No. 2, Marla Maples, after he jettisoned Ivana, and now wife No. 3, Melania, who replaced No. 2 when he determined she had a few too many miles on her. And then there were all the women in between, in and among his marriages, the women he groped on airplanes and at bars and during parties, the women he (allegedly) raped in places like a Bergdorf's dressing room or a hotel room or a bathroom during a party, the women whose mouths he forced his tongue down, the women he pushed up against walls and pressed himself against, the women whose bodies he commented on in offices or across rooms, the women whose skirts he put his hand up at restaurant tables, the women whose breasts he grabbed at tennis tournaments and beauty pageants, the women whose rear ends he grabbed in green rooms before television show tapings, the women he dragged behind curtains at New Year's Eve parties and forcibly kissed and groped. All of those women. Trump wanted their bodies and their mouths and he took them without asking permission because he was Donald Trump, and he took what he wanted.

He wanted more golf, so he played more golf more frequently than any president before him. He wanted so much golf that he went around the world buying and building his own golf courses, and then he played them, because he owned them, and because he owned the golf carts, as president he could charge the government for his own Secret Service agents. He could even charge the government for the hotel rooms the agents stayed in while they protected him. He charged the government $17,000 a month for a cottage at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course, which the Secret Service had to rent month after month just in case he had a mind to play a round of golf.

Trump wants more adulation, more love from the "base," and when he feels he isn't getting enough, he tweets. There aren't enough hours in the day for Donald Trump. He was up at 3 a.m. this week, tweeting about the Supreme Court, the court to which he has appointed three arch-conservative justices, yelling at them for their recent decisions allowing mail-in votes to be counted after Election Day, because of course, he wants more votes. He's been up at 3 a.m. tweeting before, taunting a Miss Universe contestant for a "sex tape," taunting CNN as "low rated," bragging about his debate performance, yelling at polls that show him losing.

And now Trump is making his final campaign swing through the "battleground states," feeding the insatiable need of his base for more of himself. "Four more years" has become "12 more years." Somehow Trump is owed more years of the presidency because "they" took two or three years away from him during the Russia investigation, because "they" spied on his 2016 campaign, because "they" don't deserve to win. The red-hat-wearing mobs of un-masked fans at his rallies want more of the America they think Trump is bringing back to them. It's an America that is more white, has more guns, has more churches, more of "us," less of "them."

That's what they like about him. They want it all, the same way he does. That's what opposition to affirmative action has always been. They don't want some of the college admissions, they want them all. That's what Shelby County v. Holder was about, that's what voter IDs and all the restrictive rules about voting by mail are about. They want all the votes.

For the Trump base, making America great again means making America ours again, but he's going to make sure he puts it on their tab, right there with $3 for water and $546 for rooms and $50 for decorative palm trees for table decorations and $1,005.60 for 26 servings of Patron and Don Julio tequila, 22 Chopin vodkas, and six glasses of Woodford Reserve bourbon consumed by White House staffers at the Mar-a-Lago bar. It's going to cost us more than votes to get our country back. We're going to be paying for Trump's insatiable greed long after he's gone. More than 228,000 of us have already paid with our lives. If the Friday totals keep up — 98,500 new cases and more than 900 dead — a half million of us may perish by the time Trump walks out of the White House for the last time.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

State Department knows how much it's been funneling to Trump — but it's not going to tell you

Mark Sumner Daily Kos

October 18, 2020

Donald Trump makes a big show of giving away his annual paycheck to some agency each year. He can afford to, since the Secret Service has rewarded him with two years' worth of pay just in the money it has spent on golf carts. Really. And then there's the money...

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/new-report-details-how-trump-uses-presidency-to-hand-out-favors-to-those-that-support-his-businesses/

hunter kos

New York Times continues its reports on Donald Trump's taxes, this time with (more) clear proof that Trump has been making money off the U.S. presidency.

The shortest possible summary of the Times' latest story is that Donald Trump Is A Crook. Not only have "customers" of Trump, in the form of lobbyists, interest groups, and foreign governments funneled roughly $12 million into Trump's pockets by booking events at Trump's properties, buying memberships into Mar-a-Lago and his other properties, and just generally hanging out at Trump's for-profit establishments with the expectation of meeting either Trump, his sons, his toadies, or his allies, but Trump has responded in kind by doing his paying customers favors that can only be fulfilled using the office of the presidency.

If you pay for a Mar-a-Lago membership, you get to meet Trump during one of his many Florida weekends and bring up ways the government could do your company or group significant favors. If you do make those requests, it's very possible that Trump will respond, reports the Times, by calling over one of his associates and telling them to get it done.

The reverse is also true. If you're seeking favors from Donald Trump, reports the Times, Donald Trump or one of his closest associates and/or family members may contact you to point out that you have been appearing an awful lot at Mar-a-Lago, for example, without ponying up for a quarter-million dollar membership—and that Donald has personally noticed that.

The Times lays out its case solidly, with examples. Those that pay into Trump's companies are frequently awarded with White House meetings, such as when he invited restaurant-owning billionaire Tilman Fertitta. After hearing Fertitta's personal request—a new pandemic relief fund for "the larger private restaurateur"—Trump turned to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with a directive: "Do the best you can" on that.

And so on, and so on. "Just 60 customers with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought his family business nearly $12 million" during Trump's first two years in office, reports the Times. "Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by Mr. Trump or his government."

It's blatant corruption, of course. The payment of cash to the privately held businesses of a sitting president in exchange for that president personally bending government decision-making in your favor is definitively corrupt. It's not even the usual method of brazen American corruption, forking over huge "campaign" donations in an attempt to curry such favors; nope, this money is going into Donald Trump's pockets. He keeps it. Trump is making personal bank off the powers voters gave him.

Not that that's in any way surprising. Trump has proven time and time again to be completely disinterested in governing, in it solely for self-promotion and self-enrichment. His extortion of the legitimate Ukrainian government, withholding congressionally approved military aid to pressure the Ukrainian president into inventing a specific Trump-demanded campaign boost, was a near-perfect mirror to Trump's strong-arming of Mar-a-Lago supplicants to either pony up or get lost. Trump's demand that disaster relief be blocked after California fires, as well as the White House's disinterest in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic under the mistaken and psychopathic impression that the pandemic was doing the most damage in states that voted against him in the 2016 elections, show his eagerness to use the tools of government to punish those who Trump sees as personal enemies.

As usual, though, perhaps the only surprising discovery is that Trump really is an astonishingly petty crook. Corrupting the whole of U.S. government for $12 million dollars is dreadfully small-ball stuff; once again we see how Donald Trump, handed everything by his father and coming back for more, could manage to bankrupt even a casino. He's supposedly worth billions of dollars, and is handing out favors based on who has or hasn't purchased a $250,000 Mar-a-Lago membership? He's supposedly ultra-super-rich, and his idea of "using the most powerful office on Earth for self-enrichment" is wink-nod pressuring of supplicants to maybe rent out hotel rooms in his hotel when they're in town?

It's pathetic. He's corrupting the presidency for peanuts.

But he may have to, in his mind, if the Times' previous reporting on Trump's taxes is accurate. Trump is personally on the hook for almost half a billion dollars in loans coming due in the next few years, and there seems little chance "billionaire" Donald Trump can come up with that sort of money. He is, and always has been, a fraud. His claims of wealth are the words of a con artist.

Now he's up to his eyeballs in debt, yet again, and he clearly has used the presidency as he used his campaign: As publicity stunt, a personal brand boost, and nothing more. Even the presidency doesn't seem like it will pay out enough to keep Trump from going bankrupt in the near future.

He's just that bad at business. And that cheap in his ambitions. The world at his fingertips, and the man spends most of his time obsessing over how he can use it to boost golf club memberships and hotel room fees.

---

2 stories today? trump kids secret service bill?

new report details how Trump uses presidency to hand out favors to those that support his businesses

Hunter Daily Kos

October 12, 2020

*The New York Times* continues its reports on Donald Trump's taxes, this time with (more) clear proof that Trump has been making money off the U.S. presidency.

The shortest possible summary of the Times' latest story is that Donald Trump Is A Crook. Not only have

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/new-report-shows-how-trump-businesses-took-money-from-the-government-even-while-they-closed-down/

when Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, he insisted that if he won the election, there would be a strict separation between the federal government and his business interests — that he would be “completely isolating” himself from his businesses. But according to Washington Post reporters David A. Fahrenthold and Josh Dawsey, the president’s high-end properties have “charged the U.S. government more than $1.1 million in private transactions since Trump took office” in January 2017.

Documents showing $1.1 million in charges, Fahrenthold and Dawsey report in the Post, were released by the U.S. Secret Service after the Post filed a public-records lawsuit. Those documents included receipts and invoices from Trump’s businesses, and the Post reporters note that “$188,000 in previously unknown charges” increases the Post’s “running total of payments to Trump’s properties related to the presence of Secret Service agents.”

One of those businesses is the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, which “charged the Secret Service more than $21,800 to rent a cottage and other rooms” while it was closed to the public because of the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump, according to Fahrenthold and Dawsey, did not visit his Bedminster property while it was “closed and otherwise off limits to guests,” but his daughter, White House Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump, reportedly did.

Fahrenthold and Dawsey explain, “The family visited the club in April to celebrate Passover, a period that overlaps with several of the largest Secret Service charges. At the time, both the District of Columbia — where Ivanka Trump lives — and New Jersey had imposed ‘stay-at-home’ orders, telling residents to avoid travel except under limited circumstances." the Post reporters, however, note that the Secret Service does not appear to have violated New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s stay-at-home order, which employees of the federal government were exempt from.

Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the government watchdog group Public Citizen, finds it “appalling” that Trump’s businesses are profiting at the expense of taxpayers — especially in light of the toll that the coronavirus pandemic has taken on state budgets.

Gilbert told the Post, “The waste inherent in this is appalling…. They’re nickel-and-diming the American people at a moment when every penny counts.”

The Fahrenthold/Dawsey article published on Thursday isn’t the first time the Post has reported on the Bedminster business making money from taxpayers, but the Post reporters point out that “the new documents show that the rentals lasted much longer than previously known. Instead of lasting only for the summer months, when Trump usually visited, the rentals stretched from May to the end of October, the new documents show.”

According to a former Trump official, the Secret Service chose to rent out rooms for six months at a time because the president did not announce his travel schedule far in advance. That source, presumably interviewed on condition of anonymity, told the Post, “We always had space reserved at Bedminster weeks before the president arrived, just in case. If he came in the Oval on, let’s say, on a Wednesday, and said, ‘I want to go this weekend,’ you have to be ready.”

---

nyt

And groups affiliated with the Republican Party continue to hold events at Trump-family properties. A weekend gathering in early November at the Mar-a-Lago club was sponsored by the Republican Attorneys General Association, along with its most important corporate donors, who had contributed at least $125,000 each.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trumps-campaign-paid-2-3-million-in-donor-funds-to-his-private-businesses-fec-filings/

alex h

When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to “drain the swamp” and declare war on crony capitalism — and he insisted that if he was elected, there would be a strict separation between his presidency and his business interests. But Dan Alexander, in Forbes, reports that according to Federal Election Commission filings, Trump’s campaign has so far paid $2.3 million in campaign funds to his private businesses.

:{:{}:

“The most recent expenses look familiar,” Alexander notes. “The president accepted $38,000 in rent last month through Trump Tower Commercial LLC, the entity that owns his Fifth Avenue skyscraper.”

In July, according to the FEC filings, Trump’s campaign paid $8000 to the Trump Corporation for “legal and IT consulting.” And Trump’s campaign also coordinated with the Republican National Committee to pay Trump Tower Commercial LLC $225,000.

In July, the FEC filings show, Trump Hotel Collection received $1000 from his campaign. And some of the $2.3 million went to Trump Restaurants LLC.

according to Alexander, the Trump Restaurants payments “may be connected to a kiosk in the basement of Trump Tower that sells campaign memorabilia. It’s hard to imagine that the kiosk has been doing much business amid the coronavirus crisis, but the campaign has continued to pay its rent: $3000 per month. Trump Restaurants LLC has gotten $117,000 since its owner became president.”

Alexander reports, “Trump’s machinations have been going on for years now. Forbes first reported on money moving from his reelection campaign to his business in 2018. The amount has more than doubled since then.”

Business Insider’s Sonam Sheth, discussing the FEC filings and Forbes’ reporting, notes, “This isn’t the first time the president’s campaign has become entangled with his personal finances. In July, the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold reported that Trump’s campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.”

According to Sheth, “The RNC has spent more than $2 million at Trump Organization hotels and resorts. And Trump’s campaign, which is funded in part by donations from the president’s supporters and big-dollar donors, has spent more than $14 million at his properties.”

an 820

...Here is the last question: what does the location of the FBI headquarters have to do with the $1 trillion coronavirus relief bill. The answer to that is not obvious so I will spare my readers’ puzzlement by telling them: everything and nothing.

The J. Edgar Hoover Building FBI headquarters is in a decrepit state. Long before Trump moved to Washington, it was accepted that a new headquarters was required, and considerable effort had gone into selecting possible new locations for the headquarters. By June 2017, federal officials had lit upon three “finalist” locations: one in Virginia and two in Maryland. Not only had the three finalists been selected, but Congress had appropriated $913 million for the project that, when completed, was expected to cost more than $3 billion.

The proposed new building was to accommodate the FBI personnel presently working in the capitol, would offer greatly increased security, and would get the agency out a building that was outdated and dilapidated. Enter Trump. He was reportedly “dead opposed” to moving the FBI headquarters out of downtown D.C. As a result, plans to relocate the FBI to the suburbs were abandoned. Trump decided the J. Edgar Hoover building should be torn down and a much smaller one erected in its place. The new building would be 2.6 million square feet, would cost $3.3 billion and would not be able to accommodate all the employees in the present structure. As a result, 2,300 employees would be given the opportunity to relocate to Alabama, Idaho and West Virginia if they wanted to continue working for the FBI. In addition, by keeping the headquarters in its present location, expenses would be double. The FBI would have to bear the expense of moving into a temporary location while the new building was being built, and when completed, bear the expense of moving back into the new quarters.

When the decision to keep the FBI in its present location was announced in mid-2017, many observers, including some members of Congress were puzzled. Upon sober analysis, however, the reasons became clear even though masked in the obfuscatory language favored by Trump.

In a press briefing on July 23, 2020, Trump was asked whether the issue of the FBI building was holding up the approval of the economic aid package that the senate Republicans appeared to be close to finalizing. In response he said there is not a better location for the FBI than its present site. He said it would be an incredible building with a running track on the roof because “FBI people like to work out a lot.” Others came up with another explanation for why Trump wants to keep the FBI in its present location.

The present location is one block away from Trump International Hotel, a continuing source of income for Trump. If an FBI building remains in that location, Trump is assured that no competing hotel will be built there. From the Trump point of view including a provision in the aid package to protect his income was as important as providing aid to the millions of people whose livelihoods have been demolished by the coronavirus.

When the proposed Republican coronavirus package was unveiled on July 27, 2020, it was observed by some that it included $1.75 billion for “the design and construction of a Washington, DC headquarters facility for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Since it was such a small sum it is no surprise that in response to a question, Mitch McConnell appeared to be unaware that funding for the FBI building was in the bill. When an aide assured him it was, Mr. McConnell responded to another questioner who asked why funding for the FBI building was part of the bill, saying the Trump administration would have to “answer the question of why they insisted on that provision” since he, as Majority Leader, is apparently not required to know why provisions in legislation being sponsored by his party are included. He has learned.

In an interview with Judy Woodruff on the PBS News Hour two days later, Mr. McConnell said that funding for the FBI headquarters of which he had been unaware two days earlier, was in fact one of three provisions he would like to see deleted from the final bill because, as he astutely observed, it has nothing to do with the purpose of the proposed relief package. Perhaps he’ll suggest to Trump that it be removed. Don’t count on it; and don’t expect its removal.

---

an720

President Donald Trump’s fundraising operation paid about $400,000 to the Trump International Hotel in Washington in the second quarter, an analysis by a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics revealed.

The Trump Victory Committee, a joint fundraising operation between Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, spent about $400,000 at Trump’s hotel between April and June, according to CPR researcher Anna Massoglia.

Trump’s fundraising operation has steered “over $3 million in donations from presidential campaign donors to Trump family, properties & businesses with his 2020 re-election campaign & Trump MAGA joint fundraising [committee],” Massoglia wrote on Twitter. “$17.4M+ counting 2016."

[twt doc]

the Trump Victory Committee previously spent more than $250,000 at the Washington hotel in the second quarter of 2019, according to an analysis by 1100 Pennsylvania. The hotel has received more than $1.1 million in total from Trump Victory, the RNC, Vice President Mike Pence’s Great American Committee and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Protect the House committee.

Trump campaign spending has been a boon for his private company, from which he has refused to divest. By last fall, political spending by Trump’s campaign committees and his allies at Trump properties topped $20 million, according to CPR data.

Trump’s presidency, which he kicked off by dropping $1 million to book a ballroom at his own hotel ahead of his inauguration, has also resulted in new cash flow for the company.

The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold has tracked about $970,000 in taxpayer spending at Trump’s properties since he took office, though that number only scratches the surface. Both the administration and the Trump Organization have gone to great lengths to conceal how much taxpayer money is spent at the properties.

Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, claimed last year that the administration relied on the president’s properties to save taxpayers money.

Secret Service agents “stay at our properties for free — meaning, like, cost for housekeeping,” he insisted. “We charge them, like, 50 bucks.”

But receipts obtained by The Post show that the Trump Organization jacked up the prices when Secret Service agents stayed at the property on the taxpayers’ dime. The Trump Organization charges Secret Service an average of $396 per night, or about eight times more than Eric Trump’s claim.

Fahrenthold wrote on Twitter that he has found “exactly zero cases where Trump Org did what they promised.”

“They always charged more,” the reporter added.

Newly-released Federal Election Commission filings cast more light on the donors that powered Trump to a $262 million haul between his campaign committees and the party committees in the second quarter.

Top donors to the Trump Victory Committee included Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter and his wife Laura, as well as Jet Support Services CEO Robert Book and his wife Amy. Both couples gave more than $1.1 million combined.

Other top donors include oil tycoon Douglas Scharbauer ($580,000), prominent Scientologist Trish Duggan ($580,000) and Ross Perot Jr. ($575,000).

“Trump Supporters, that money he told he desperately needed to help him get re-elected went right in his pocket,” actor and activist Jon Cryer tweeted in response to the spending at the Washington hotel.

“Who knew,” tweeted radio host David Pakman, “running for president could be so profitable.”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/investigative-reporter-explains-how-trump-makes-the-secret-service-captive-customers-at-his-businesses-basically-the-buyer-and-the-seller-in-almost-1-million-of-gov-transactions/

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/dc-attorney-general-sues-trump-inaugural-committee-for-alleged-violation-of-nonprofit-status

no lnx

DC attorney general sues Trump inaugural committee for alleged violation of nonprofit status

Written by Alex Henderson January 22, 2020

On Wednesday, Karl A. Racine, attorney general for the District of Columbia, made an announcement: Racine, according to the Washington Post, is suing President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee for allegedly violating its nonprofit status.

The alleged violation, the Post’s Jonathan O’Connell reports, is that Trump’s inaugural committee spent more than $1 million to book a ballroom in Trump’s Washington, D.C. hotel. The committee, according to O’Connell, booked the ballroom for $175,000 a day prior to Trump’s January 2017 inauguration as president and also spent more than $300,000 in food and beverage costs — and did so “over the objections of its own event planner,” O’Connell reports.

After Trump was elected in November 2016, the committee was formed to organize events pertaining to his inauguration. But Racine alleges that the committee “abandoned this purpose and violated District (of Columbia) law when it wasted approximately $1 million of charitable funds in overpayment for the use of event space at the Trump hotel.”

In his complaint, Racine alleges that “these charges were unreasonable and improperly served to enrich” Trump’s businesses.

This isn’t the first time Racine, a Democrat, has brought a lawsuit against Trump. In an earlier lawsuit, Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh alleged that Trump violated the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution by doing business with foreign governments.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trumps-shocking-and-deeply-disturbing-foreign-conflicts-of-interest-detailed-in-explosive-new-report

no lnx

Trump’s ‘shocking and deeply disturbing’ foreign conflicts of interest detailed in explosive new report

Written by Brad Reed / Raw Story January 20, 2020

Even though President Donald Trump has been impeached for his efforts to shake down the Ukrainian government to investigate his political opponents, Democrats in Congress are still working on uncovering information about Trump’s unprecedented conflicts of interests with foreign governments.

A new report from Politico shows just how deep Trump’s foreign conflicts of interest go, and they show multiple potential violations of the Constitution’s so-called emoluments clause that bars the president from taking payments from foreign governments.

Among the conflicts include “state-owned companies in China, Saudi Arabia and South Korea”that are building Trump resorts, as well as countries that “are constructing roads and donating public land for new developments” at Trump properties. The report cites recently disclosed documents showing that “the Trump administration authorized foreign governments to rent condos in Trump World Tower in New York.”

The Trump administration and the Trump Organization have been infamously uncooperative with congressional investigations and have instead taken a strategy of dragging things out through the courts for as long as possible.

Nonetheless, Congressional Democrats remain determined to get to the bottom of the president’s shady foreign dealings.

“The level of this is shocking and deeply disturbing,”Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), tells Politico. “This president has a habit of doing things out in the open, which are completely improper or even illegal and somehow … the average person thinks, ‘Well, if he’s doing it out in the open it must be OK; I must not completely understand the rules.’ But it’s not.”

chris hedges called for impeach week 1 based on emol?

DOJ says Congress can’t stop Trump Org from taking foreign payments — despite Constitution’s emoluments clause

Brad Reed / Raw StoryDecember 9, 2019

The so-called emoluments clause has been the center of a case that many legal scholars have been making that President Donald Trump is regularly violating the Constitution by continuing to…

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/pay-to-play-all-day-report-reveals-gop-groups-and-campaigns-have-spent-a-staggering-19-million-at-trump-properties-since-2015/

trump tower turkey

vp ireland

In 2018, Rebuilding America Now received $30,000 in donations, with $25,000 coming from Florida real estate developer E. Llwyd Ecclestone Jr.

From 2017 to 2018, Rebuilding America Now spent most of its $2 million on paying Gay ($775,000) and McCay ($210,000) for consulting fees. It also used its money to fund travel and high-priced dinners — at places such asThe Trump International Hotel in Washington and BLT Prime in Washington. It reported no money during that time on overtly pro-Trump communications.

---

geo gp doral

---

omg next G7 trump doral, no agw 1019

---

919 scandals trms on military fuel and hotels scotland

https://www.mediamatters.org/jeanine-pirro/fox-host-jeanine-pirro-will-financially-help-trump-keynoting-jexit-fundraiser-his

Jeanine Pirro doesn’t just support President Donald Trump on her Fox News program -- she’s also padding his bank account by headlining an upcoming “Jexit” event supporting Trump at his Washington, D.C., hotel.

Jexit is a Florida non-profit corporation which aims “to educate and encourage American Jews that are currently members of the Democratic Party to exit the Democratic Party and join President Trump who is the greatest friend to Israel and the Jewish people.” The group also claims that there’s “anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party.” Trump recently pushed the anti-Semitic smear that Jewish Democrats are “very disloyal to Israel” and has encouraged Jewish people to leave the Democratic Party.

Pirro is scheduled to keynote an October 20 fundraiser for Jexit at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Tickets to the event range in price from $165 to $250 for VIP guests (the VIP level includes a “private Lincoln Room meet and Champagne toast with Judge Jeanine”). All attendees receive a signed copy of Pirro’s new book Radicals, Resistance & Revenge: The Left’s Plot to Remake America -- which presumably means that Pirro also stands to financially benefit from the event. Fox News regular and Trump campaign adviser Steve Rogers will also appear at the event.

Pirro has repeatedly boosted the president's bottom line by appearing at events at Trump properties. In February, for instance, she headlined a pro-Trump party at the president’s Mar-a-Lago hotel in Florida for which the proceeds went to his club. That Republican financial support is a two-way street: GOP organizations have paid Pirro more than $230,000 for speeches since Trump’s inauguration.

Trump and members of his administration have frequently appeared at events at or stayed at Trump properties. The Washington Post has reported that “the federal government and GOP campaigns have spent at least $1.6 million at his properties since he entered office, according to a Post analysis, though the actual figure is likely to be higher because of the difficulty of obtaining up-to-date records.” And numerous people and groups looking to influence the Trump administration, such as lobbyists, businesses, and foreign governments, have also spent big money at Trump properties.

Other Fox News personalities, including Greg Gutfeld, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Chris Stirewalt (who is a member of Fox’s “news” division), have also appeared at events at Trump properties.

Pirro is also scheduled to do at least three events connected with the group Trump Team 2020 Florida, an organization which is not actually affiliated with Trump’s reelection campaign but which is nonetheless dedicated to helping him win next November. Pirro will appear at Florida events and give out her book to paid attendees on September 18, September 19, and September 22.

In November, after Pirro and Hannity appeared at a rally with Trump, Fox News claimedthat it “does not condone any talent participating in campaign events” -- an assertion has been proved false over and over again.

Pirro recently complained during a commercial break on Sebastian Gorka’s radio program that Fox News has restricted her book tour schedule, stating that the network “reviews everything. They’re unbelievable.” She also confirmed that the network “suspended” her over her bigoted remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and said, “I'm not going to get fired. You know? I'm worried that that suspension was the basis to tee up for anything I do wrong, they'll fire me.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/politics/trump-donor-dinner-georgetown.html

Kenneth P. Vogel

March 8, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump dined at the ornate Georgetown home of a prominent Washington lawyer on Wednesday night with wealthy donors who are expected to play crucial roles in financing his re-election campaign.

The dinner was the latest in a series of donor events associated with a pair of independent groups — America First Policies and America First Action — that are aiming to raise $100 million this year, mostly in large donations, to support Mr. Trump’s agenda and the election campaigns of allied congressional candidates.

Attendees included donors and operatives who are working to raise money for the America First groups, such as the Dallas financial executive Roy W. Bailey and the Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm, as well as the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., according to someone briefed on the list of attendees and published reports.

Mr. Hamm and Mr. Bailey are on the board of America First Policies, a nonprofit group that was created to advocate Mr. Trump’s agenda and that has paid for a series of polls and strategy memos about the political effects of the Trump administration’s efforts. America First Action, on the other hand, is a “super PAC” that is raising money to air advertisements in support of Republican congressional candidates allied with the president.

The two groups are headed by the veteran Republican operative Brian O. Walsh, who also attended Wednesday’s dinner.

The gathering was hosted by C. Boyden Gray, a Washington lawyer who served in top positions in both George Bush’s and George W. Bush’s presidential administrations, and who is known for hosting gatherings of the capital’s Republican elite.

It was a rare night on the town for a president who mostly remains cloistered in the White House when he is in Washington, and who, when he does dine out, usually goes to the steakhouse in the hotel he owns five blocks away.

The evening also highlights the extent to which Mr. Trump has embraced features of Washington politics that he denounced on the campaign trail. He had pledged to “drain the swamp” of the city’s permanent political class and to forsake the contributions of wealthy donors, who he said had too much power.

Mr. Gray could not be reached for comment. Mr. Walsh and Donald Trump Jr. did not respond to requests for comment.

Lindsay Walters, a deputy White House press secretary, stressed that the dinner was not a fund-raiser.

“Tonight the president had dinner with a small group of supporters at the private residence of C. Boyden Gray,” she said on Wednesday night.

Image

[Mr. Gray at his home in 2005. He is known for hosting gatherings of Washington’s Republican elite.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

Even if no money was collected Wednesday night, the gathering was part of a fund-raising campaign by the two groups that has ramped up in recent weeks with assistance from Mr. Trump, his family and top officials in his administration.

Vice President Mike Pence spoke last month at an America First round table in Dallas, and Donald Trump Jr. has attended events for the groups, as well.

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry spoke Tuesday afternoon at a round table in Houston, which was attended by Mr. Bailey and a number of prominent Texas donors, including the Dallas investor Doug Deason.

“They’re making a pretty serious push,” said Mr. Deason, who is on the finance committee of the America First groups. “It’s an all-out effort to knock it out of the park with this super PAC.”

Mr. Deason explained that the groups are careful not to ask for contributions, or to discuss spending strategies, in the presence of administration officials.

That is because officials are barred by campaign finance rules from coordinating spending strategies with — or raising large sums for — entities like the America First groups, which, unlike campaign and party committees, are not subject to federal contribution limits.

Instead, Mr. Deason said, the administration officials have generally discussed Mr. Trump’s agenda and answered questions from the assembled donors. Mr. Perry, for instance, was asked about the president’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum by donors who were concerned about them.

After such events, representatives from the America First groups will follow up with donors to solicit contributions — a common fund-raising strategy for super PACs and other unlimited-money political groups.

Someone with direct knowledge of the America First groups said they had been telling donors that they had already raised $40 million and intended to raise another $60 million for their 2018 efforts.

A majority of the funds raised so far have been collected by America First Policies, a nonprofit group registered under a section of the tax code — 501(c)(4) — that allows it to shield most information about its finances, including the identity of its donors.

America First Action, on the other hand, is required to disclose its donors and expenditures on a periodic basis to the Federal Election Commission.

The group’s most recent report revealed that it raised $4 million last year, with half of that coming from the Los Angeles developer Geoffrey H. Palmer. An additional $1 million came from the Murray Energy Corporation, a coal company based in Ohio that has assiduously courted Mr. Trump as it pressed the new administration to repeal President Barack Obama’s climate change policies intended to shut down old coal-burning power plants.

America First Action spent tens of thousands of dollars at the Trump International Hotel on events for donors, and also paid tens of thousands of dollars each to firms associated with Mr. Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and his newly named re-election campaign manager, Brad Parscale, among other loyalists.

---

omg

no lnx

The word “acting” has been used a great deal in connection with President Donald Trump, who has made many temporary appointments because he has often had a hard time keeping people in key positions for long periods of time. But on Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed one of Trump’s picks: Kelly Knight Craft, who will be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (UN). The 57-year-old Craft, who was confirmed 56-34, is a controversial pick: when she was previously serving as U.S. ambassador to Canada, critics say, she spent too much time away from her post in Ottawa and too much time at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

According to a statement released on Wednesday by Democrats who serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Craft spent 58% of her time outside of Canada when she had her previous position in 2017 and 2018 — and that she had been a guest at the Trump International Hotel (where she was a gold member) 29 times during that period.

In February, the Washington Post obtained a list of “VIP arrivals” at the Trump International Hotel and found that Craft and her husband (coal magnate Joseph Craft) were “repeat, high-paying customers.”

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was among the Democrats who opposed Kelly Knight Craft’s confirmation. Menendez, who is the most high-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was critical of Craft’s “rampant absenteeism” and “conflicts of interest” during her time as U.S. ambassador to Canada.

Menendez asserted, “I encourage my colleagues to oppose Ambassador Craft’s nomination because she doesn’t have the necessary experience to stand up for American values and promote our national security, and because during her limited diplomatic tenure, her unacceptable absences in Canada were nothing less than a dereliction of duty.”

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump has hijacked what for decades had been a nonpolitical Independence Day celebration on the National Mall, packing his ticketed-event speech with political appointees and Republican donors.

The Republican National Committee has been offering major donors tickets to Trump’s speech, as have political appointees at the White House and executive branch agencies.

“He’s going to have tanks out there. It’s going to be cool,” joked one RNC fundraiser on condition of anonymity. He said he received an offer for the free tickets on Friday but did not request any. “He wants to have a parade like they have in Moscow or China or North Korea.”

Trump has been enamored of public displays of military might since he attended the Bastille Day festivities in Paris in 2017. His plan for a massive military parade last year was canceled after a Defense Department estimate became public showing that it would cost $92 million and damage the city’s roads because of the weight of tanks and other equipment.

The current plans for Thursday do not include a parade, but Trump is still pushing for tanks or other military vehicles to be displayed on the National Mall, The Washington Post reported, even though their weight is liable to damage the grass and roads. Flyovers by military planes ― including Air Force One and the Navy’s Blue Angels squadron ― are also planned.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University history professor and expert on fascism, said Trump’s need to display military hardware is a feature of authoritarians throughout history. “He needs to colonize our lives. He needs to colonize our public spaces,” she said, adding that it was “dismaying” that the Pentagon this year failed to thwart Trump’s impulses. “The military has been domesticated. I think the will to resist him has evaporated.”

Groups that advocate for government transparency and ethics, meanwhile, railed against the RNC’s involvement.

“This partisan appropriation of a public event is consistent with the record of an administration that has no regard for lines between personal or partisan interests and its public obligations,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.

Jordan Libowitz, of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that the event could create legal problems if the federal government is involved in staging what, in essence, becomes a political event benefiting Trump.

“This sounds less and less like a government event and more and more like a campaign rally. Since it doesn’t look like the RNC is picking up the bill, this could lead to some serious legal issues,” Libowitz said.

One senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump’s planned speech will not be partisan. “This speech will not be political. It will be about celebrating our nation’s independence, our flag and our great military,” the official said.

But if past is prologue, Trump is almost certain to mention his reelection effort and attack Democrats. He did both at an “official” visit, as opposed to a campaign event, with the Faith and Freedom Coalition last week. He has attacked Democrats at official visits to military installations, including during his trip to Iraq last year and, most recently, at Osan Air Base in South Korea on Sunday.

“This is not a political speech,” Trump said at Osan, and then he claimed Democrats did not want to give troops new equipment. “They weren’t going to give it to you, folks. They weren’t going to. They want open borders and the hell with the military. That’s not good.”

Another White House aide, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said there is not much his staff can do if Trump chooses to ignore a prepared speech and inject campaign-style remarks. “We can only do what we can do,” the aide said.

The White House would not say exactly how many tickets were being distributed and by which groups for Trump’s planned remarks at the Lincoln Memorial early Thursday evening. However, the area eastward from the Lincoln Memorial to about halfway down the reflecting pool will be cordoned off with access regulated by the Secret Service. Such an area constitutes a dozen acres and could accommodate tens of thousands of people.

On Tuesday morning, Trump’s campaign sent out an email to at least the portion of its list in the Washington area, encouraging his supporters to attend his speech.

“We hope you’ll be able to attend as Americans from across the United States gather to celebrate our Nation’s Independence,” the email stated. “The event is open to the public and not a campaign event. Please arrive no later than 5:30 PM to help celebrate our country’s Independence Day!”

The small print at the bottom of the email contains this boilerplate language: “We believe this is an important way to reach our grassroots supporters with the most up-to-date information regarding the efforts of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., and we’re glad you’re on our team. It’s because of grassroots supporters like you that we will Make America Great Again, and we appreciate your support. Thank you for all that you do!”

It was unclear whether those arriving without a ticket would be permitted in the close-in area inside the Secret Service perimeter, or whether Trump and his aides are getting worried about the size of the turnout.

Neither the Trump campaign nor the RNC responded to HuffPost queries about Tuesday’s invitation.

In past years, presidents have not taken part in Fourth of July celebrations, and the events have been nonpolitical. The only place that required tickets was the west portico of the Capitol overlooking the Mall and a stage for musical performers, and those were distributed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

That has not happened in the case of Trump’s planned speech. The Democratic National Committee, for example, was not given any tickets to give away, according to a spokesperson. An RNC official, meanwhile, said on condition of anonymity that its distribution of tickets to the Fourth of July celebration is no different from that of other presidential events. “For context, we receive an allotment for other events like White House Christmas Open Houses, Garden Tours in spring and fall, etc.,” the official said.

Those events, however, take place at the White House, the president’s residence, not at a public park like the National Mall.

Trump’s injection of himself into the celebration is inappropriate, said Ben-Ghiat. “The whole point is nonpartisan. It’s a national holiday. And he can’t let that stand. He has to make it about him,” she said.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is suing Trump for violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments through his hotels, said the invitations to donors by a campaign committee he controls will also generate cash for himself.

“Look for the big donors to make appearances alongside major Trump administration figures at the Trump Hotel,” Libowitz said. “It’s already sold out for the 3rd and 4th despite charging double what the other luxury hotels are charging around the holiday.”

Trump continues to own and profit from a hotel blocks from the White House, despite his promise during the campaign to separate himself from his family business. The hotel has taken in millions from the RNC, Trump’s reelection campaign, foreign governments and U.S. taxpayers in the last two year

Democrats notch huge win in Emoluments Clause suit against Trump

Sarah Toce / The New Civil Rights MovementJune 26, 2019

Congressional Democrats are being allowed to forge ahead with their emoluments case against Trump after a federal ruling landed in their favor Tuesday. Democrats are expected to now begin obtaining…

---

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-international-hotel-will-host-a-climate-denial-conference-5cf2c28b695d/

In late July, climate science deniers will descend upon the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. — located right across the street from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — to attend the Heartland Institute’s annual climate conference. The theme this year is “Best Science, Winning Energy Policies.”

The conference will feature “the courageous men and women who spoke the truth about climate change during the height of the global warming scare,” as the event’s own description puts it. “Now, many of them are advising the new administration or joining it in senior positions.”

Fringe climate science deniers have surrounded and infiltrated the administration since President Donald Trump was elected — from working on Trump’s transition team, to meetings with top EPA officials. Trump himself has said climate change is a Chinese hoax, tweeted repeatedly that winter snowstorms disprove global warming, and said that climate scientists have a political agenda. And many top government officials in this administration deny the science on climate change.

When Trump announced in June 2016 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate deal, representatives from longtime anti-climate action groups likeKoch-funded think tanks the American Energy Alliance, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation were all present in the Rose Garden.

Many of these same think tanks will be attending Heartland‘s conference next month, where speakers will offer up policy ideas “to lead a post-alarmist world in climate realism” as well as discussing “the benefits of ending the Democrats’ war on fossil fuels.”

This denialism is in stark contrast to the reality facing the world. Scientists have long established that climate change is real, is the result of burning fossil fuels, and that its impacts are visible here and now — from more intense hurricanes and wildfires to both increased drought and rainfall depending on the region. The very first line of the government’s own National Climate Assessment released last fall states, “The impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country.”

Despite the scientific consensus, the Trump administration has been taking aggressive action to roll back vital environmental protections, often in line with industry demands. Supporting the coal industry, in particular, has been a top priority for the administration.

The Trump International Hotel isn’t just a top choice for climate deniers: Last year, two executives from coal companies close with the administration — Murray Energy and Craft Alliance Partners — were “VIP” guests of the downtown D.C. hotel. Last June, the hotel hosted a reception for industry trade group the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

The hotel — referred to by one Department of Energy staffer as “Republican Disneyland” — has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil, coal, natural gas, and mining interests who come to attend events frequented by administration officials. Last March, the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s (IPAA) annual “Congressional Call-Up” was held at Trump’s hotel.

Oil and gas lobbyists gather at Trump Hotel for annual D.C. meeting

This is at least the third energy industry group to choose the Trump International Hotel.

Meanwhile, Trump has refused to sever ties with the Trump Organization, which holds the lease for the Old Post Office building where the hotel is located.Prosecutors for lawsuits in New York, Maryland, and D.C. argue Trump is illegally profiting off of his presidency; the more guests and events at the hotel, the more the president profits.

But while the fossil fuel industry, and the climate deniers who have received fossil fuel funding over the years, flock to the hotel, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are increasingly starting to recognize the importance of tackling the climate crisis.

For the first time, climate change is a leading issue in the 2020 presidential campaign, and a growing number of Democratic candidates are offering up climate policy proposals. Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently told reporters that the Republican Party needs its own climate plan.

At the same time, coal continues to be on the decline no matter what the administration does to help the industry. More coal plants shut down during Trump’s first two years than during President Barack Obama’s entire first term.

More coal plants shut down in Trump’s first two years than in Obama’s entire first term

The administration's own data reveal coal isn't coming back.

Heartland’s conference comes as the head of the group, former Republican Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp, abruptly stepped down last week, just two years after taking the position, while offering no explanation. The think tank has in recent years faced funding uncertainties, with even ExxonMobil no longer donating to the organization. As head of Heartland, Heulskamp focused on energy policy and promoting coal at the state level as opposed to vocal attacks on climate science as his predecessor Joseph Bast did.

The news of Huelskamp leaving his post comes shortly after another Koch-funded libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, quietly announced it was disbanding its climate denial program, the Center for the Study of Science. A Cato spokesperson at the time, however, said this didn’t change the organization’s stance on human-caused climate change.

Trump himself, who has long-standing real estate deals

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/i-like-them-very-much-trump-has-long-standing-business-ties-with-saudis-who-have-boosted-his-hotels-since-he-took-office/2018/10/11/0870df24-cd67-11e8-a360-85875bac0b1f_story.html

with the Saudi royal family, has been resistant to condemning the prince over Khashoggi’s murder. Despite the fact that the CIA determined the prince was responsible, Trump has said he stands with him, claiming there is “nothing definitive” to prove his involvement and “we may never know” the whole story. Even Senate Republicans have passed a resolution defying Trump to rebuke Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi.

verizon merger? saudis buy whole floors?

Needing Trump's backing, telecom giant books rooms at his hotel ...

www.msnbc.com/.../needing-trumps-backing-telecom-giant-books-rooms-his-hotel

4 days ago - 21, 2106, the Trump International Hotel in Washington. ... a $26 billion merger with rival Sprint, which would more than double T-Mobile's value ...

Missing: verizon ‎| ‎Must include: ‎verizon

---

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-trumps-inauguration-paid-trumps-company-with-ivanka-in-the-middle

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/12/controversial-operation-tricked-veterans-into-lobbying-for-saudi-arabia

A firm that was part of a controversial foreign influence operation that allegedly ensnared veterans into lobbying on behalf of Saudi Arabia unwittingly in 2017 has again reared its head, filing what appears to be its first supplemental statement on record with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Capitol Media Group first came under fire after veterans who were brought to Washington, DC, to lobby for changes to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) — legislation that enabled 9/11 lawsuits against the government of Saudi Arabia — claimed they did not know their trip had been organized and financed by the Government of Saudi Arabia.

Unlike some other firms implicated in the scandal that have continued to make headlines, Capitol Media Group operated under the radar with little media exposure and even less disclosure to federal regulators charged with oversight of foreign influence operations.

In fact, Capitol Media Group did not even register as a foreign agent of Saudi Arabia until March 31, 2017 — months later than required under the Foreign Agents Registration (FARA), the law which governs most disclosure requirements for foreign lobbying, trade promotion and other influence operations. That registration came just two days after 9/11 families and survivors filed a complaint with DOJ alleging “potential widespread criminal violations” by Saudi lobbyists and foreign agents who took part in allegedly exploiting U.S. military veterans to push for an amendment of JASTA that would restrict Americans from suing foreign governments for terrorist attacks unless they “knowingly engage with a terrorist organization directly or indirectly, including financing.”

The impetus for that registration, according to Scott Wheeler — Capitol Media Group’s owner and the executive director of the National Republican Trust PAC — was because “we found that the company we had contracted with had received Saudi money.”

In its initial registration statement, Capitol Media Group reported being paid $365,000 from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia to organize veterans’ trips at a base fee of $30,000 each plus expenses to lobby against JASTA.

Capitol Media Group filed its first supplemental statement with DOJ on October 30, 2018, months after supplemental statements coordinating to the dates of that campaign would have been required to be filed under FARA but amidst a renewed scrutiny on Saudi lobbyists and foreign agents in light of the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate.

However, that supplemental statement appears only to cover the six-month period ending September 30, 2018, more than a year after their activities lobbying for the amendment to JASTA took place.

Registrants are required to file the supplements every six months during the duration of the relationship with the foreign principal under FARA, even if they did not engage in activity on behalf of the foreign principal during the reporting period, Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center confirmed.

Joshua Rosenstein, an attorney with Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, called it “positively bizarre.”

Rosenstein said he is less concerned with why the supplemental statement was filed more than a year after the activities took place than other “substantive problems such as inconsistencies between the supplemental statement and initial filings as well as areas where “all of the boxes that are left blank.”

And that’s only the start of issues presented by the filing.

Multiple names listed as individuals who received “payment for transportation, lodging and incidental meals” are veterans who were purportedly part of the trips to Washington, D.C.

The payments are reported to the veterans themselves rather than specifying which hotels or other businesses benefited from the money in Capitol Media Group’s FARA records, but records filed by Qorvis/MSLGroup — a firm that spearheaded and helped organize the trips — fill in some additional details.

A new Washington Post report based on planning documents, agendas and conversations with organizers estimated the Saudi government paid for more than 500 nights in Trump hotel rooms.

Lobbyists switched accommodations for the veterans from Northern Virginia to the Trump International Hotel in December 2016, spending more than $270,000 at the hotel Trump still owns, as first reported by the Daily Caller and confirmed in a FARA disclosure made available through the Foreign Lobby Watch tool.

Outside of JASTA lobbying, Trump’s businesses across the country have become lucrative hot-spots for foreign movers and shakers as well as U.S. political committees.

As CRP noted in an earlier report, Trump International Hotel in Manhattan’s room revenue rose 13 percent in the first three months of 2018 after a two-year decline due to a “last minute visit” by the Saudi Crown Prince. A 2018 report to Trump Hotel Chicago investors on foreign and U.S. customers broken down by country originally obtained by the Washington Post showed a 169 percent increase in Saudi Arabia-based patrons since 2016.

The Trump Organization claimed it would donate foreign government profits to U.S. Treasury Department under an ethics agreement but donated just $151,470 to the U.S. Treasury without explanation of how that amount was calculated and has continued to keep details of the agreement hidden from the public.

Escalating spending by foreign governments at Trump businesses has added fuel to the fire of probes planned by congressional Democrats as well as lawsuits alleging Trump violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by accepting improper payments from foreign governments. A lawsuit by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is ongoing while attorneys general of the District of Columbia and Maryland announced plans to file subpoenas for financial records and other documents related to Trump’s businesses last week.

Despite tweeting that he has “no financial interests in Saudi Arabia,” Trump told the crowd at a campaign rally as recently as 2015, “Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

The rest of Capitol Media Group’s sole supplemental statement record is mostly blank without any mention of a foreign principal despite the firm registering to work for Saudi Arabia’s government, and reporting payments received as a part of that arrangement in registration documents, and never terminating that agreement.

Fischer noted that a supplemental statement is supposed to be “complete in and of itself,” and therefore “cannot incorporate by reference” under the text of the pertinent federal regulations. If Capitol Media Group did terminate the agreement, it would have been required to file a termination statement memorializing the change with DOJ within 30 days.

The only other FARA records Capitol Media Group submitted to DOJ are the registration records filed in 2017, reporting payments for work on behalf of the Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia. They state that the Saudi government official that representatives of Capitol Media Group dealt with was Ambassador Abdullah ibn Faisal and describes Capitol Media Group’s activities as “direct contacts with Members of Congress and their staffs to discuss the potential effect of the legislation upon — and their concern about — the safety of US service members serving abroad in host countries, currently and in future.”

Scott Wheeler told a different story.

“There’s a lot of misinformation in regards to us,” Wheeler said in a phone interview when asked about inconsistencies between the description of Capitol Media Group’s activities in their FARA registration records and his own account. Wheeler said he has been “treated unfairly” by the press, attributing much of the buzz around his activities to earlier reporting by “clowns claiming to be journalists.”

When informed the information was directly read from a filing on record with DOJ filed by a lawyer on his behalf, Wheeler responded, “I don’t know what any of that means. I took veterans with me, but we were just explaining the military ramifications of this over time.”

“We’re not lobbyists, and we’re not lobbyists for foreign governments. We did a military analysis on that law. We had no contact with the Saudi government,” Wheeler assured in the phone interview. “The only time I met anyone from a Saudi ministry was around 15 years ago as a journalist.”

Instead, Wheeler claims Capitol Media Group was merely a subcontractor for Qorvis/MSLGroup, which has long represented the Saudi government in the United States.

Notably absent from any of Capitol Media Group’s filings is any mention of Qorvis/MSLGroup or a sub-contractor relationship. Instead, Capitol Media Group reports a direct relationship with the Saudi government.

Qorvis/MSLGroup did report disbursements to Capitol Media Group of $375,991 for the six-month period through March 2017, $114,100 for the six-month period through March 2018 and $29,400 for the six-month period through September 2018 for a total of $519,491 — none of which was alluded to in the FARA disclosures filed by Capitol Media Group.

In a 2017 advisory opinion, DOJ concluded that a company did not have an obligation to register under FARA “because its contracts are with the two separate U.S. firms–not a foreign principal. The contracts limit the role of the U.S. company to providing meeting coordination, relationship facilitation, and cross-cultural communications clarification for the two U.S. firms. The U.S. company is not “at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal” per 22 U.S.C. § 61l(c).” However, that advisory opinion was limited to the facts and circumstances of that case.

But even if Wheeler was a subcontractor and performing political activities in that capacity for Qorvis/MSLGroup, as he claims, the activities reported in the initial filing that fall under the purview of FARA would still require him to register and file all of the necessary paperwork, Rosenstein said, noting “The extent to which they were working as a subcontractor needed to be disclosed.”

When asked multiple times for clarification from his lawyer, Wheeler said “he would refer you back to me,” “he’s indisposed,” he’s “extremely busy,” that it would be “impossible,” and ultimately asked to call him back in a week. Attempts to contact Wheeler in the weeks since that time have not been successful.

DOJ records obtained by CRP indicate Wheeler’s Carey committee, a hybrid between a PAC and a super PAC, may have also played a role in the Saudi foreign influence operation.

Informational materials used by Qorvis on behalf of Saudi Arabia include an open letter to members of Congress on the National Republican Trust PAC’s official letterhead urging them to “repeal JASTA immediately.”

The letter — using the National Republican PAC’s letterhead and included the Qorvis’ disclaimer — was also included in informational materials filed by DLA Piper, a firm that represented Saudi Arabia in 2017 but has not reported any payments corresponding to that period.

A significant portion of the money raised by Wheeler’s National Republican Trust PAC is paid out to his firm, Capitol Media Group — enough to fall on CRP’s anomaly tracker for three election cycles in a row.

Was Wheeler kept in the dark about the Saudi interests behind his influence campaign or was he part of the alleged plot to exploit unwitting military veterans for the interests of a foreign government? Without more transparency around the whole situation, it’s hard to tell.

As Wheeler put it during a phone interview, “some of that stuff caused a swirl.”

A spokesperson from the division of DOJ overseeing FARA issues declined to comment. Multiple attempts to contact the press office of the Embassy of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qorvis/MSLGroup were not returned.