Paid to keep quiet?

I've often wondered what became of Trump's bodyguard.  You know - the one who was at that Moscow hotel and said he turned back those prostitutes outside Trump's room, but then left his guard post a short while later.  The one who hand-delivered Comey his letter of termination. And, according to Trump's once personal doctor Harold Bornstein, raided the doctor's office and took Trump's medical records.  Turns out he's on the RNC payroll, but it's not clear what he's doing to earn his $15,000 a month.

A company owned by Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump's former longtime bodyguard, has received $225,000 from the Republican National Committee for security consulting since he left his job as White House director of Oval Office operations in September 2017, according to interviews and newly released campaign filings.

Schiller was originally hired by the RNC to help select a site for the 2020 convention. But once the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, was announced in July, Schiller's firm was kept on to "work on other security needs for the committee," a party official told CNBC, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The official declined to go into detail about what the committee's security needs might be but confirmed that the work is ongoing.

  CNBC

High priced coffee boy

The official also took pains to emphasize that Schiller's $15,000 a month fee was not coming out of the same funds the party was using to help elect Republicans to office in the 2018 midterms. Instead, the official said, Schiller's firm was being paid out of a special fund set aside for convention expenses.

It is unclear whether Schiller has any other clients besides the RNC, and if so, what type of work he does for them. Likewise, details about KS Global Group are not readily available.

According to state records, KS Global Group was created in 2015 by an anonymous Delaware corporate agent, and it does not appear to have a website or any publicly available contact information.

So, you can't hire Schiller unless you know somebody who knows somebody.

As of 2017, the firm was registered at a virtual office address in Boca Raton, Florida, where Schiller lives. A filing with the Florida secretary of State's office lists Schiller as the principal of the company.

Attempts to reach Schiller were unsuccessful.

[...]

But the unique position that Schiller occupies in Trump's orbit could be seen in the RNC's careful effort last year to compartmentalize Schiller's relationship to the committee, even as it hired him just days after he left the White House, and paid him nearly a quarter of a million dollars in consulting fees over 15 months.

Pretty good pay for locating a convention site.

According to RNC records, Schiller's contract is all that remains of three unusual expenses the committee abruptly began paying in the fall of 2017, during a time in which it sought to help the Trump campaign defray the costs of the president's legal bills in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

[...]

The White House declined to comment on whether Trump still talks to his longtime bodyguard, or how often. But the president is known to spend hours in the White House residence calling friends and associates, often seeking their opinions on political and policy matters.

In late summer 2017, after eight months at the White House with Trump, Schiller was ready to move to Florida, make more money and get outside the Beltway, according to former White House aides. Inside the West Wing, Schiller also reportedly chafed under the newly imposed, top-down leadership style of then-chief of staff Gen. John Kelly.

At the same time, on Capitol Hill, the Republican National Committee was coming under pressure from Trump allies who wanted it to use its specially designated legal fund [originally created to pay for things like vote recounts] to help pay personal attorney fees for the president and his eldest son, Donald Jr., who were caught up in the early stages of the special counsel's Russia probe.

[...]

The RNC agreed to tap the fund. In August and September 2017, it spent more than $427,000 on lawyers for both men. But an uproar ensued when the RNC later reported the payments on its mandatory monthly campaign filings.

[...]

The last legal bill the committee paid for the Trumps was on Sept. 18, 2017, for Don Jr. Yet within days, the RNC quietly started paying three other Trump-related expenses, according to committee filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The first was a salary for John Pence, nephew of Vice President Mike Pence, who was earning around $12,000 a month from Trump's re-election campaign.

How very interesting.

Next came $37,500 a month in rent payable to the Trump Organization for office space in Trump Tower, which was used by the president's re-election campaign.

Pretty steep office rent. Could they maybe find a less expensive space?

On October 4, 2017, one week after the Trump Tower rent payments started, the RNC cut its first check for $15,000 to Schiller's KS Global Group for what it called "security services."

The expense was disclosed by the committee on its next campaign filing in October, as required by law. But it went unnoticed by reporters for another three months.

[...]

The RNC wasn't the only pro-Trump group helping Schiller to make ends meet, however. Also not yet reported at the time was the fact that Schiller's lawyers were being paid, at least in part, by the Trump campaign. Between January and April 2018, the campaign paid more than $94,500 to Schiller's attorney's law firm, according to campaign finance reports.

His lawyers. He did sit for an interview with the House Intelligence Committee under Nunes. I wonder if maybe the Nadler-headed Committee wil recall him.

As for the other two expenses, Pence's salary and the Trump Tower rent, which had been explicitly taken over from the campaign, they were both stopped within weeks of CNBC's first identifying them and questioning the committee about them in February. By mid-March 2018, the Trump campaign was back to paying its own rent and paying Pence's [nephew's] salary.

Of the three expenses the committee had begun paying during those last two weeks of September 2017, only Schiller remained on the books.

But now that the original task of selecting a convention site is complete, and Schiller is still on the payroll, the issue of what Trump's former bodyguard is being paid to do is not clear. When CNBC pressed the RNC official for details this week, the official would say only that Schiller was "working on other security needs for the committee."

[...]

CNBC asked the RNC on Monday whether Schiller is still being paid with convention funds, and the official did not respond.

[...]

Schiller is one of several former White House aides who left their government jobs and were quickly hired by Trump-allied political groups. In March 2018, Trump's personal aide Johnny McEntee was fired from the White House for online gaming. Trump's reelection campaign announced that it had hired McEntee as a senior adviser the very next day.

Is he getting $15,000 a month, too? Why, yes. Yes he is. At least he was as of August last year.

A number of former Trump aides – including two who served in sensitive positions in the White House – have been paid roughly $15,000 per month by either the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee or America First PAC, a political action committee dedicated to Trump’s re-election for various services described only briefly in filings.

[...]

Campaign finance records show several former aides to President Donald Trump have received payments of roughly $15,000 per month from campaign or party accounts, bolstering part of former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman’s claim that she was offered the same amount to keep quiet about her time in the White House.

The Apprentice contestant turned White House aide Manigault Newman has alleged that multiple former Trump Administration aides have been taking money for their silence since leaving their posts, a hush money payment under the guise of a no-show job that she says she turned down.

"They were not offering me a real job," Manigault Newman told NBC on Sunday. “They didn't really care if I showed up. In fact, there are several former employees from the White House who actually signed this agreement, who are all being paid $15,000 for their silence.”

[...]

Campaign or party coffers made monthly payments to former director of Oval Office operations Keith Schiller for “security services,” former personal assistant to the president John McEntee for “payroll,” former digital media director of the Trump campaign Brad Parscale for “digital consulting [and] management consulting” and former director of advertising for the Trump campaign Gary Coby for “media services [and] consulting.”

  ABC

RNC must have a shitload of income. NRA? Russia? The Mercers? Sheldon Adelson? Corporations and billionaires? I wonder what Republican candidates for various positions think of where that money's going.

As an interesting bit of background on Schiller, who worked as Trump's bodyguard for almost twenty years, is before that, he worked for the NYPD as an undercover officer in the drug enforcement division and the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Act surprised

When Dr. Harold Bornstein described in hyperbolic prose then-candidate Donald Trump's health in 2015, the language he used was eerily similar to the style preferred by his patient.

It turns out the patient himself wrote it, according to Bornstein.

  CNN

I know, I know. We already knew that, but let's go along here. Much like Bornstein himself.

"He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter," Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday. "I just made it up as I went along."

[...]

"His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary," he crowed in the letter, which was released by Trump's campaign in December 2015. "If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

The missive didn't offer much medical evidence for those claims beyond citing a blood pressure of 110/65, described by Bornstein as "astonishingly excellent." It claimed Trump had lost 15 pounds over the preceding year. And it described his cardiovascular health as "excellent."

[...]

The admission is an about face from his answer more than two years when the letter was released and answers one of the lingering questions about the last presidential election.

[...]

"He said Trump read out the language as Bornstein and his wife were driving across Central Park.

(Trump) dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn't put in there," he said. "They came to pick up their letter at 4 o'clock or something."

[...]

"That's black humor, that letter. That's my sense of humor," he said. "It's like the movie 'Fargo': It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction."

So, okay. Now there's absolutely no pretending: Bornstein's brain is fried.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's staff raided Trump's doctor's office

President Trump’s longtime personal doctor in New York says a trio of Trump associates showed up at his office without notice in early 2017 and seized the president’s medical records.

Dr. Harold Bornstein told NBC News that Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, a lawyer with the Trump Organization and a third man came to his office the morning of Feb. 3, 2017. They took lab reports and Trump’s medical charts, he said.

“They must have been here for 25 minutes or 30 minutes. It created a lot of chaos,” Bornstein said, adding that he felt “raped, frightened and sad.”

  The Hill

Perhaps he also felt shafter like Michael Cohen in not being asked to come to Washington.

NBC reported that Trump’s White House physician, Ronny Jackson, wrote a letter authorizing the release of Trump’s records, but Bornstein told the news outlet he was not given a release form to sign.

Bornstein said the incident, which he described as a "raid," took place days after he told The New York Times that Trump takes Propecia, a drug for men with enlarged prostates that helps with hair growth.

Of course now we wonder what else was in those records.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called it “standard operating procedure” for the White House medical unit to obtain a newly elected president’s medical records.

By sending a bodyguard and a couple of thugs to just go take them?

“That was what was taking place, is those records were being transferred over to the White House medical unit, as requested,” Sanders said.

I think a courier service, or a White House runner would have been sufficient.

Bornstein told NBC he felt compelled to speak about the “raid” because of the allegations against Jackson, whom Trump nominated to serve as Veterans Affairs (VA) secretary.

Jackson withdrew his nomination last week in the face of mounting allegations of improper behavior.

[...]

“This is like a celebration for me,” said Bornstein, who had previously expressed a desire to serve as White House physician.

Bingo. There it is.

Wildman Bornstein knows a lot about Trump that he could leak. I hope he's watching his back.

A source with knowledge of the transfer of records said it was not a raid and that there was confusion at the time because Bornstein could not operate his copy machine.

  CNN

Oh, OK. Actually, I don't doubt that Bornstein couldn't operate his copy machine.

And while we're on the subject of Trump's ex-doctors...

Vice President Mike Pence's physician privately raised alarms within the White House last fall that President Donald Trump's doctor may have violated federal privacy protections for a key patient -- Pence's wife, Karen -- and intimidated the vice president's doctor during angry confrontations over the episode.

The previously unreported incident is the first sign that serious concerns about Ronny Jackson's conduct had reached the highest levels of the White House as far back as September -- months before White House aides furiously defended Jackson's professionalism, insisted he had been thoroughly vetted and argued allegations of misconduct amounted to unsubstantiated rumors.

The episode -- detailed in three memos by Pence's physician -- is also the first documentation that has surfaced involving a specific allegation of medical misconduct by Jackson.

[...]

According to copies of internal documents obtained by CNN, Pence's doctor accused Jackson of overstepping his authority and inappropriately intervening in a medical situation involving the second lady as well as potentially violating federal privacy rights by briefing White House staff and disclosing details to other medical providers -- but not appropriately consulting with the vice president's physician.

[...]

The physician informed White House officials of being treated unprofessionally, describing a pattern of behavior from Jackson that made the physician "uncomfortable" and even consider resigning from the position.

After Mrs. Pence's physician briefed her about the episode, she "also expressed concerns over the potential breach of privacy of her medical condition," the memo said. Karen Pence asked her physician to direct the vice president's top aide, Nick Ayers, to inform White House chief of staff John Kelly about the matter. Subsequent memos from Pence's doctor suggested Kelly was aware of the episode.

[...]

In one of two tense encounters described in the memos, Jackson made the vice president's doctor feel uncomfortable with his "accusatory" tone, "unprofessionalism" and "intimidating" and "aggressive" behavior during their private meetings. Jackson told the doctor to "let the issue go" and to "let things go ... if I am to succeed in my career," the physician wrote.

  CNN

Last fall? And Trump still nominated him to head the VA?

The issue involving Karen Pence arose September 8, 2017, when a medical situation required her to be taken from Camp David -- where the President was slated to meet with his Cabinet -- to Walter Reed hospital. Even though Jackson is responsible for caring for Trump, he intervened in the situation involving Mrs. Pence, leading to "an inadvertent disclosure of SLOTUS' medical information in a situation where ultimate discretion was of utmost importance," according to the memo, which does not describe the information disclosed.

[...]

Jackson then shared information with the senior medical providers involved in the matter, and according to the memo, briefed "multiple parties" on Trump's White House staff "without specific consultation from the physician to the vice president," prompting the concerns that he disclosed Mrs. Pence's private information.

Okay, NOW we want to know what was going on with Karen Pence.

Dr. Ronny's such a great guy, though

It's pretty clear to me.  Not fair, Trump!

Oh, hell yeah.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



"While meeting with kids."  Jesus. To be fair, though, he was responding to a reporter's question.

"He's a great man, and he got treated very, very unfairly. He got treated really unfairly," Trump said. "And he's a hell of a man."

  ABC News

Let's face it, the only thing Trump actually knows about Jackson is that he has no problem lying to the world about Trump's physical condition.

Also, these were reporters kids.

Once inside the Oval Office, the president played tour guide for the kids and complimented their reporter parents for not using the occasion to press him to answer further questions on various news of day topics.

"Do you know they say this is the most important office anywhere in the world, right?" Trump said.

What? He didn't say anything about him being the most important person in the world? Does he think a bunch of little kids will make the extrapolation on their own?

"Honestly, the children ask me better questions, if you want to know the truth," Trump joked to the group of kids in the Rose Garden Thursday afternoon. "Your parents are being very nice right now, I can't believe it! Because they don't want to embarrass themselves in front of you."

There's no level low enough for him to avoid. He's such a nasty man. And pathetic.

Pot meets kettle

Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, as protests against alleged corruption and rising prices turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.

[...]

An official said a few protesters had been arrested in Tehran, and videos posted on social media showed a heavy police presence and demonstrations in a number of othercities.

The US State Department said it “strongly condemns” the arrests and was monitoring the protests.

  Guardian

That's pretty rich coming from a country who just put a half dozen people on trial (who fortunately beat the charges) with the threat of decades in jail who merely witnessed and recorded a protest against the inauguration of a would-be despot who lost the popular vote by over a million.

The world has a hard time seeing anything with your fat ass hogging up all the publicity.

And 'fat ass' is not a slander.  It's a sad fact:

I call that second picture 'Lard Ass in Elevator Shoes'.

Is he going to use that wacko "doctor" for his January 12 annual physical that he had write him an excuse going into the job?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Sad!

T-Rump's Doctor Squeals

President Trump takes medication for three ailments, including a prostate-related drug to promote hair growth, Mr. Trump’s longtime physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said in a series of recent interviews.

  NYT

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the prostate.

The other drugs are antibiotics to control rosacea, a common skin problem, and a statin for elevated blood cholesterol and lipids.

Dr. Bornstein, who spoke by telephone in four interviews over the past month, also said that Mr. Trump takes a daily baby aspirin to reduce the risk of a heart attack.

[...]

At 70, Mr. Trump is the oldest person to become president.

Of course. He's the "est" of everything. He's also the nastiest.

White House officials declined to comment on Wednesday night on the information provided by Dr. Bornstein, and would not say whether he was still Mr. Trump’s physician.

Uh-oh.

He said that he had had no contact with Mr. Trump since he became president, and that no one from Mr. Trump’s White House staff had asked for copies of the medical records that he has kept for the last 36 years, or called to discuss them.

[...]

At times in the interviews, Dr. Bornstein was moody, ranging from saying that Mr. Trump’s health “is none of your business” to later volunteering facts. He also meandered, referring to his longtime study of Italian and stories about medical schools floating cadavers to an island off the waters of New York. He said he liked the attention he got from friends now that he was publicly known as Mr. Trump’s doctor but disliked “the fun made of me” by the news media and strangers who have thrown objects at his office window and who have yelled at him on Park Avenue.

Perhaps he's taking the same drugs he's giving T-Rump.

Dr. Bornstein was invited to Mr. Trump’s inaugural, although he said it was not as pleasant an experience as he expected. He had to walk a long way to a spot where he thought there would be a chair — he said he has a painful back ailment and nerve damage to a leg — but when he got there, there was no chair.

He stood behind a tree and “never heard anyone speak because I was so uncomfortable from my back and being cold.” He felt, he said, “absolutely miserable.” It seemed to take forever to leave because of the heavy security, he said. The situation was the same at an inaugural ball where there were no tables and chairs. So, he said, unable to chat comfortably with others, he and his wife, Melissa, returned to their hotel early.

I don't think he should hold his breath waiting for a call to T-Rump's presidential doctor.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Donald's Witness

It just keeps getting better, folks.

Donald Trump’s campaign says a British man is countering claims that the GOP presidential nominee groped a woman on a cross-country flight more than three decades ago.

[...]

[Anthony] Gilberthorpe, 54, said he was sitting across the first class aisle from the couple and saw nothing inappropriate. Leeds was wearing a white pantsuit, he said, while Trump was wearing a suit and cuff-links, which he gave to his British flight companion.

Indeed, Gilberthorpe claimed, Leeds was “trying too hard” in her attempt to win Trump over.

“She wanted to marry him,” Gilberthorpe said of Leeds, who apparently made the confession when Trump excused himself and went to the bathroom.

[...]

The man says he was sitting across from the accuser and contacted the Trump campaign because he was incensed by her account — which is at odds with what he witnessed.

[...]

Gilberthorpe has no evidence to back up his claim — just his self-described excellent memory.

[...]

“I have only met this accuser once and frankly cannot imagine why she is seeking to make out that Trump made sexual advances on her. Not only did he not do so (and I was present at all times) but it was she that was the one being flirtatious,” Anthony Gilberthorpe said in a note provided to The Post by the Trump campaign.

  NYPost

Reminds me of the note from the doctor.

And who is Mr. Gilberthorpe?

Gilberthorpe, a former Gloucestershire county councillor and party activist, says that in 1989 he sent a 40-page dossier to Margaret Thatcher (a friend of his, or so he claims) accusing several of her cabinet ministers of “abusing underage boys at drug-fuelled conference parties”. And he should know, for he was paid to recruit underage rent-boys for the orgies.

[...]

In September 1987 [...] he announced his engagement in the Times to Miss Leah Bergdorf-Hunt, a fashion designer from California. The Gloucester Express reported the news on its front page under the headline “Gilby to Marry”. It quoted Gilberthorpe as saying: "Both our families are delighted… I hope this will explain to a few people about my recent visits to America.” But there was no engagement, and indeed no Miss Bergdorf-Hunt. As revealed in Eye 690, the whole thing was a fantasy.

[...]

In 1988 – the year before he claims to have sent Thatcher his dossier – he was awarded almost £50,000 libel damages against the Gloucester Citizen, Daily Mirror and Sun, all of which had reported that he was resigning as a councillor “amid allegations that he is a homosexual, has the killer disease Aids and has obtained £250,000 in cash and property from a disabled old-age pensioner”.

The odd feature of the case was that the local news-agency reporter who had supplied the story identified his source as Gilberthorpe himself.

[...]

And what of Piers Merchant MP, who had so gallantly testified for his chum? In 1997 he and his young mistress, Anna Cox, went to stay for the weekend with Gilberthorpe. Shortly afterwards they were amazed to see quotes from their pillow-talk and photos of them in bed splashed all over the Sunday Mirror. Gilby, it transpired, had fitted out the spare-room with hidden cameras and microphones and shopped his loyal friend to the tabloid for £25,000.

  Private Eye via Wayback Machine

Trump got this guy where he got his personal physician I assume.  I wonder how much they get paid?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Better and Better

This is too good.

Donald Trump's personal physician said he wrote a letter declaring Trump would be the healthiest president in history in just five minutes while a limo sent by the candidate waited outside his Manhattan office.

[...]

Bornstein said that after he was asked to write the letter, he thought about what he would say all day but did not type it out until the last minute as a black car sent by Trump waited to collect it. He said he didn't even proofread it."

  NBC

No, wait. It gets better yet.

When he sat down to write the letter, Bornstein — who is board-certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology — gushed that Trump's lab results were "astonishingly excellent.

[...]

"His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary," the doctor wrote.

[...]

"His health is excellent, especially his mental health," he said in an exclusive interview at his Park Avenue office.

[...]

"If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," Bornstein wrote.

Asked how he could justify the hyperbole, Bornstein said, "I like that sentence to be quite honest with you and all the rest of them are either sick or dead."

Oh, God.  Excellent.

Trump wrote that letter, himself, didn't he?

Meet the "highly respected Dr. Harold Bornstein"...

Maybe Dr. Bornstein did write that.  Maybe.

EXCLUSIVE:  pic.twitter.com/wb3pMPmO2C

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 26, 2016

At first, I thought I'd be sick to death of Trump, but I'm loving this.