In a little-noticed SEC filing submitted on February 22, 2018, [billionaire investor and longtime Trump confidant Carl] Icahn disclosed that he systematically sold off nearly 1 million shares of Manitowoc Company Inc. Manitowoc is a “is a leading global manufacturer of cranes and lifting solutions” and, therefore, heavily dependent on steel to make its products.
The filing came just seven days before a White House event where Trump announced his intention of imposing a 25 percent tariff on steel imports.
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Before February, Icahn was not actively trading Manitowoc stock. According to regulatory filings, he did not buy or sell any shares of Manitowoc between January 17, 2015 and February 11, 2018.
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Manitowoc stock plunged, losing about 6 percent of its value. [...] As of 10:20 a.m. Friday, the stock had lost an additional 6 percent.
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Icahn, a billionaire investor with far-flung holdings, is a close associate of Trump — who invoked Icahn’s name repeatedly on the campaign trail. Once in office, Trump installed Icahn as a “special adviser,” although Icahn did not not unwind his business entanglements before accepting the position.
Icahn resigned in August, in advance of a New Yorker article which detailed how he used his position in the White House and his connection to Trump to protect his investments.
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In an interview on CNBC on Thursday, Icahn appeared to acknowledge at least occasional ongoing conversations with Trump, saying the two had not had “much” interaction in the last four to five months.
Carl Icahn has stepped down from his role as a special adviser to President Donald Trump, the billionaire investor announced on Friday.
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Icahn’s resignation announcement follows the news Friday that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was fired. He steps away from the role as multiple presidential advisory committees disassembled this week after Trump’s controversial statements about the white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, Va. last weekend.
But that can't possibly be the reason Icahn is leaving.
“I chose to end this arrangement (with your blessing) because I did not want partisan bickering about my role to in any way cloud your administration,” Icahn wrote in a letter to Trump. “I sincerely regret that because of your extremely busy schedule, as well as my own, I have not had the opportunity to spend nearly as much time as I’d hoped on regulatory issues.”
I'm not buying it any more than I'm buying what they're trying to sell about Bannon leaving. WTF is going on? Neither one of them has any conscience and neither depends upon public approval, so Charlottesville isn't why they're out. It's possible Trump fired Bannon. And if he did, it was because Bannon was getting too much publicity - articles calling him Trump's brain. But that doesn't explain why Bannon did that interview a la Scaramucci. That was beyond bizarre.
This New York magazine article suggests Icahn was fired - and then quit! Why would Trump fire him? Do either of these guys leaving have anything to do with Mueller's investigation? Something is rotten in Denmark.
Check out this New Yorker story on the guy Donald Trump wants to be. Excerpt:
In the months after the election, the stock price of CVR, Icahn’s refiner, nearly doubled—a surge that is difficult to explain without acknowledging the appointment of the company’s lead shareholder to a White House position. The rally meant a personal benefit for Icahn, at least on paper, of half a billion dollars. There was an expectation in the market—an expectation created, in part, by Icahn’s own remarks—that, with Trump in the White House and Icahn playing consigliere, the rules were about to change, and not just at the E.P.A. Icahn’s empire ranges across many economic sectors, from energy to pharmaceuticals to auto supplies to mining, and all of them are governed by the types of regulations about which he would now potentially be advising Trump.
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Icahn is worth more than the Trump family and all the members of the Cabinet combined—and, with no constraint on his license to counsel the President on regulations that might help his businesses, he was poised to become much richer.
After reading the entire New Yorker article, it looks more to me like the Mueller angle (meaning, he's onto Icahn in his investigations) may well be the reason Icahn left the administration. Not that leaving would necessarily be enough to cover his ass anyway. But IF he's under Mueller's microscope, maybe he's being granted some immunity in exchange for some information, or even some grace in exchange for leaving.
Jesse Lynn told me that he has reviewed the relevant law, and that it does not apply to Icahn: “Unlike a government employee, Mr. Icahn has no official role or duties and he is not in a position to set policy.”
Painter disagrees. “That is clearly an official title,” he said. “If he was advising on a matter where he had an interest, then Icahn was in direct violation of the criminal statute.”
And one more point:
I asked several people who know Icahn whether he even has policy interests beyond his own investments. They noted Icahn’s commitment to education—he has built eight charter schools in the Bronx—but struggled to offer other examples.
Where's the game show claxon? Building charter schools is not something rich people do because they care about education. They do it because it pays dividends.
UPDATE 8/25:
Rep Don Beyer lays out the salient points of the Icahn appointment to the Trump administration showing it for what it was: a gift to Carl Icahn. Start here:
This appointment is not an official government position and [Carl] Icahn will therefore not have to divest of his vast business holdings in order to comply with government-mandated conflict of interest rules.
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Trump had considered him for the post of Treasury secretary but Icahn rejected the suggestions saying: “I’m not ever going to be secretary of anything in Washington.”
“Carl was with me from the beginning and with his being one of the world’s great businessmen, that was something I truly appreciated,” said Trump. Trump said Ichan’s “help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable”.
The populist government.
Icahn has been a persistent critic of government regulation, most recently “crazy regulations” at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He is a major investor in CVR Energy, an oil refiner, whose business he claims has been harmed by EPA regulations.
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The billionaire, who has a home near Trump’s Palm Beach base, Mar-A-Lago, started his career on Wall Street and has built a reputation as a fierce corporate raider.
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Trump consulted with Icahn before appointing Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general and another EPA critic, to head the agency.
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In the 1990s Icahn was a bondholder in Trump’s failing Taj Mahal casino in New Jersey. Trump was able to keep control [of] the casino despite failing to make payments to Icahn and other bondholders thanks in large part to advice given by another Trump appointee, Wilbur Ross, a billionaire bankruptcy expert and now Trump’s appointed commerce secretary.
It keeps looking like "lock her up" wasn't the only thing that "played well" during the campaign, but doesn't matter now since "I won".
