When you've lost Ben Shapiro

 

MAGA unhappy with Musk

Do they think Trump has any concern for conflicts?

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

UPDATE 11:00 am:

Bullies are such snowflakes.

UPDATE 11:44 am:

Third time's a charm?

A handful of conservative critics of Elon Musk are alleging censorship and claiming they were stripped of their verification badges on X after challenging his views on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.

[...]

Trump's conspiracy-minded ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax and InfoWars host Owen Shroyer all said their verification badges disappeared after they criticized Musk's support for H1B visas, railed against Indian culture and attacked Ramaswamy, Musk's DOGE co-chair.

[...]

The H-1B issue and an X post by Musk ally Vivek Ramaswamy about America's culture of "mediocrity" have sparked an online MAGA civil war over immigration and race. Some supporters of President-elect Trump are now turning on Musk and the tech bros Trump has tapped for key administration roles.

[...]

Musk has a history of punishing news organizations and journalists he doesn't like, ostensibly for policy violations.

He threatened to reassign NPR's account handle last year and marked some links to the site as "unsafe" when users click through.

Musk also removed the verification badge of The New York Times in 2023.

X also suspended independent journalist Ken Klippenstein's account after he shared Sen. JD Vance's vetting document from the alleged Iranian hack of Trump's campaign.

  Axios

UPDATE 12/28/2024:

And not just Musk...

It's starting to seem like these guys don't know how to read the room.

UPDATE 12/28/2024:

UPDATE 12/29/2024:  I don't know.  I'm beginning to think that Trump and MAGA never actually understood each other.

Family feud time?

On Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, barely 24 hours after President Donald J. Trump claimed in the middle of the night that “frankly, we did win this election,” Jared Kushner woke up in his Kalorama mansion and announced to his wife that it was time to leave Washington. “We’re moving to Miami,” he said.

The election had not even been called for Joseph R. Biden Jr., but as Mr. Kushner later told the story to aides and associates, the White House’s young power couple felt no need to wait for the official results.

[...]

No matter how vociferously Mr. Trump claimed otherwise, neither Mr. Kushner nor Ivanka Trump believed then or later that the election had been stolen, according to people close to them.

  NYT

He might be an idiot, but even he could tell Trump lost.

Their decision to move on opened a vacuum around the president that was filled by conspiracy theorists like Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who relayed to Mr. Trump farcically false stories of dead voters, stuffed ballot boxes, corrupted voting machines and foreign plots. Concluding that the president would not listen even to family members urging him to accept the results, Mr. Kushner told Mr. Trump that he would not be involved if Mr. Giuliani were in charge.

[...]

As far as Mr. Kushner was concerned, Mr. Giuliani was an erratic schemer who had already gotten Mr. Trump impeached once because of his political intriguing in Ukraine, and nothing good would come of the former mayor’s involvement in fighting the election results. But instead of fighting Mr. Giuliani for Mr. Trump’s attention, Mr. Kushner opted out entirely, deciding it was time to focus on his own future, one that would no longer involve the White House.

[...]

While the president’s son-in-law had arguably been the most influential adviser to the president through four years, weighing in at times and carefully cultivating his reputation, he chose at that pivotal moment to focus instead on his personal project of Middle East diplomacy.

I think you need to rephrase that.

He returned to the region to meet with figures who would also be helpful to him later in making money after leaving the White House.

That's better.

Mr. Kushner’s activities in his final months in the White House are now also coming under the scrutiny of another Democratic-run House committee investigating whether he used his position to secure a $2 billion investment in his new private equity firm from a prominent Saudi Arabian wealth fund. Mr. Kushner has said he abided by all legal and ethical guidelines while in public service.

I'm so sure. Legal - maybe.

The [January 6] committee interviewed Mr. Kushner, who otherwise has not spoken at length publicly about the events after the 2020 election, and plans to show video excerpts from his testimony along with Ivanka Trump’s.

I hope it's worth watching.

Mr. Kushner developed his own techniques for handling Mr. Trump. One key, he told others, was feeding the president good news, even if it was in short supply. In fact, Mr. Kushner came up with a specific mathematical formula for his peculiar brand of Trump management: two to one. Any phone call, any meeting should include this good-news-to-bad-news ratio. He would give twice as much upbeat information as grim updates. He similarly made a habit of telling Mr. Trump to add five points to any bad poll, rationalizing that traditional surveys missed many Trump voters anyway, part of a common White House practice of telling the president what he wanted to hear regardless of the facts.

[...]

Mr. Kushner understood that Mr. Trump was never going to call him and say, “You’re doing a great job. I just want to thank you for this.” Instead, Mr. Kushner once explained to an associate, his dealings with Trump invariably began with the president saying, “What the hell is going on with this?” albeit with an earthier expletive, often in a phone call at 1 or 2 in the morning.

[...]

“You have to realize you don’t make the waves,” Mr. Kushner regularly advised other officials. “He makes the waves. And then you have to do your best to kind of stay on the surfboard.”

[...]

He understood that his father-in-law would not concede right away and would ask for recounts and file lawsuits, but he believed that even if there were some irregularities, it was mainly a way of soothing a wounded ego and explaining defeat. Mr. Trump would lash out and make outlandish claims but eventually accept reality and move out of the White House — an assumption many Republicans in Washington made, only to discover how far the president was really willing to go.

Funny how the people closest to him were the least understanding of who Trump is.

As his father-in-law refused to authorize transition cooperation with Mr. Biden’s incoming team, Mr. Kushner quietly began working with aides to the president-elect like Jake Sullivan and Jeffrey Zients to prepare for their takeover.

Does Donald know that?!

One of the most striking realizations that emerged from the book research was how many people around Mr. Trump did not believe the election had been stolen but kept quiet or checked out, including White House officials and campaign aides. Hope Hicks, long one of his closest advisers, told him it was time to move on. “Well, Hope doesn’t believe in me,” Mr. Trump responded bitterly. “No, I don’t,” she replied. “Nobody’s convinced me otherwise.” She disappeared in the final weeks of the administration.

Kellyanne Conway, the former White House counselor and fierce Trump loyalist, reported in her new book that she told Mr. Trump to accept his loss, something she did not say publicly at the time; even this much-delayed acknowledgment of reality drew a rebuke from Mr. Trump, who said she should “go back to her crazy husband.”

I'm sure they could get back in his good graces with a little groveling and a lot of public praise.

The most problematic aspect of this story for Javanka is probably the Times headline: 

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

The hypocrisy of the Trump attacks on Hunter Biden

It's not just Rudy's humiliating bullshit.

Donald Trump is the first president in modern history to refuse to divest from his business interests upon taking office. As a result, he reportedly took in at least $73 million from foreign sources during his first two years in office, creating an unprecedented tangle of conflicts of interest with countries like the Philippines, India, and Turkey that are home to Trump-branded buildings.

Meanwhile, Trump’s adult sons — who said before his inauguration that they’d stay out of politics to avoid conflicts of interest — serve as key political surrogates for their father while running the family business, which has benefited from Trump’s presidency both directly and indirectly.

Somehow, none of this has stopped the president or his family from making his closing reelection case about corruption. Not his, mind you.

[...]

Very few people would argue that there isn’t something unseemly about Hunter Biden seemingly cashing in on his family name while his father was still serving as vice president. But if there’s anybody who should refrain from making that case, it’s the Trump children.

  

Continue reading.

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

UPDATE:

Careful, Junior

Sources said Donald Trump Jr. is deeply upset by his father’s decision to drive around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night with members of the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19. “Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,” one of the sources told me.

[...]

According to sources, Don Jr. has told friends that he tried lobbying Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner to convince the president that he needs to stop acting unstable. “Don Jr. has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,” a source said. Don Jr. is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. “Don said, ‘I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,’” the source added.

One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. “They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,” a source close to the family told me.

[...]

Trump has been prescribed drugs that medical experts say can seriously impair his cognitive function.

  Vanity Fair

I don't know how you'd know the difference unless they made him sane.

According to a Trump family friend, Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr., insisted on working even after his Alzheimer’s disease advanced in the 1990s. “To retire is to expire!” Fred Sr. would say. The friend said that as Fred Sr.’s disease worsened––he once came down the stairs wearing three neckties––the family created a system so that Fred could think he was still running the Trump Organization. Every day Fred Sr. would go to the office in Brooklyn and they would give him blank papers to sort through and sign. The phone on Fred’s desk was set up so that it could only dial out to his secretary.

[...]

The White House did not immediately respond for comment.

And, Junior....he's not "acting".

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

Grifter in chief

And Kennedy and Hoover didn't use the office to fill the coffers of their personal businesses to the tune of income that dwarfs the presidential salary.

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

In it for the money

As if you didn't already know.

The American ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, told multiple colleagues in February 2018 that President Trump had asked him to see if the British government could help steer the world-famous and lucrative British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland, according to three people with knowledge of the episode.

  NYT

Shocked, aren't you?

The ambassador’s deputy, Lewis A. Lukens, advised him not to do it, warning that it would be an unethical use of the presidency for private gain, these people said. But Mr. Johnson apparently felt pressured to try.

I'd like to know THAT part of the story.

A few weeks later, he raised the idea of Turnberry playing host to the Open with the secretary of state for Scotland, David Mundell.

In a brief interview last week, Mr. Mundell said it was “inappropriate” for him to discuss his dealings with Mr. Johnson and referred to a British government statement that said Mr. Johnson “made no request of Mr. Mundell regarding the British Open or any other sporting event.”

Let the Brits be the ones to lie.

Mr. Lukens, who served as the acting ambassador before Mr. Johnson arrived in November 2017, emailed officials at the State Department to tell them what had happened, colleagues said. A few months later, Mr. Johnson forced out Mr. Lukens, a career diplomat who had earlier served as ambassador to Senegal, shortly before his term was to end.

Mr. Johnson was perhaps lying when he said he felt pressured. He sounds like a very Trumpy kind of guy, and more likely to have been expecting to pocket some money or gain some other benefit by swinging the deal.

A prominent Republican donor, Ambassador Johnson initially supported Jeb Bush for the Republican nomination in 2016, but he later backed Mr. Trump, introducing him to other figures in the party’s money circles. Enlisting Mr. Johnson as an emissary on behalf of his golf course was another way the president was looking for help furthering his financial interests.

[...]

“It is diplomatic malpractice because once you do that, you put yourself in a compromised position,” said Norman L. Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama’s special counsel for ethics and later as his ambassador to the Czech Republic. “They can always say, ‘Remember that time when you made that suggestion.’ No experienced diplomat would do that.”

[...]

Although Mr. Trump, as president, is exempt from a federal conflict of interest law that makes it a criminal offense to take part in “government matters that will affect your own personal financial interest,” the Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts, or “emoluments,” from foreign governments.

Wait. Why is he exempt from that law?

Experts on government ethics pointed to one potential violation of the emoluments clause that still may have been triggered by the president’s actions: The British or Scottish governments would most likely have to pay for security at the tournament, an event that would profit Mr. Trump.

It was not the first time the president tried to steer business to one of his properties. Last year, the White House chose the Trump National Doral resort in Miami as the site of a Group of 7 meeting. Mr. Trump backed off after it ignited a political storm, moving the meeting to Camp David before canceling it because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Trump also urged Vice President Mike Pence to stay at his family’s golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, last year during a visit, even though the vice president’s official business was on the other side of the country. That trip generated headlines for the golf club, but also controversy. And Mr. Trump has visited his family-owned golf courses more than 275 times since he took office, bringing reporters with him each time, ensuring that the resorts get ample news coverage.

[...]

Turnberry itself drew attention when the Pentagon acknowledged it had been sending troops to the resort while they were on overnight layovers at the nearby Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

[...]

[Trump's golf] courses generate about a third of the family’s revenue, with tournaments seen as a crucial way to publicize them.

This has been particularly important for the two Trump resorts in Scotland and one in Ireland, which have been losing money under Mr. Trump’s ownership.

[...]

Executives who run the Scottish Open [...] said in 2017 that they would most likely not hold the tournament at the Trump family’s Aberdeen golf resort, even after direct appeals by Mr. Trump.

“Politics aside, Trump would be an ideal venue — but you can’t put politics aside,” Martin Gilbert, the chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, which is the lead sponsor of the Scottish Open, told reporters.

So THAT backfired anyway.

For Mr. Johnson, 73, London was a reward fit for the billionaire heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Formally known as the Court of St. James’s, the assignment is the plum of the diplomatic corps — one that comes with a palatial residence, Winfield House, and entree to the highest levels of British society.

Like many political appointees, Mr. Johnson had no diplomatic experience before arriving in London. Affable and well connected, he is known mainly for the nickname Woody and his ownership of the New York Jets, a perennially struggling N.F.L. franchise. His transition to leading a large embassy was bumpy.

Imagine that.

Mr. Johnson’s throwback style has been criticized as offensive. There have been complaints that he complimented the appearances of female employees during staff meetings, and after interviewing a candidate to replace Mr. Lukens as deputy chief of mission, he asked a colleague whether she was Jewish.

Oh, very Trumpy indeed.

At least some of those complaints were raised with the department’s Office of the Inspector General last fall, when a team of investigators began a routine review of diplomatic operations at the embassy. The findings were submitted in February, and the complaints are expected to be included, according to one of the investigators. It is not clear why the review has not been made public.

I beg to differ.

Neither the State Department nor the embassy addressed the accusations, but the department said Mr. Johnson had led the embassy “honorably and professionally.” In a statement, it said, “We stand by Ambassador Johnson and look forward to him continuing to ensure our special relationship with the U.K. is strong.”

They don't LIKE him in the UK.

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

Your tax dollars at work

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

Grifters all

President Trump’s campaign manager and a circle of allies have seized control of the Republican Party’s voter data and fund-raising apparatus, using a network of private businesses whose operations and ownership are cloaked in secrecy, largely exempt from federal disclosure.

Working under the aegis of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, with the cooperation of Trump appointees at the Republican National Committee, the operatives have consolidated power — and made money — in a way not possible in an earlier, more transparent analog era.

[...]

The takeover of the Republican Party’s under-the-hood political machinery parallels the president’s domination of a party that once shunned him, reflected in his speedy impeachment trial and summary acquittal. Elected Republicans have learned the political peril of insufficient fealty. Now, by commanding the party’s repository of voter data and creating a powerful pipeline for small donations, the Trump campaign and key party officials have made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to mount modern, digital campaigns without the president’s support.

[...]

[T]he campaign manager, Brad [...] Parscale’s flagship firm, Parscale Strategy, has billed nearly $35 million to the Trump campaign, the R.N.C. and related entities since 2017 — the vast bulk of it, he says, passed along to advertising and digital firms.

[...]

Mr. Parscale declined to comment in detail for this article. But he and his associates have said that private companies give them greater operational flexibility, given the constraints of campaign-finance laws. [...] Still, the millions moving through opaque private businesses have left even the president perpetually concerned that Mr. Parscale and his team are making too much money, according to campaign and White House staff members.

[...]

To allay Mr. Trump’s concerns, tens of millions of dollars worth of campaign advertising that once ran through Parscale Strategy has been redirected to a new company, American Made Media, which is run by a Parscale lieutenant. There are no public records detailing the company’s financial structure; Mr. Parscale and other advisers said they did not profit from it. Mr. Parscale has declined to provide detailed accounting of his network of interlocking businesses, and has told associates he follows Mr. Trump’s directive, relayed through Ms. McDaniel, that he make no more than $700,000 or $800,000 for his campaign work.

[...]

The Trump family looms over the whole operation, starting with Mr. Kushner. While his White House portfolio has variously encompassed everything from immigration to the Middle East, his most consistent assignment has been informal campaign chairman, overseeing the most vital arm of the new family business: politics.

According to two people with knowledge of the matter, Parscale Strategy has also been used to make payments out of public view to Lara Trump, the wife of the president’s son Eric, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., who have been surrogates on the stump and also taken on broader advisory roles.

[...]

During a campaign appearance last summer in Orlando, Ms. Guilfoyle confronted Mr. Parscale: Why were her checks always late? Two people who witnessed the encounter said a contrite Mr. Parscale promised that the problem would be sorted out promptly by his wife, Candice Parscale, who handles the books on many of his ventures.

[...]

The digital operation overseen by Mr. Coby and Mr. Parscale has been developing a series of new products, including a news app for volunteers to dole out Trump-friendly content, republish Trump-world tweets and raffle MAGA hats. An arm of the campaign has also hired a company called Phunware, which specializes in tracking cellphone locations; a senior campaign official said the company was hired to develop an app, not track people.

[...]

Last fall, Mr. Pence’s office scheduled his first visit to the headquarters, to get a firsthand look. But when the day came, Mr. Parscale canceled, even though the visit was already on the vice president’s official schedule. Mr. Parscale, who spends much of his time working from his Florida home — though he recently said he would relocate to Washington — told Mr. Pence’s office that the campaign’s landlord had vetoed the idea, fearing a vice-presidential visit would disrupt other tenants. Mr. Pence was puzzled not to learn sooner, and the visit has not been rescheduled, two officials with knowledge of the episode said.

  NYT

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

My schadenfreude is showing again

I certainly hope so.

P.S.  I don't care if they do make an issue out of Hunter Biden.  He probably should be made an issue of.  But definitely, the Trump children need to be.

Trump family corruption is ok corruption

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

The Trump goal

President Donald Trump’s campaign manager predicted Saturday that the president and his family will become “a dynasty that will last for decades,” transforming the Republican Party while hewing to conservative values.

Speaking to a convention of Republican Party delegates in Indian Wells, California, Brad Parscale also said the campaign’s goal is to build a national army of 2 million trained volunteers, far beyond the president’s 2016 organization, that in California could help the GOP retake a string of U.S. House seats captured by Democrats last year.

  Miami Herald

What do you mean by "army"?

Parscale’s speech was a highlight of the weekend GOP conclave, in which party delegates sought to map out an election strategy in an increasingly Democratic state that Trump lost by over 4 million votes in 2016. Polls show the president remains widely unpopular outside California’s depleted GOP ranks.

[...]

“The Trumps will be a dynasty that will last for decades, propelling the Republican Party into a new party,” he said. “One that will adapt to changing cultures."

Nazis?

Parscale later declined to elaborate on his prediction of a coming Trump “dynasty,” or whether the president’s children could become candidates for public office.

He told reporters after the speech, “I just think they are a dynasty. I think they are all amazing people with ... amazing capabilities.”

[...]

Meanwhile, the [California] GOP has withered to third-party status, with its voters significantly outnumbered by Democrats and independents. One would have to go back to 1988 to find a Republican presidential candidate who carried the state, George H.W. Bush.

[...]

“The California Republican Party isn’t salvageable at this time,” Kristin Olsen, a former Republican leader in the state Assembly, wrote after the 2018 elections in which Democrats strengthened their grip on political power in the state.

California leads the way in many things. Let's hope it does so in politics.

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

Russia feels they have him

And they're no doubt right.  I'm sure North Korean news is saying the same thing.

Also MBS says he has Jared in his pocket.  Which is also no doubt true.

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

Completely corrupt

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

Not even Deutsche will loan him money any more

The Turnberry golf resort in Scotland was the subject of a previously undisclosed loan request by the Trump Organization during the 2016 presidential campaign, two people familiar with the request said. Deutsche Bank turned down the application.

[...]

In 2014 and 2015, a Trump legal entity lent at least $96 million to the subsidiary that operated Turnberry, according to British regulatory filings. The next year, the Trump Organization would go back to Deutsche Bank for more.

[...]

Donald J. Trump was burning through cash. It was early 2016, and he was lending tens of millions of dollars to his presidential campaign and had been spending large sums to expand the Trump Organization’s roster of high-end properties. To finance his business’s growth, Mr. Trump turned to a longtime ally, Deutsche Bank, one of the few banks still willing to lend [him] money.

[...]

Senior officials at the bank, including its future chief executive, believed that Mr. Trump’s divisive candidacy made such a loan too risky, the people said. Among their concerns was that if Mr. Trump won the election and then defaulted, Deutsche Bank would have to choose between not collecting on the debt or seizing the assets of the president of the United States.

Two of the people familiar with the loan request said the Trump Organization had been seeking to borrow against its Miami resort to pay for work on a golf property in Turnberry, Scotland.

A Trump Organization spokeswoman, Amanda Miller, denied that the company had needed outside funding for Turnberry.

  NYT

Of course she did.

The failed loan request is an untold chapter in Mr. Trump’s long and tortured relationship with the banking industry. It shows that he was actively engaged in running his business in the midst of the presidential campaign, and it is likely to attract scrutiny from Democrats on two House committees that are investigating his two-decade relationship with Deutsche Bank.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Trump’s hotel and casino properties declared bankruptcy four times, leaving prominent banks, including Citicorp and Manufacturers Hanover, with painful losses. The real estate mogul was all but excommunicated from Wall Street.

[...]

The funding of Mr. Trump’s golf empire has been something of a mystery.

In the decade before he was elected president, Mr. Trump’s company spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying or renovating about a dozen clubs and resorts around the world. Despite Mr. Trump’s self-proclaimed fondness for relying on debt, the Trump Organization has reported that it used its own money for most of the acquisitions and upgrades.

A prominent golf journalist, James Dodson, said Mr. Trump’s son Eric had told him in 2013 that the company’s golf properties were funded by Russians. Eric Trump has denied making the comment.

[...]

In 2008, amid the financial crisis, Mr. Trump stopped repaying a loan to finance the construction of a skyscraper in Chicago — and then sued the bank, accusing it of helping cause the crisis. After that lawsuit, Deutsche Bank’s investment-banking arm severed ties with Mr. Trump.

But by 2010, he was back doing business with Deutsche Bank through its private-banking unit, which catered to some of the world’s wealthiest people.

[...]

Mr. Trump’s go-to in the private bank was Rosemary Vrablic, a senior banker in its New York office. In 2013, she was the subject of a flattering profile in The Mortgage Observer, a real estate magazine owned by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was also among her clients.

[...]

Around the time that Mr. Trump was winning New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, officials in the private-banking unit informed their superiors that they were inclined to provide him with the loan, according to one of the people familiar with the internal discussions.

Senior executives in New York balked, arguing that Mr. Trump’s candidacy made such a loan unacceptably risky, the three people said. In part, they feared the bank’s reputation could be harmed if the transaction were to become public because of the polarizing statements Mr. Trump was making on the campaign trail.

[...]

That was the first time that some senior officials realized the extent of their bank’s dealings with Mr. Trump, the three people said.

The proposed loan was examined by an internal committee that is responsible for vetting transactions to ensure they do not pose serious risks to the bank’s reputation, the people said. That March, the committee unanimously rejected the loan.

[...]

A Trump entity ended up lending at least $45 million to Turnberry that year, on top of the $96 million it had lent Turnberry in the previous two years.

What Trump entity, and where did that entity get the money?

Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, overseen by Representative Maxine Waters, have been asking questions about Deutsche Bank’s loans to Mr. Trump since 2017.

[...]

Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, has said he wants to look closely at Deutsche Bank because of its past involvement in laundering money for Russian nationals.

[...]

Mr. Schiff and [Representative Maxine] Waters are planning to conduct a joint investigation of Mr. Trump’s involvement with Deutsche Bank.

And when Old Lardass cries "Fake News!"...

During the campaign, Mr. Trump sought to take advantage of that relationship when rivals painted him as a bad businessman who was frozen out of the mainstream financial system.

The same month that Deutsche Bank rejected the loan proposal, Mr. Trump sought to blunt those attacks by citing his warm relationships with Wall Street firms. He singled out Deutsche Bank.

“They are totally happy with me,” he told The New York Times in March 2016. “I do business with them today.”

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

Deutsche Bank raid follow up

The investigation is the latest in a string of scandals and financial setbacks for the bank, which holds the mortgages on several of Trump’s most prized properties, including his Doral golf resort and his Washington, DC, luxury hotel. Speculation for months has swirled around the possibility that another company could take over the ailing bank—including rumors that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a Chinese state-owned bank, might be interested. This is significant because any entity that controls a large chunk of Trump’s debt holds a certain amount of leverage over him—an unprecedented situation in the history of the US presidency.

Trump has a long relationship with Deutsche Bank dating back to the early 2000s. At the time, most US banks refused to loan money to Trump following his string of bankruptcies and Atlantic City failures. But Deutsche Bank continued to let him borrow hundreds of millions of dollars—as of his inauguration, Trump owed the German bank as much as $364 million. Once a powerful player in international banking, Deutsche Bank has paid out billions in settlements to both US and European regulators for its role in the 2008 financial crisis and other scandals. When Trump took office, he refused to divest from his company, meaning he continues to owe the bank money—several of the loans are personally guaranteed by the president—even as the Department of Justice has opened new investigations into the bank’s activities.

In 2017, the bank paid regulators $670 million in fines for its involvement with “mirror trades” in Russia—a complicated scheme to allegedly help wealthy sanctioned Russians move currency out of the country. Deutsche Bank is also embroiled in a scandal involving Danske Bank, a Danish company, which allegedly was involved in laundering billions of dollars from Russia.

[...]

Thursday’s raid is not related to either of those scandals. In a statement, the bank confirmed it had been raided in connection with offshore transactions revealed in the Panama Papers, and said it is cooperating with the investigation.

  Mother Jones

I don't know what the rules are for finding evidence of another crime while searching documents you got under a specific warrant, but I don't think this means Trump is completely in the clear.

Even as it stands, Deutsche Bank’s ownership is rife with conflict of interest landmines for the president. Currently, Chinese financial giant HNA Group, which has sparred with American regulators, owns 8 percent of the German bank—though it is under pressure to sell that piece. American hedge fund Cerberus Capital—co-founded by Stephen Feinberg, a major Trump donor whom the president appointed to head his intelligence advisory board— owns another 3 percent.

I think we've just simply abandoned the issue of conflict of interest as it might apply to the Trump cabal.

Won't it be interesting if the Chinese government, with whom Trump is trying to win a trade war, would buy Deutsche and inherit Trump's personal debt?

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

Presidentin' from the private golf course

I'm guessing she wasn't wearing the "I really don't care" jacket.

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

Never-ending Trump emoluments

The president is casting himself as the star of the midterms, eagerly inserting himself into hotly contested primaries, headlining rallies in pivotal swing states and increasing his fundraising efforts for Republicans. Last week, Trump agreed to donate a portion of his reelection fund to 100 GOP candidates running in competitive House and Senate races.

  AP News

Okay, but will he actually do it? He's been known to welch on promises of donations in the past.

He’s expected to be even more aggressive in the fall. White House officials say he’s reserving time on his schedule for midterm travel and fundraising likely to surpass that of former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

And why not? He's lining his pockets while doing it.

“This is now about Donald Trump,” said Al Cardenas, a former Florida Republican chairman. “It’s a high-risk, high-stakes proposition.”

[...]

He will hold a rally Saturday in Ohio and plans to host two fundraisers at the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey, next week for House and Senate candidates.

[...]

But there are some signs that Trump’s unpopularity with the general electorate may hamper more than help individual Republican candidates.

While Republicans have won a series of special elections since Trump took office, they’ve captured smaller margins than in previous years. Democrats also had two high-profile upsets, nabbing victories in an Alabama Senate race and a Pennsylvania House race.

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

Cooperating or preparing to go into hiding?

Ivanka Trump has decided to shut down her company after deciding to pursue a career in public policy instead of returning to her fashion company.

Trump's clothing and accessory business has been operating with limitations to reduce potential violations of ethics laws and the perceptions she's profiteering off her White House role. Given those restrictions, Ivanka, who serves as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, decided it didn't make sense to keep the company running if she's not returning after her father's presidency, two people with knowledge of her decision-making process told CNN.

  CNN

Whatever, girl.

Ivanka is expected to address her company's staff on Tuesday in New York, according to a source with knowledge of her decision-making process. The same source said 18 people will be affected by the company shutting down.

Eighteen Americans, you mean? What about all the Chinese who work in the factories?  Also Bangladeshi, Indian, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Ethiopians?

Being dropped by Nordstrom, TJ Max, Hudson's Bay and Marshalls couldn't have anything to do with her decision, could it?

Ivanka Trump's company saw an increase in profits in early 2017 after her father's presidential win, according to a person with direct knowledge. But since that gain, profits have declined, the source added.

Didn't she just get several trademarks in China? Perhaps they were for something other than clothing.

"The ethics issues that arise from her ownership of the Ivanka Trump Brand also arise from her ownership stake in the Trump Organization, and still more issues arise from her father's ownership of that business. If the Trump family truly cared about ethics, they would fully divest themselves of these assets -- something they should have done before they entered the White House," [said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of CREW].

Grifters and cons.

About that Muslim ban

Want more proof that the only thing that Trump has been doing since inaugurated is what he intended to do all along - that is, enriching himself?