Eyeroll

And lightning didn't strike?

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

Sad!

First they hear they won't be able to be at the inauguration because it's been moved indoors, and now this.  Oh my.

UPDATE 02:27 pm:

According to Trump's post, Capital One Arena — where the incoming president is holding a Sunday afternoon rally, an event he said Friday is still on — will be open again on Monday for “LIVE viewing of this Historic event.” No information is available yet on how to sign up for a seat inside the arena Monday.

  ABC

"LIVE viewing" = big screen TV?

Very fine people.

The Trump presidency begins in chaos.  It will continue that way. 

Heaven has spoken

If I recall correctly, his first inauguration had rain or sleet or something.  Remember the meme of Bernie in his mittens?

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

UPDATE 10:47 am:

Snowflakes.

At least not a second time.

Actually, I have always thought it was crazy to hold it outdoors in January.  At least this time he'll have an excuse for why his crowd isn't as big as Obama's was.

UPDATE 04:48 pm:

Sad!

MTG is trying to provide Trump an excuse.

Every pansy-ass fool trying to look tough

And I apologize for posting a picture of the idiot.

And good for her

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

Fast tracking fascism

Gonna be a huge spectacle.

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

The million dollar club

One million gets you six tickets to the inauguration and a dinner with Trump. Or something like that. Obviously, that's not what Altman is really buying.

Bezos and Zuckerberg have both also contributed $1 million to the inauguration fund.  

Watch for Google and other corporations to donate their million soon.

Thing is, the fund has to name its donors and the amounts they give, but it doesn't have to say how it spends the money.  An accounting for Trump's first inauguration leaves some question as to where the money went.  We know some of it was improperly spent, because Trump had to pay a settlement to the District of Columbia for funneling donations to the Trump Hotel.

Where do you think all the money is going?

But what will one BILLION get you?

President-elect Donald Trump vowed Tuesday that people or companies who invest at least $1 billion in the U.S. will get “fully expedited approvals and permits.”

Trump said in a post on Truth Social that environmental approvals are included as part of that investment incentive.

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!” Trump wrote.

  CNBC

Yes, America - indeed the earth's environment - is for sale.

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

Another of the Trump Circle Jerk charged with a crime

I wonder what percentage of the people closely tied to Trump's presidency have now been criminally charged with something.

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

UPDATE:  Looks like Tim Miller is running a tab on the campaign crew...

UPDATE:

"A candidate in the 2016 US presidential election."  Gee, I wonder which one.

Oh my

Then-President-elect Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka were warned in 2016 that the family business was overcharging the nonprofit presidential inaugural committee — and let it happen anyway, according to a suit filed Wednesday by the Washington, D.C., attorney general.

In the civil complaint, Attorney General Karl Racine charged the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump Organization with using around $1 million of charitable funds to improperly enrich the Trump family.

An experienced event planner who was working for the inaugural, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, raised concerns directly with Donald and Ivanka Trump that the Trump International Hotel in Washington was trying to overcharge the inaugural committee.

[...]

“The President-elect acknowledged these concerns and directed that Ivanka Trump would handle this issue.”

The complaint accuses three entities — the Trump Organization, the inaugural committee and the Trump hotel — of subverting the public purpose of a charity for the Trump family’s private benefit.

[...]

The hotel, and by extension the Trump family, was paid far above market rate, according to internal documents the attorney general obtained by subpoena.

As WNYC and ProPublica’s “Trump, Inc.” revealed, the Trump inaugural committee paidthe Trump Organization over Wolkoff’s objections, which Ivanka had been aware of.

Documents uncovered by the D.C. attorney general contradict earlier statements by spokespeople for the Trumps that they had little or no involvement in the negotiations.

[...]

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump’s ethics lawyer, told WNYC and ProPublica in 2018 that Ivanka had only been contacted once about inauguration spending at Trump’s hotel: “Ms. Trump was not involved in any additional discussions.”

The attorney general’s documents show deeper involvement.

  Raw Story

I believe we heard about it at the time. Raise your hand if this surprises you.

Kind of surprised a lawsuit got filed, though.

D.C. is asking the court to compel the Trump Organization to place at least $1,033,757 in a trust, so the money can be allocated “to another nonprofit entity dedicated to promoting civic engagement of the citizens of the United States of America.”

Bill Barr shuffle

Jesus, you'd think Barr was Trump's butt buddy.

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

The Trump Family Grifters

Then-President-elect Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka were warned in 2016 that the family business was overcharging the nonprofit presidential inaugural committee — and let it happen anyway, according to a suit filed Wednesday by the Washington, D.C., attorney general.

In the civil complaint, Attorney General Karl Racine charged the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump Organization with using around $1 million of charitable funds to improperly enrich the Trump family.

  ProPublica

Let it or directed it?

Will Bill Barr snuff out the suit?

“[Event planner Stephanie] Winston Wolkoff met with President-elect Trump and Ivanka Trump and discussed these concerns with both individuals,” the suit says. “The President-elect acknowledged these concerns and directed that Ivanka Trump would handle this issue.”

The complaint accuses three entities — the Trump Organization, the inaugural committee and the Trump hotel — of subverting the public purpose of a charity for the Trump family’s private benefit.

[...]

As WNYC and ProPublica’s “Trump, Inc.” revealed, the Trump inaugural committee paid the Trump Organization over Wolkoff’s objections, which Ivanka had been aware of.

Documents uncovered by the D.C. attorney general contradict earlier statements by spokespeople for the Trumps that they had little or no involvement in the negotiations.

[...]

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump’s ethics lawyer, told WNYC and ProPublica in 2018 that Ivanka had only been contacted once about inauguration spending at Trump’s hotel: “Ms. Trump was not involved in any additional discussions.”

Not true?

Ivanka Trump was made aware of concerns about overpayment in a Dec. 12, 2016, email from Rick Gates, the deputy to the inaugural chairman, which she responded to two days later. On Dec. 16, Wolkoff raised her concerns in person with Donald and Ivanka Trump. The next day, Wolkoff again objected to the Trump hotel’s proposed rates.

[...]

“Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge.”

They don't care. They seem to delight in letting the public know just how beyond the reach of law and norms they are. Remember Trump's comment about avoiding paying taxes? "That makes me smart."

Other venues hosting inauguration events provided space for free.

On Jan. 10, 2017, the inaugural committee finalized its contract with the hotel at $175,000 per day, over Wolkoff’s objections. The committee was also charged for days when it wasn’t even using the space, the suit says.

One event, costing more than $300,000, was a private reception at the Trump hotel “benefiting only the children of the President,” the complaint says.

A spokesperson for the Trump Organization dismissed the D.C. suit in an emailed statement:

“The AG’s claims are false, intentionally misleading and riddled with inaccuracies. The rates charged by the hotel were completely in line with what anyone else would have been charged for an unprecedented event of this enormous magnitude and were reflective of the fact that [sic] hotel had just recently opened, possessed superior facilities and was centrally located on Pennsylvania Avenue."

Disgusting.

D.C. is asking the court to compel the Trump Organization to place at least $1,033,757 in a trust, so the money can be allocated “to another nonprofit entity dedicated to promoting civic engagement of the citizens of the United States of America.”

[...]

The committee raised nearly $107 million, close to double the haul of President Barack Obama’s record-setting 2009 bash, despite being a much smaller event.

And the Trumps pocketed it.

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

Emoluments

You can read the article Griffin is tweeting about here.

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

Chiseler in Chief

The Trump administration and Congress owe the District of Columbia over $7 million in expenses from the president’s 2017 inauguration ceremony, according to federal and city financial records reviewed by The Washington Post.

The city has dipped into a special fund that pays for annual security costs for protecting the city from terrorist threats and hosting other events to cover the four-day celebration, which ultimately had a $27.3 million price tag.

[...]

The event ultimately went $7.3 million over estimates.

[...]

The fund is on track to enter the red by the fall, and the remaining balance is raising concerns as the government prepares for July 4 activities, including a parade.

[...]

A senior administration official told the Post the city received the full amount of money it originally requested and that the administration “worked closely with D.C.” when inauguration costs exceeded expectations and decided to use unspent money in the security fund. He added that city officials have not asked for additional money.

D.C. officials disputed that account, telling The Post they did indeed ask for more funds that have not yet been repaid.

[...]

“The point now is that the account has been drained, and being careful with the money has not been enough to make up for not being reimbursed” for the inauguration, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), the city’s nonvoting representative in Congress, told the Post.

  The Hill

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

Colluding with the UAE

Is the involvement of the UAE in Trump's election a more likely illegal aspect than that of the Russians? Or is it essentially a co-equal part of what Sarah Kendzior calls the internationl crime syndicate that's pretty much running the world?

[Rashid al-Malik, a onetime business associate of Thomas Barrack Jr, chair of Trump's inaugural committee was a subject of] a federal probe into potential illegal donations to Trump’s inaugural fund and a pro-Trump Super PAC by Middle Eastern donors. Al-Malik was interviewed by members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and was “cooperating” with prosecutors, his lawyer told The Intercept last year. The New York Times recently reported that investigators are looking into “whether Mr. al-Malik was part of an illegal influence scheme,” although no details of that potential scheme have been made public.

In fact, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that al-Malik served as a paid intelligence source for the UAE throughout 2017 [reporting to UAE intelligence about Trump's Middle East policy].

[...]

A tiny country of fewer than 10 million people, the UAE does not have a robust intelligence service, but has used businesspeople and wealthy citizens with personal relationships with its royal families as assets to carry out secret intelligence-gathering missions for the government, according to former U.S. intelligence officials.

Al-Malik was likely enlisted as a spy “because he has pre-existing access, a natural role,” said the person with knowledge of UAE intelligence operations.

[...]

The National Intelligence Service of the UAE gave al-Malik a code name and paid him tens of thousands of dollars a month to gather information, a role for which his investment business would have provided a convenient cover.

After he was interviewed as part of the Mueller investigation, al-Malik left Los Angeles, where he’d been based for several years, and went back to the UAE.

  The Intercept

Hmmm. Kind of like letting all the Saudis take a flight home immediately following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though all other non-governmental planes had been grounded?

[A]l-Malik was tasked to report to his Emirati intelligence handlers on topics of consequence to the UAE, such as attitudes within the Trump administration toward the Muslim Brotherhood; U.S. efforts to mediate the ongoing feud between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar; and meetings between senior U.S. officials and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

[...]

Al-Malik also told his handlers that he had approached unnamed U.S. individuals about a possible business venture that was indirectly associated with Trump. It is not clear what the undertaking was, who al-Malik was talking to, or whether any deal was made.

Al-Malik's lawyer denies it all.

U.S. counterintelligence officials regularly monitor foreign governments’ efforts to influence U.S. policy, but an operation by the UAE would be particularly sensitive for the Trump administration, and would underscore the hazards posed by a president whose ongoing business ties expose him to potential conflicts of interest. The Trump Organization has made millions per year off a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai.

And let's not forget about Jared's infamous best friend relationship with bin Salman.

The White House declined to comment, referring questions to the CIA and the Justice Department, both of which also declined to comment. The UAE Embassy did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

If no one admits it, it's fake news.

Little is publicly known about al-Malik, who began his career as a pilot for Emirates, Dubai’s government-owned airline. He came to the U.S. in 1998 to study aviation at Western Michigan University and was honored by the UAE Embassy in Washington for scholastic achievement in the program, according to a profile on an industry website. But he left the university in 2000 without receiving a degree, according to the Western Michigan registrar’s office.

Learned all he needed, I suppose. And then had something important to do.

Barrack has also cultivated a friendly relationship with Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s powerful ambassador to the United States.

[...]

Al-Otaiba was also on the guest list for the Chairman’s Global Dinner, the extravagant inaugural event to which al-Malik was invited. The dinner was unusual not just because of its opulence but because it seated so many foreign businesspeople and diplomats alongside future cabinet-level officials, providing direct access to members of the incoming administration.

A week after Trump won the election, al-Otaiba sought insider information from Barrack. “If you have any insights about postings to places like state, DOD, CIA and national security adviser, I would be grateful,” al-Otaiba emailed Barrack on November 16, 2016, according to Middle East Eye. “I would only brief my bosses. Any indicators would be highly appreciated.”

Barrack responded, “I do, and we’re working through them in real time and I have our regional interest in high profile. When you get a chance let’s talk by phone.”

Barrack told the Washington Post that he was offered a job in the Trump administration. Instead, he stayed with his investment firm, which contemplated a plan to channel his foreign connections into lucrative deals that would support Trump administration policy.

Earlier this year, ProPublica published a February 2017 memo from Barrack’s firm, Colony Capital, then known as Colony Northstar, outlining the scheme to leverage connections to the Trump administration and foreign VIPs for profit. The plan was reportedly written by Rick Gates, Paul Manafort’s longtime associate, who served as deputy chair of the inaugural committee and then as a Colony consultant. Gates was fired by Colony after being indicted in the Mueller probe; he ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI.

[...]

A Colony spokesperson told ProPublica that the plan was “never acted upon or implemented.”

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

Now the serious stuff for Trumpworld

Separately, state authorities in New York are pursuing several investigations focused on the president, his associates and his business. Those matters include a mortgage fraud case against Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, as well as civil inquiries into the Trump Organization’s insurance practices, real estate deals, and whether the family’s charitable foundation violated tax laws.

As for the Southern District, it is known to move aggressively — more so than some other offices — to stake a claim to new investigations based on tips from cooperating witnesses and other sources. In this instance, it appears to be leading some of the most sensitive spinoffs — ones with the potential to directly affect Mr. Trump’s business, his inaugural committee and possibly himself.

In the hush money investigation, the Southern District prosecutors have already implicated the president, claiming in a court filing that Mr. Cohen “acted in coordination with and at the direction of” Mr. Trump. While the prevailing view at the Justice Department is that a sitting president cannot be indicted, the prosecutors in Manhattan could consider charging him after he leaves office, particularly if he does not win re-election and is a private citizen before the legal deadline to file charges expires.

The investigation into the Trump inaugural committee partly grew out of a recording that F.B.I. agents seized when they raided Mr. Cohen’s home and office. On the recording, Mr. Cohen is heard discussing potential irregularities with one of the main contractors for the inauguration.

[...]

The Southern District’s reputation for nonpartisanship — and history of autonomy from the Justice Department in Washington, giving it the nickname “Sovereign District” — may make it less vulnerable to attacks from the president and his allies. The president’s lead lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, led the office from 1983 to 1989 and later became New York’s mayor.

[...]

For the most part, the investigations surrounding the president and his associates have been assigned to career prosecutors in the office’s public corruption unit, which has a track record of convicting politicians on both sides of the aisle.

[...]

Most of the investigations focus on President Trump or his family business or a cadre of his advisers and associates, according to court records and interviews with people briefed on the investigations. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, with about half of them being run by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

[...]

Some of the investigations involve allegations that may be too old to be prosecuted. Yet taken together, the investigations show that the prosecutorial center of gravity has shifted from Mr. Mueller’s office in Washington to New York.

[...]

In an interview that aired on Friday morning, Mr. Trump told Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network that his lawyers were perplexed by reports that he faces multiple investigations.

“I said to my lawyers, ‘Are we being looked at here?’” Mr. Trump said, adding that his lawyers “don’t even know what people are talking about.”

  NYT

Bullshit. They know very well. The Trump Foundation, the Trump Organization, the Trump Inauguration Committee - they're all already involved in lawsuits. And what other Trump investigations might be happening are yet to become possible lawsuits.

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

Speaking of Opportunity Zones

Politico has a write-up today about someone I'm finding to be another shady character in Trumpworld, although Politico is painting a picture of luck and business acumen - Christos Marafatsos.

Standing at a urinal on a Saturday afternoon last year, Christos Marafatsos glanced right and did a double-take. He was startled to find he was relieving himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Nicolás Maduro, the repressive dictator of Venezuela.

“Bro, He’s a bear. He’s a monster,” recalled Marafatsos. “He’s literally twice the size of me,” he said, referring to the embattled president’s hulking, six-foot-three-inch frame.

The brush with a dictator occurred at the December inauguration of Mexico's new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Marafatsos, the American-born son of a Greek immigrant, had been invited in his capacity as a leader of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, formed during the Republican primary by then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign amid accusations of racism.

  Politico

That's how Ben Schreckinger starts this article. And there is nothing else about Maduro, AMLO, or Latin America in the article, nor any reason to have put it in. After that, Schreckinger further proves himself to be an inept journalist. More like a hagiographer, in case any of you slimeball politicos would like your biography done.

Just three years earlier, the 32-year-old Marafatsos was a striving millennial entrepreneur with few big-league connections. A fledgling investment firm he’d founded was registered to his parents’ home address in suburban Maryland.

Then, through a combination of pluck and luck, he rode an early ticket on the Trump train into the upper echelons of global power and money.

Now, he regularly visits the White House, accompanies the likes of Ivanka Trump and Ben Carson on official excursions, and lives the life of a globe-trotting deal maker.

[...]

For a certain kind of hard-working outsider willing to go wherever it takes — and do whatever it takes — it has been the sort of rise that could only happen in the Trump era.

Indeed. Does that not rouse some suspicions?

Marafatsos recounted his heady ride last month in the lobby of the Washington St. Regis over the course of a two-hour interview. [...] [H]e was often short on specifics but long on general, upbeat statements.

Suspicious fact #2.

“My passion is and always has been diversity,” he said at one point. At another: “The new politics of business is solving solutions.”

Solving solutions? His passion is diversity? He sonds like a Miss America contestant.

He lavished praise on the Trumps — “I’ve never seen them be not nice,” while talking up his multiple and expanding business ventures. He reports that he is diving into health care, investing in detox clinics and pharmacies in “opportunity zones” — areas that benefit from special tax incentives.

[...]

“I’m dynamic in the fact that I’m well-rounded in a lot of different industries,” he said.

Suspicious fact #3.

Growing up in the ’90s in suburban Maryland, Marafatsos, the son of a building contractor and a teacher, was more interested in business than politics — not yet aware of just how fully those two worlds intersect. As a teenager, he read his older brother’s copy of “The Art of the Deal,” before going on to attend the University of Maryland and to launch a fresh produce company with a friend. That venture that would land him on a list of finalists for Bloomberg’s 2011 ranking of the best entrepreneurs in the U.S. under 25.

Marafatsos was soon ready for bigger things. He sold his share of the produce business while pursuing a master’s in finance at Georgetown. Then he took a job with a small trading firm called Ace Investment Strategists in Northern Virginia.

[...]

In early 2013, he founded a firm called Blue Sky Capital, whose slick website and complex investing strategies evoked a high-flying hedge fund in a place like New York or Hong Kong. In reality, corporate documents show that it was registered to his parents’ house in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Probably not all that unusual for an entrepeneur.

A formative experience had come a year earlier, when he attended the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, thanks to his Georgetown program.

At the time of the 2012 convention, Marafatsos, who looks like a Mediterranean Donald Trump Jr., was fresh off a vacation in Greece and boasting a deep bronze tan. That made him aware, he said, of just how pale the rest of the RNC crowd was. “Literally I was one of the darkest people there as a Greek-American,” he recalled.

Where is this going?

Marafatsos continued to dabble in politics, attending the annual Conservative Political Action Conference the following winter, as he set about building his business. At Sundance Film Festival, he met Jeremiah Bitsui, a native American actor known for playing Victor, an enforcer for a meth-dealing syndicate on the television series “Breaking Bad.” (Coincidentally, on the show, the syndicate’s meth is known on the streets as “Blue Sky”.)

Are we sure that was coincidental? I'm already well into the belief that this guy is not altogether above-board.

The pair joined forces to sell investment services to Indian tribes.

Well, there's a lucrative business that has no possibility of being shady.

Meanwhile, he became more active in Republican circles. Marafatsos recalled meeting Trump for about a minute at CPAC as the mogul was eyeing a presidential run and chatting with him about the economy. “I felt like his intentions were great,” Marafatsos recalled. He also met with former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in Baton Rouge, attended the Faith & Freedom's Coalition Patriots Gala, and visited the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, posting about the experiences on Facebook.

All the best connections.

In mid-2015, the mogul launched his campaign for president by disparaging Mexican immigrants, and from there made a series of racially inflammatory remarks. After a contentious November meeting with black pastors at Trump Tower, Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, who is Jewish, and one of the pastors, Darrell Scott, set about forming a National Diversity Coalition to counter the widespread view that Trump was running a racist campaign.

A propaganda venture.

The coalition organized meetings, promoted Trump on social media and found surrogates to defend him publicly. Omarosa Manigault, a black Trump supporter and early contestant on “The Apprentice,” served as vice chair.

Few establishment figures were willing to publicly embrace Trump at the time, so the coalition turned to outsiders and ambitious up-and-comers. People like Marafatsos.

It helped that the coalition took an expansive view of ethnic diversity. It includes a Portuguese American, a Bulgarian American and a white “South African American for Trump.”

How does that help? Was Omarosa the only black person on board?

People of Greek descent make up less than 1 percent of the U.S. population by most estimates, but by the coalition’s big tent ethos, Marafatsos was a prime candidate.

Suspicious fact number whatever we're up to.

How exactly Marafatsos was enlisted into Trump’s diversity coalition remains unclear.

Marafatsos said someone — he declined to say who — from the coalition messaged him on Facebook and then connected him by phone with Georgia businessman Bruce Levell, the coalition’s executive director.

And Schreckinger doesn't press it. He's not suspicious that Marafatsos won't say who enlisted him - or even why. Because he's Greek-American doesn't cut it.

Marafatsos did offer some hints about who reached out to him. “It was someone involved in the Trump campaign. That’s for sure,” he said. “One of the first involved in the Trump campaign.”

And why can't he name the person? Schreckinger apparently isn't very interested.

Cohen, who founded the coalition, told POLITICO that “Christos came in through Darrell Scott and worked directly with and through him.” Reached by phone, Scott, the coalition’s CEO, said he was busy and would call back later to discuss Marafatsos, but he did not respond to follow-up calls.

Not suspicious.

Levell said he could not recall how exactly he and Marafatsos connected. “It was a lot of activity back then,” he said.

Not suspicious.

However it happened, Levell praised Marafatsos for his willingness to join the Trump cause early on. "Very few minorities were courageous enough to stick their head out in 2015 and 2016, and he was courageous,” Levell said.

He wasn't courageous. He was ambitious.

Marafatsos dove in, helping with fundraising, attending the Cleveland convention, where Breitbart featured him posing next to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and touting a “Greeks4Trump” Twitter hashtag. “They made me advisor within the Greek community,” Marafatsos explained.

The other Greek-Americans who jumped on the Trump train early on spoke positively, but vaguely of him. “Seemed like a nice guy,” said George Papadopoulos.

[...]

Along with Cohen, NFL legend Jim Brown, and others, Marafatsos helped organize the diversity coalition’s pre-Inauguration day party. It was a swanky affair at the K Street offices of the Washington law firm K&L Gates, featuring an appearance by basketball coaching legend Bobby Knight and custom cocktails with names like “Mexican Wallbanger” and “Putin’s Moscow Hacking Mule.”

What in the world??

Days later, Manigault entered the administration as the director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison. Impressed by Marafatsos’ performance, the leaders of the coalition tapped him to replace her as vice-chair.

[...]

Around that same time, Marafatsos got in on his biggest deal yet, becoming a partner in a firm formed to capitalize on the Saudi crown prince’s Saudi Vision 2030 plan, a half-trillion-dollar development initiative aimed at modernizing and diversifying the kingdom’s economy.

How'd he get that connection Schreckinger?

Though he declined to share many of the specifics of his business ventures, Marafatsos explained that in early 2017, “There was a team of business leaders from around the world that approached me to see if I would take a major role executing a multibillion-dollar project.”

From a business startup with his parents' home address in less than four years. Nothing suspicious there. Nor is there anything suspicious about not sharing "specifics of his business ventures."

The firm, Global Business Ventures, put Marafatsos and Blue Sky’s chief operating officer, a Florida doctor named Amin Halum, in business with one of the richest families in the world. Among their partners in the venture is Abdullatef Abdullah Al Rajhi, a scion of the billionaire Al Rajhi banking family, among the most wealthy families in the kingdom outside the royal family.

No, no. Not suspicious at all.

“My team’s role would be to serve as the financiers and assemble the right team to get projects of this magnitude completed around the world,” Marafatsos explained.

For a young entrepreneur with no prior experience in developing massive real estate projects, becoming a partner in such a venture was a coup.

Indeed. Not at all suspicious.

In November of 2017, he traveled to Hyderabad, India, where he participated in the American delegation accompanying Ivanka Trump to an entrepreneurship summit. He described his interactions with the first daughter on the trip as “brief but meaningful,” but did not go into further detail.

That's right. Schreckinger doesn't push for details.

The next month, Scott met with Trump in the Oval Office and presented him with materials related to the diversity coalition’s Urban Revitalization Initiative, touted as a plan to attract investment to poor inner-city neighborhoods.

Among the handful of bound booklets staring up at Trump from the Resolute Desk was one bearing Blue Sky’s logo.

Last January, Marafatsos accompanied Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to Atlanta, where they toured Martin Luther King Jr.’s first childhood home and met with King’s niece in honor of MLK day.

Last March, he attended a White House reception marking Greek Independence Day that featured remarks by Trump. From the East Room, Marafatsos gave a video interview to an outlet called the Greek Reporter in which he addressed the political priorities of Greek-Americans and name-checked Blue Sky, explaining, “We specialize in alternative investments."

What in hell are "alternative investments." Anybody ask?

But even as it was landing big-time deals, Blue Sky was still dealing with small-time problems. Last summer, its website was hacked and briefly defaced with ads for erectile dysfunction medication, prompting his web developer to upgrade its security.

There were bigger problems, too. In October, Saudi agents murdered a U.S. resident and Washington Post contributor, Jamal Khashoggi, inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, a killing that the CIA reportedly attributed to the crown prince’s orders.

Three weeks later, the Saudis held a global investor summit in Riyadh, dubbed “Davos in the Desert.” Fearing reputational risk, many of the highest-profile invitees dropped out.

Not Marafatsos. He not only attended the gathering, but gave interviews to Al Jazeera and CNN minimizing Khashoggi’s murder and praising the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

No problem.

“Situations like that aren’t easy but they happen,” Marafatsos said later of the interviews. “That’s the unfortunate circumstances of being involved in the highest levels of business and government is that you have to answer for things you have absolutely no involvement in or connection to.”

Sounds like he went on an interview spree giving it a pass rather than answering for it.

But such unpleasant experiences are the cost of doing business, and business is expanding.

No, no no no no! Schreckinger, "such unpleasant experiences" are NOT the cost of doing business. Christ, you're gullible! How old are you?

At the moment, he is focused on on launching Blue Sky Health Care, investing in detox clinics for opioid addicts and pharmacies in opportunity zones.

Jared Kushner and all Trump's bevy of creeps and criminals are getting in those opportunity zones.

The zones are a cornerstone of the coalition’s Urban Revitalization Plan, which aims to attract development to stagnant areas through government support and tax incentives.

AKA government welfare.

Marafatsos recalled a meeting he and Scott attended in the Roosevelt Room with Jared Kushner and other administration officials last year to discuss the zones. At the meeting, the young entrepreneur sat next to boxing legend Evander Holyfield, a Trump supporter and backer of the coalition’s revitalization plan.

Schreckinger is happy to help Marafatsos' name-dropping. There's nothing more about Holyfield, just like there was nothing more about Maduro.

The new Republican tax law provides significant tax breaks for investors in the zones and a December executive order issued by Trump calls on the federal government to support development in them. Scott, the coalition’s CEO, stood behind Trump at the signing of the executive order.

The zones are but one among the many places Marafatsos is looking to do business.

From the St. Regis, he was off to Panama, to attend the opening of a new IMAX theater in conjunction with Morgan Freeman, and then on to more travel, to Dubai and beyond.

Yep, another name.

It’s part of a grueling schedule that sees him on the road well over 200 nights a year.

"What I am at the end of the day,” he said, “is a volunteer."

A volunteer?

Schreckinger, you need a new line of work.  Politico, you need to hire better reporters.

Maybe Marafatsos is a subject in the investigations of Trump's inauguration money. If not, I think somebody needs to do some more digging.

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

Another lawsuit against the Trump inauguration committee

New Jersey has followed New York in seeking financial records via subpoena from the Trump inauguration committee.

The subpoena, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, resembles the wide-ranging request for documents the committee received last week from federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who are investigating, among other potential crimes, whether foreigners illegally contributed to the inaugural events. Among other materials, the New York prosecutors asked for documents related to any payments made by donors directly to contractors and vendors who worked for the committee.

The latest subpoena contains similar language but specifically asks for records relating to fundraising events and “solicitations” conducted in New Jersey. It also requests copies of ledgers, tax forms, contracts and “all documents related to any benefits provided to donors.”

  AP News

The Inauguration investigation

Regarding Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

Over the years, Wolkoff would become a member of Melania’s small inner circle. After Trump’s surprise electoral-college victory, she went on to help the First Lady in Washington, serving as a senior adviser to her official governmental office on matters large and small. Wolkoff helped facilitate Melania’s transition to the White House, and advised her on policy platforms, East Wing décor, and her overall messaging.

The two were close enough that Wolkoff could openly express divergent views. According to sources familiar with the conversations, Wolkoff told Melania and East Wing staffers that the name for her anti-bullying initiative, “Be Best,” sounded illiterate.

  Vanity Fair

So right, and that's what makes it so perfect.

They also disagreed about the infamous “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket that the First Lady wore to the U.S.-Mexico border. (Melania, according to these sources, thought the trip would not get attention without such a brazen fashion gesture. [...] )

Bad publicity is better than no publicity.

But the two women remained close, nevertheless. On trips to D.C., Wolkoff would sometimes spend the night in the White House residence; other times, she would book a room in the Trump International Hotel down Pennsylvania Avenue. According to e-mail exchanges from the time, she was given the friends and family rate of $345 a night, and told to submit receipts to Reince Priebus.

Why? Was she getting reimbursed?

Through her company, WIS Media Partners, Wolkoff oversaw Trump’s sprawling week-long inaugural festivities—she sourced and managed third-party vendors, entertainers, and broadcasters, and oversaw the themes and production of all the concerts, dinners, balls, and programming. She worked in close proximity to the Trump family and inaugural chair Tom Barrack, a billionaire private-equity real-estate investor who had been a close friend of the president for years. And yet a year after the swearing-in ceremony, Wolkoff left the White House amid an uncomfortable public-relations crisis regarding the president’s inaugural committee.

[...]

The inaugural committee had raised a stunning $107 million—about twice what Barack Obama had hauled in 2009—from donors such as Sheldon Adelson and corporations like AT&T. But as the Times reported, the tax form revealed profligate spending—nearly $10 million on travel; $4.6 million on salaries and benefits; and $100,000 to Rick Gates, the former campaign aide and deputy chairman of the inauguration who, about a week later, became one of Robert Mueller’s first major cooperating witnesses. Some $40 million was publicly unaccounted for. Wolkoff, as the event planner in charge, became the face of the disarray.

[...]

Wolkoff herself received $500,000 for her work on the inauguration. She had submitted audited records to the inauguration committee in March 2017, a month after she signed a gratuitous-services contract to work as an unpaid strategist and senior adviser to the First Lady.

Why unpaid?

After the Times article, given her established documentation, Wolkoff urged Melania to defend her. But the administration demurred.

When will people learn that the Trumps will throw anyone under the bus? Maybe when Senior throws Junior under, which I think is coming up soon.

A week later, Wolkoff left the East Wing after the White House instilled new security protocols in the wake of the Rob Porter scandal. A member of the White House Counsel’s Office called her on February 20, 2018, to let her know that the White House would be terminating all gratuitous-services agreements, including hers. It had nothing to do with her work on the inauguration, this person told her. “I am sorry that the professional part of our relationship has come to an end, but I am comforted in the fact that our [friendship] far outweigh[s] politics,” Melania wrote her in an e-mail later that day. “Thank you Again! Much love.”

Ha! And who wrote that for her?

Later that evening, in a phone call, Wolkoff told the First Lady that she worried it appeared as if she had been fired on account of her work on the inauguration. The First Lady urged her not to be “dramatic.” Less than a week later, however, the Times published a story stating that the severance of Wolkoff’s contract had been “prompted by displeasure from the Trumps” over the $26 million payment.

[...]

By the time [Michael] Cohen and Wolkoff spoke last summer, she had returned to her life in New York. He would soon plead guilty to eight counts in a federal courthouse downtown. But Cohen let Wolkoff know that, among other documents and recordings, the F.B.I. had seized hours of their own conversations that he had taped. According to people familiar with the recordings, some of the taped conversations dealt directly with the inauguration. In them, Wolkoff detailed her own contemporaneous concerns with the inauguration—about how money was being spent, the general chaos of the process, and the involvement of Trump’s adult children.

[...]

These recordings, in part, led the Southern District of New York to launch a criminal investigation into how the inaugural committee spent its record $107 million. Now, the investigation appears to be advancing. [...] On Monday, the inaugural committee received a subpoena from the S.D.N.Y. requesting documents related to spending and donors, vendors, and benefits handed out, as well as documents related to a wealthy donor who had once registered as a foreign agent working on behalf of the Sri Lankan government.

[...]

Wolkoff, suddenly and unexpectedly, could find herself in the middle of the maelstrom.

[...]

Upon accepting the [inauguration committee] post on the Friday after [Trump's] election, Wolkoff quickly reached out to her network of vendors. Most of them, according to people familiar with these conversations, resisted the opportunity to work with Trump. Even Burnett, who Trump enlisted to conjure up reality-show-like gimmicks (such as flying a gaggle of drones over the crowd), wanted to keep his involvement private.

[...]

Trump’s adult children have always been involved in affairs pertaining to their father, from his businesses to The Apprentice to his campaign. Each week, Wolkoff met with senior inaugural-committee members to present itemized, detailed updates on the status of her planning and financial reports from each vendor and for each event. She was also making regular presentations to Trump, Melania, and the Trump family about various decisions, so that they could weigh in. (White House spokespeople have previously denied that the Trumps were involved in any planning, and said they knew little about the events.) Trump and Ivanka were briefed on Burnett’s drone idea, for instance.

Drones overhead?! But wait! That's not all...

Trump was focused on the big-picture theatrics. He wanted to arrive on the Mall in a military plane with a military escort, much as he had arrived for tapings of The Apprentice on Trump Organization helicopters. He also wanted to have a full military parade, as well as tanks and helicopters on the ground. Ivanka, meanwhile, had more particular interests, according to e-mail and text exchanges and people familiar with the conversations. [...] She texted photos of the Obama family standing onstage together, with Sasha and Malia prominently situated in the middle of the frame. “FYI regarding the swearing in, it is nice to have family with him for this special moment,” she wrote.

LOL. She wanted in those photos.

Wolkoff worried about potential ethical issues surrounding the First Family-elect and their businesses. After all, Gates had been staying in a suite at the Trump Hotel for most of the inaugural planning. More than a dozen inaugural staffers had also been staying there. The Times reported last month that WIS alone had charged $31,000 for hotel rooms in the span of less than two months, including almost $18,000 at the Trump International Hotel. That did not include what was charged for room service, meals, and travel. In all, the Trump International Hotel was paid more than $1.5 million in inaugural funds, according to the Times. (Wolkoff’s contract states that the inaugural committee would reimburse WIS for travel, long-distance phone calls, mail-delivery services, and expenses connected to the performance of its work. WIS stands for “Who Is She,” Wolkoff’s play on her own anonymity.)

[...]

During the course of planning, Wolkoff had corresponded with Ivanka about the cost of using the Trump Hotel for events leading up to the swearing-in ceremony. On December 10, 2016, a Trump Organization employee sent an estimate for a ballroom rental and food and beverage minimum to use the Trump Hotel space for eight days. The price she quoted was $3.6 million, according to an e-mail. A week later, Gates e-mailed Ivanka about the cost. In this exchange, first published this past December by ProPublica and WNYC, Wolkoff flagged her concern. “These events are in PE’s [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote.

[...]

For an event producer used to detailed lists and punctilious itemization, Wolkoff was often caught off guard by the ad-hoc nature of the committee. According to the two people familiar with the matter, Gates approached a couple individuals working on the inauguration and asked if they would be willing to be paid directly for their work by a donor, rather than by the inaugural committee.

[...]

Wolkoff frequently told Melania about her concerns regarding Gates, these people said. She relayed her concern about the high access level of his security pass within Trump Tower and his closeness with the Trump family. In her view, these people said, he exacerbated a situation already fraught with potential conflicts of interest. Members of the inaugural committee talked about how he frequently worked out of Donald Trump Jr.’s office. He was in constant communication with the adult children in order to keep them in the loop about decisions surrounding the inauguration.

And he's cooperating with Mueller. It's going to be a little difficult for Ivanka when she has to tell Mueller's team she had nothing to do with any of it.

[Wolkoff] started to grow concerned about being left out of meetings, particularly as she raised more red flags. Because part of her responsibilities included reviewing all budgets from her vendors and presenting them to other members of the inaugural committee, she studied the line items in order to be able to explain them. At points, she could not justify the numbers coming in.

[...] 

She sent an e-mail to her team and Barrack on December 31, 2016. “I am DISGUSTED by [Hargrove’s] lack of transparency and entitlement to [the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s] funding,” she wrote. “I can not approve any budget line items because I do not have a clue what these numbers represent!!”

[...]

Much has been made of the various problems with the inauguration, from the lackluster crowd size to the president’s own “American carnage” speech, which struck a tone so dark that George W. Bush was reportedly heard calling it “some weird shit.” But Wolkoff’s part, the event itself, went off without a hitch, and the family was pleased.

[...]

How deep the Southern District’s investigation into all of this is yet unknown. But much like some of Cohen’s other taped conversations, the discussions with Wolkoff about the inauguration may have turned out to be consequential. On the witness stand during Paul Manafort’s trial in Virginia last summer, prosecutors asked Gates if he charged personal expenses to the committee. “It’s possible,” he responded.

[...]

One of the most inexplicable plot points in the whirling Trump drama has been the president’s public treatment of his former lawyer. Trump was aware that Cohen possessed all manner of damaging information about him, and yet he wasted few opportunities to disparage him publicly. Ultimately, Cohen implicated Trump in federal campaign-finance violations as he pleaded guilty. He spent more than 70 hours cooperating with federal investigators, opening his book to tell them what he knew about the president, his business, and the campaign. While Wolkoff’s treatment has been gentler, she’s been similarly isolated and publicly disparaged. And now, what she knows could be of interest to investigators, too.

No doubt.

UPDATE 2/16:

New Jersey's attorney general has now also subpoenaed financial records from the inaugural committee.

Trump's inauguration committee subpoenaed

Federal prosecutors issued a subpoena on Monday to President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee.

[...]

Multiple news outlets reported that the subpoena seeks a wide range of documents from the nonprofit inauguration group, including records about the committee’s donors, attendees at the January 2017 celebration in Washington and information about people who got their photos taken with Trump.

Citing the subpoena, CNN said the record request covers documents dealing with any benefits donors were offered in return for their contributions, as well as information about donations made by and on behalf of foreign nationals.

  Politico

I'm guessing that last category is the major focus.

The subpoena also asks for memos or other information about restrictions on donations “including but not limited to prohibitions on donations by foreign nationals or donations on behalf of a third party,” CNN reported.

Federal laws bar foreign donations to federal campaigns, inauguration funds and political action committees. It’s also illegal to exchange donations for political favors and to divert funds from an inauguration to others.

And I'm guessing there'll be some charges levied.

Last August, W. Samuel Patten, an associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign lobbyist in the United States. As part of his deal, Patten agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and with other federal prosecutors. He also admitted to paying $50,000 for tickets to the inauguration for a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch he was representing, as well as another Russian individual.

Another Mueller cooperator, former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates, admitted during Manafort’s trial last summer under cross-examination that he might have stolen money from the inaugural committee, which he helped manage.

Might have?

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

Ivanka would look fine in orange

When it came out this year that President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee raised and spent unprecedented amounts, people wondered where all that money went.

It turns out one beneficiary was Trump himself.

  ProPublica

Gasp. I'm shocked.

The inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company’s Washington hotel, according to interviews as well as internal emails and receipts reviewed by WNYC and ProPublica.

During the planning, Ivanka Trump, the president-elect’s eldest daughter and a senior executive with the Trump Organization, was involved in negotiating the price the hotel charged the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for venue rentals. A top inaugural planner emailed Ivanka and others at the company to “express my concern” that the hotel was overcharging for its event spaces, worrying of what would happen “when this is audited.”

And what did Ivanka say?  We're not getting that information.  Yet.

“The fact that the inaugural committee did business with the Trump Organization raises huge ethical questions about the potential for undue enrichment,” said Marcus Owens, the former head of the division of the Internal Revenue Service that oversees nonprofits.

Inaugural workers had other misgivings. Rick Gates, then the deputy to the chairman of the inaugural, asked some vendors to take payments directly from donors, rather than through the committee, according to two people with direct knowledge.

Is Rick still a cooperator for Mueller's probe? Why, yes. A court date for another status report is set for January 15 to decide whether to sentence him or keep him on the hook He's been on since forever. He must have a shit-ton of information in "several ongoing investigations."

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors in New York have opened a criminal investigation into whether the inaugural committee misspent money and whether donors gave in return for political favors, citing people familiar with the matter. In addition, The New York Times reported that prosecutors are examining whether foreigners illegally funnelled money to the inauguration.

[...]

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump’s ethics lawyer, said: “When contacted by someone working on the inauguration, Ms. Trump passed the inquiry on to a hotel official and said only that any resulting discussions should be at a ‘fair market rate.’ Ms. Trump was not involved in any additional discussions.”

Just like Daddy. Had nothing to do with anything.

A spokeswoman for the inaugural committee said it “is not aware of any pending investigations and has not been contacted by any prosecutors. We simply have no evidence the investigation exists.”

They live in a cave?

President-elect Trump was repeatedly briefed on inaugural planning and specific events, according to one committee worker with direct knowledge. WNYC and ProPublica have seen presentations that were shown to the president-elect, complete with renderings and floor plans.

[...]

“That doesn’t have anything to do with the president or the first lady,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Thursday night, when asked about the story in the Journal.

Jesus, you think he'd throw even Ivanka under the bus?

Trump’s 2017 inauguration committee, which was chaired by his friend the businessman Tom Barrack, raised nearly $107 million from donors including the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and AT&T. The January 2017 festivities cost almost twice President Obama’s 2009 inauguration, previously the most expensive. The nonprofit that planned Trump’s inauguration booked many spaces in the Trump International Hotel.

[...]

While groups that support political candidates or issues must publicly detail their spending, an inaugural committee is required to list only its top five contractors. That leaves about $40 million unaccounted for.

How bizarre is that ruling?

Greg Jenkins, who led George W. Bush’s second inauguration, was perplexed by the Trump team’s mammoth fundraising haul. “They had a third of the staff and a quarter of the events and they raise at least twice as much as we did,” Jenkins told WNYC and ProPublica this year. “So there’s the obvious question: Where did it go? I don’t know.”

It may be in a family fund for absconding to Argentina.

Emails show that Ivanka Trump connected Gates with Mickael Damelincourt, managing director of the hotel. Damelincourt responded with a new rate of $175,000 per day for use of the Presidential Ballroom and meeting rooms.

[...]

It is not clear what the earlier price was, but Damelincourt’s revised rate did not satisfy one of the lead organizers of the inauguration, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

This is sloppy reporting, ProPublica. How much effort would it have taken to check into that?

In an email to Ivanka Trump and Gates, [one of the lead organizers of the inauguration, Stephanie] Wolkoff, who had previously managed the Metropolitan Museum’s annual gala and fashion shows at Lincoln Center, expressed discomfort with the price.

“I wanted to follow up on our conversation and express my concern,” Wolkoff wrote in the December email.

“These events are in PE’s [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote, noting that other locations would be provided to the inaugural committee for free.

“I understand that compared to the original pricing this is great but we should look at the whole context,” Wolkoff wrote, suggesting a day rate of $85,000, less than half of the Trump hotel’s offer.

[...]

Wolkoff also raised concerns about spending in a conversation with then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen, according to the story in the Journal. Federal prosecutors have a recording of that conversation, according to the Journal. The Times story suggests that conversation took place well after the inauguration.

I'm getting the impression that Cohen taped every conversation he ever had. Maybe one day the collection will sit alongside Nixon's tapes in the Library of Congress.

Wolkoff, who is a friend of first lady Melania Trump, did not respond to a request for comment. Wolkoff’s firm, WIS Media Partners, was the inauguration’s highest-paid contractor, according to the committee’s tax filing. Wolkoff was scrutinized in media accounts this year because the firm received nearly $26 million. Most of that of the money was passed on to subcontractors, according to a person familiar with the spending. It is possible that payments to the Trump hotel were included in that sum.

[...]

If a person with “substantial influence” over a nonprofit group charges the group above-market rates in a transaction with their outside business, the IRS can impose steep fines. In this case, Donald Trump could qualify as a person with such influence. Should the tax agency find that a violation occurred, the Trump Organization would have to refund any overcharge and the inaugural committee would be hit with a 25 percent tax on the money, Owens said.

[...]

Since the inaugural committee was incorporated in Virginia, the state attorney general there could also have standing to investigate its operations.

[...]

The day before Trump’s swearing in, the inaugural committee hosted a Leadership Luncheon in the hotel’s Presidential Ballroom, featuring his cabinet nominees and major donors. “This is a gorgeous room,” the president-elect told the crowd. “A total genius must have built this place.”

A total genius is about to be impeached and his entire cabal indicted.

Some vendors for the inauguration became concerned when Gates, a top inaugural committee official, asked them to take payments outside of the normal committee invoicing process, according to two people with knowledge of what happened. He proposed that they be paid for their work directly from a would-be donor rather than by the committee. Gates told the vendors that the inaugural committee had received pledges of more money than was initially targeted, and, therefore, he wished to reduce the publicly reported sum raised.

Another total genius.

Over the summer, Gates was cross examined about his work for the inauguration in the trial of his former boss, Paul Manafort. Gates conceded that he might have charged personal expenses to the committee. “It’s possible,” he said.

More orange fabric, André.