Married to the mob

Trump's Russia ties are ongoing.

Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8m wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

[...]

The expanded nature of [a] criminal investigation [into the matter] threatens to delay the completion of the merger between Trump Media and DWAC, which would provide the company and Truth Social with up to $1.3bn in capital, in addition to a stock market listing.

[...]

Even if Trump Media and its officers face no criminal exposure for the transactions, the optics of borrowing money from potentially unsavory sources through opaque conduits could cloud Trump’s image as he seeks to recapture the White House in 2024.

  Guardian

His base loves him for all his "criminal exposure." And he loves getting away with it.

The first $2m payment to Trump Media came in December 2021 when the company was on the brink of collapse after the planned merger with DWAC – that would have unlocked millions for the company – was delayed when the SEC opened an inquiry into whether the arrangement broke regulatory rules.

[...]

The statutes broadly require prosecutors to show that defendants knew the money was the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and the transaction was designed to conceal its source.

But money laundering prosecutions are typically based on circumstantial evidence and can be based on materials that show that the money in question was unlikely to have legitimate origins, legal experts said.

[...]

Trump Media needed a bridge loan to keep the company afloat. But it struggled to get financing until DWAC’s chief executive Patrick Orlando sourced a $2m loan wired from Paxum Bank registered in Dominica, according to the wire transfer receipt reviewed by the Guardian.

The wire transfer identified Paxum Bank as the beneficial owner, although the promissory note identified an entity called ES Family Trust as the lender. Two months later, an unexpected second $6m payment arrived in Trump Media’s account from ES Family Trust.

[...]

Though the two payments to Trump Media ostensibly came from two separate entities – first Paxum Bank and second ES Family Trust – the trustee of ES Family Trust, a person called Angel Pacheco, appears to have simultaneously been a director of Paxum Bank.

[...]

The obscure origins about the $8m loans caused alarm at Trump Media and, in the spring of 2022, Trump Media’s then-chief financial officer Phillip Juhan weighed returning the money.

[...]

But the money was never returned.

[...]

Prosecutors appear to have also taken a special interest in the payments because the off-shore Paxum Bank has a history of providing banking services for the pornography and sex worker industries, which makes it higher risk of engaging in money laundering and other illicit financing.

Don Jr., Kash Patel, and Devin Nunes are all involved in this hot mess.

Trump was the chairman of Trump Media at the time, though it was unclear whether he was aware of the opaque nature of the two loans. Trump typically did not seem to be particularly interested in managing the day-to-day running of Trump Media.

Didn't have to. All he had to do was provide the connection to shady bankers and mobsters.

Trump was interested in the deal [...] because he got to own 90% of the shares without putting in any money into the company.

And from October of 2022...

A co-founder of Truth Social’s media parent company was forced off the board of the firm after he ignored demands by Donald Trump to give some of his stock to Melania Trump, a whistleblower has told The Washington Post.

Trump pushed for the giveaway to his wife even though he had already been given 90% of the stock in the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) in exchange for the use of his name and some other “minor involvement,” former company executive Will Wilkerson told the Post.

The company co-founder reportedly dodged the request, telling Trump that it would leave him with a tax bill he couldn’t pay. “Do whatever you need to do,” Trump snapped back, according to Wilkerson.

  HuffPo

No doubt he has to keep Melania happy (and quiet) these days. She has him by the balls over his many criminal exposures.

The incident was one of a series of bombshell revelations supported by several documents viewed by the newspaper about bitter infighting in the Trump business, technical screwups, questionable financial representations, and what Wilkerson insisted were violations of Securities and Exchange regulations, according to the Post.

Wilkerson submitted a whistleblower complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission in August regarding the company. Wilkerson’s attorney’s told the newspaper that he is also cooperating with current investigations into Trump Media by the SEC and by federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York.

Letitia James must have a warehouse to house all the files on Trump's criminal exposure.

Wilkerson was fired from his job [...] as TMTG senior vice president of operations after he spoke to The Post.

[...]

A major web-hosting operator complained in August that Truth Social owed about $1.6 million in contractually obligated payments, an allegation suggesting the operation’s finances are in “significant disarray,” Fox Business News reported.

Another Trump-alienating move by Fox.

Digital World Acquisition Corp. — the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that Truth Social needs to go public — revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month that investors had already backed out of $139 million in commitments of the $1 billion previously announced by the company.

There’s likely more to come.

Likely.

UPDATE 03/15/2023:

Ordinarily, I'd say that's a very good question.  Only in this case, I wouldn't doubt it if she has negotiated legal rights to have her attorneys go over Trump's finances with a fine tooth comb to see what he's trying to hide from her.

Trump thuggery corporate partners

A phone message received by White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson just before she testified before the January 6 committee warned that someone “let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal. And you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”

If this sounds like a gangster threat, that’s the point.

During Hutchinson’s earlier depositions before the committee, her legal counsel was paid for by Trump’s “Save America Pac” (the Pac paid the legal expenses of other panel witnesses, too.) When she realized “she couldn’t call her attorney to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got more information’” because the attorney “was there to insulate the big guy”, according to a friend, she secured free counsel who would not inhibit her. Now, after testifying in public, Hutchinson is in hiding.

Meanwhile, the “big guy” continues to stir up his mob with lies about stolen elections and secret plots – fueling a new wave of threats against committee members.

Several have increased their personal security. Committee chair Bennie Thompson, co-chair Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have security details; other members have requested them.

[...]

Kinzinger has announced he will not be seeking re-election. Cheney has paused participating in public events in part because of safety concerns.

[...]

At the least, it should raise questions about the wealthy individuals and corporations that continue to bankroll this thuggery – among them, billionaires Peter Thiel, Rebecca Mercer, Charles Koch, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, ex-casino mogul Steve Wynn, and shipping magnate Richard Uihlein.

Funding is also coming from Boeing, Koch Industries, Home Depot, FedEx, General Dynamics, Toyota, AT&T, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, GM and FedEx.

In April alone, the most recent month for which data is available, Fortune 500 companies and trade organizations gave more than $1.4m to members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results. AT&T led the pack, giving $95,000 to election objectors.

[...]

Six congressmen who have refused to testify have raked in more than $826,000 from corporate donors since the assault on the Capitol.

[...]

These billionaire and corporate funders are as complicit as are the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in threatening American democracy.

  Robert Reich @ The Guardian

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

It keeps getting worse: Trump's personal mafia

Well, for starters...

I can't even excerpt this article.  You need to read it all.  Parnas and Giuliani and a character named Hyde were tracking Marie Yovanovitch.  And more.

Sarah Kendzior is right: it's an international crime syndicate masquerading as a government.

And may be why Yovanovitch was told to get on the next plane out.

Yes, and all those who knew and were involved shoud be arrested as well.  That includes Mike Pompeo and Devin Nunes.

Yeah, and Trump said she was "going to go through some things," while she was testifying, too.

And there's this:

Excerpts from Schiff's letter:

In January of 2019, Mr. Parnas and Mr. Giuliani exchanged text messages about securing a visa for former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. When Mr. Parnas advised that the United States had denied Mr. Shokin’s visa, Mr. Giuliani responded “I can revive it.”  Mr. Giuliani later revealed, “It’s going to work I have no 1 in it.” He also gave Jay Sekulow, President Trump’s personal attorney, Mr. Parnas’ phone number.

"No. 1."  I believe that's the way Mueller referred to Trump as well in his reports  - Individual 1.

Mr. Parnas communicated extensively by phone and messaging applications with Mr. Giuliani about matters relevant to the House impeachment inquiry.

[...]

In March 2019, Mr. Parnas communicated by text message with Robert F. Hyde about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. In response to some articles, tweets, and videos accusing the Ambassador of being disloyal to President Trump, Mr. Hyde wrote “Wow. Can’t believe Trumo [sic] hasn’t fired this bitch. I’ll get right in that.” Mr. Hyde then sent a series of text messages suggesting that he had Ambassador Yovanovitch under physical surveillance in Kyiv and that “They are willing to help if we/you would like a price.” 

Letter from Schiff to Nadler

Docs uploaded on House website

No wonder they are so desperate to keep documentation away from the House Committees and to  keep people from testifying.

But this Hyde character...Holy Shit.

He thinks he's going to be a congressman???  Read on.

On Tuesday, after the Intelligence Committee documents containing his name became public, Hyde tweeted: "I just can’t wait for my attorney. He’s probably going to be pissed I put this out there before he wrote a statement. But most reporters are scumbags. Here’s what I paid last year in child support. Not anything else, not lawyers, not motions in court, not anything but child support. I couldn’t standby any longer when that very fat nasty girl Erica L and my kids mom calls me a ‘deadbeat’. Pretty sure the L stands for losers in both names."

  Hartford Courant

If he had an attorney, I'm sure he was indeed pissed.

In May, Hyde was removed by police from Trump National Doral Miami in Florida. According to an incident report filed by the Doral police department, Hyde told the responding officer that he was in fear for his life and “a hit man was out to get him.”

Hyde gave police with a variety of names and contacts to provide information about why he felt his life was in danger.

He was not arrested. Police escorted him from the hotel and transported him to an undisclosed location. In the vehicle, Hyde said his computer had been hacked by the Secret Service and that the Secret Service was watching him at the premises, according to the incident report.

[...]

Hyde has yet to report raising any money for his congressional run.

Well this isn't going to help.

I don't know.  Perhaps because Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort are already in jail.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Jesus H Christ.

Mafioso describing using Trump as a front man for the mob

Reading the comments to this tweet, I learned something else interesting...

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, has a now familiar and well-rehearsed South Jersey narrative.

Abandoned as a child by her father, John Fitzpatrick, she has often spoken of being raised in tiny Atco, a section of Waterford Township, Camden County. She has repeatedly told of a rearing by the strong Italian-American women in her life: her mother, Diane Fitzpatrick, a single-mom who worked at the Claridge as a casino gaming supervisor, plus two never-married aunts, Rita and Marie DiNatale, and her grandmother, Antoinette DiNatale.

[...]

But in Conway’s polished telling and retelling of her story, there is never mention of her late maternal grandfather, James DiNatale, perhaps because he was better known as Jimmy “The Brute” DiNatale, an alleged mob associate. (His gray granite headstone in Hammonton’s Oak Grove Cemetery even includes his nickname – THE BRUTE – in all caps.)

[...]

A 1992 New Jersey Organized Crime Commission report on the hidden influence of organized crime in bars named Conway’s grandfather 26 times and he is repeatedly identified as a mob associate, though there does not appear to be any record of DiNatale being charged, let alone convicted, of any crimes.

[...]

A member of Conway’s family, her uncle, Jimmy DiNatale, is still an active businessman and developer in Atlantic County.

Before the presidential election, Jimmy DiNatale paid for billboards promoting the candidacy of Donald Trump. Later, they were updated to congratulate Trump on his win, adding “Now let’s make Atlantic County great again.

Both billboards were signed “From The DiNatale Family.”

  Philly voice

Perhaps explains a lot. I'm guessing she's a bottled blond, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Scarfo and Leonetti liked dealing with DiNatale because he knew their background and was willing to accept cash without asking any questions.

[...]

Authorities have alleged in detail that Conway’s grandfather and his close friend, one-time Hammonton bar-owner Sam Siligato, also alleged to be a mob associate, each lied about the whereabouts of Scarfo and his confederates during their 1979 murder of Margate cement contractor Vincent Falcone.

The false alibis by DiNatale and Siligato were presented first to an unwitting investigator for Scarfo’s defense team at Siligato’s Hammonton bar, Silly Gator, according to the 1992 report, and are part of what led to acquittals for Scarfo, Leonetti and Merlino in Falcone's murder.

Scarfo died in January, still in federal prison on subsequent convictions. Merlino, who became a federal witness, died of natural causes in 2001. Leonetti, who also became a federal witness and remains in hiding, appears to be the source for much of the 1992 crime report concerning DiNatale. A fourth man who witnessed the slaying of Falcone, Joe “The Plumber” Salerno, appears to still be in hiding after having become a protected witness just a week after the shooting.

I wonder if his wife's family connections to such people is why George Conway didn't get that job he was expected to take in the Trump administration as head of the civil division of the DOJ. 

Also, Rolling Stone published an article on the 6th of this month about Donald Trump's connections to the mob figures in Martin Scorcese's new film The Irishman.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Trump’s buildings and his casinos attracted underworld figures like “Fat Tony” Salerno, the Fedora-wearing, cigar-chomping boss of the Genovese crime family. Salerno, who’s portrayed in the film by Domenick Lombardozzi, supplied the fast-drying concrete that built Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Salerno also controlled the local concrete workers union, and when a strike shut down construction in Manhattan in 1982, the one of the few buildings that wasn’t affected was Trump Tower.

The Irishman is based on the 2003 book I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa, by Charles Brandt. (The title is a reference to the special kind of painting Sheeran did that left his victims’ brains on the wall.) The book is full of characters who didn’t make it into the movie, but they did surface in Trump’s world. One is Philadelphia mob boss Philip Testa, the “chicken man” whose 1981 murder by nail bomb Bruce Springsteen sings about in the song “Atlantic City.” Testa’s son sold Trump premium land that became a casino parking lot. Another figure in the book is Testa’s successor, Nicodemus “Little Nicky” Scarfo, whose associates tried to lease Trump land for his casino in Atlantic City — until New Jersey casino regulators quashed the deal.

  Rolling Stone

And, hey, while we're at it...

Trump wasn’t the only one who knew the people in the world of The Irishman. In addition to being a hit man, Sheeran was president of a local Teamsters union in Delaware. In 1972, shortly before Election Day, a prominent lawyer who was very big in the Democratic Party came to see him. There were some political ads that would run in the local newspaper every day in the last week before election, and the lawyer didn’t want them to run. So Sheeran set up a picket line outside the newspaper, and he knew the Teamsters union drivers who delivered the paper wouldn’t cross it. So the ads were never delivered, and on Election Day, Delaware had a new senator: a young man named Joe Biden. After that, Sheeran said Biden’s door was always open. “You could reach out for him, and he would listen,” he wrote.

What can I tell you?

All the president's lawyers

If we survive Trump and there are still things called museums around that display artifacts that present things called facts about historic events, I suspect John Dowd’s October 3 letter to the House Intelligence Committee will be displayed there, in all its Comic Sans glory.

In it, Dowd memorializes a conversation he had with HPSCI Investigation Counsel Nicholas Mitchell on September 30, before he was officially the lawyer for Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, now placed in writing because he had since officially become their lawyer. He describes that there is no way he and his clients can comply with an October 7 document request and even if he could — this is the key part — much of it would be covered by some kind of privilege.

  Emptywheel

"Attorney-client, attorney work product and other privileges."

Parnas and Fruman do work for Rudy Giuliani in the service of the President of the United States covered by privilege, Rudy does work for them covered by privilege, and they also do work for Joseph Di Genova and Victoria Toensing about this matter that is covered by privilege.

[...]

[During the Mueller investigation,] John Dowd, Jay Sekulow, and Rudy Giuliani offered things of value to the others in the JDA [Joint Defense Agreement] — pardons — in exchange for their silence or even lies. Conspicuously, Toensing represented two people that — the Mueller Report seems to suggest — weren’t entirely candid in their testimony, Erik Prince (who managed to lose texts that explained why he was taking back channel meetings with Russians) and Sam Clovis (who sustained his lack of memory of being told that Russians were offering emails long enough for George Papadopoulos to change his mind on that front). Papadopoulos even managed to call Marc Kasowitz, when he still represented the President, to ask if he also wanted to represent a coffee boy with an inclination to lie to the FBI. The strategy all built to its successful crescendo when, instead of cooperating with prosecutors as he signed up to do, Paul Manafort instead figured out what they did and didn’t know, lied to keep them confused, and reported it all back through his own attorney, Kevin Downing, and Rudy to the President.

[...]

And as details of Manafort’s lies came out, it became clear there was some kind of kick-back system to keep the lawyers paid.

Still, Mueller never tied Manafort’s trading of campaign strategy for considerations on Ukraine and payment by Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs to the President. And so it may have seemed sensible for Dowd, in a bit of a pinch, to adopt the same strategy, with Rudy representing everyone, Dowd representing the Ukrainian grifters, and Kevin Downing even filling in in a pinch.

It all might have worked, too, if Parnas and Fruman hadn’t gotten arrested before they managed to flee the country, headed for what seems to have been a planned meeting a day later with their sometime attorney Rudy Giuliani in Vienna, just one day after a lunch meeting with him at Trump Hotel across the street from the Department of Justice that was busy inking an indictment against the Ukrainians even as they paid money to Trump Organization for their meal.

I mean, it still could work. Trump is still the President and DOJ, at least, will give some consideration to the attorney-client claims, so long as Rudy and Trump can maintain the illusion that Rudy is and was really doing legal work for the President.

[...]

[But] by the time Dowd sent the letter, DiGenova and Toensing were on the record as representing Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who was named in some of the early search warrants targeting Paul Manafort. And in March, Rudy Giuliani went on the record to explain that Firtash was, “one of the close associates of [Semion] Mogilevich, who is the head of Russian organized crime, who is Putin’s best friend.” Yesterday, Reuters closed the circle, making it clear that Parnas and Fruman work for Firtash, the former as a translator for DiGenova and Toensing’s representation of Firtash.

[...]

Thus, when Dowd wrote Congress, explaining that Rudy worked for both Trump and the Ukrainian grifters, and the Ukrainian grifters worked for DiGenova and Toensing, he was asserting that the President is a participant in an ethical thicket of legal representation with a mob-linked Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition (for bribery) to the United States. And all of that, Dowd helpfully made clear, related to this Ukraine scandal (otherwise he could not have invoked privilege for it).

In other words, the President’s former lawyer asserted to Congress that the President and his current lawyer are in some kind of JDA from hell with the Russian mob, almost certainly along with the President’s former campaign manager, who apparently gets consulted (via Kevin Downing) on these matters in prison.

If this land still goes by the rule of law - and I know that's a very big if - and if the Supreme Court doesn't go all in with the mobsters itself - Trump's going to be looking at some serious shit when he's out of office. I halfway expect him to make a deal at some point: freedom in return for leaving office.

The reason Rudy was emphasizing the mob ties of his current partner in crime lawyering, Dmitry Firtash, back in March is because the President’s former former lawyer, Michael Cohen, shared a lawyer at the time with Firtash, Lanny Davis. Davis, the Democratic version of Paul Manafort, is every bit as sleazy as him [...] .

[...]

John Dowd’s desperate attempt to make this scandal go away the same way he made the Russia scandal go away (if you pretend they’re not actually all the same scandal and thus even the past JDA strategy may end up failing) at the same time involved admitting, in a letter to Congress, that his former client and his then current not-yet-but-soon-to-be-indicted clients are in a Joint Defense Agreement with the Russian mob.

I didn't know Dowd made the Russia scandal go away. I thought Dowd quit when the heat got turned up.

At any rate, all this shit now happening must have been known to Mueller at least in some part. I still have to wonder about Mueller.

Judge Beryl Howell's comment in a ruling last week noted there were two witnesses Mueller didn't call before the Grand Jury, even though they would have been deeply involved: Junior and White House Counsel Don McGahn.

Did Mueller get cut off by Barr? That seems possible - maybe even likely. But what about all this other info about Trump's legal connections to the Russian mob?  Was he told to stay away from that?  It certainly seems more and more like he didn't do his job even beyond not stating a finding.



In a word: yes.  Still does.

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

Governing by the mob playbook

As much as getting someone else to do it because he knows it's wrong, like the mob boss sending someone out to do a hit and distancing himself from the act, he's doing it because it tests the other person's loyalty and puts them in the position of him having something illegal to hold over their head.  

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

Coming from all sides

A team of investigators from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office visited former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in prison about a month ago and asked a broad set of questions about the president’s business that went beyond the payments made to silence Stormy Daniels, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Vance’s team is planning to follow up with another interview of Cohen this month, the people said.

[...]

Though federal prosecutors in New York have closed their campaign-finance investigation that led to Cohen’s conviction, Vance’s probe shows no sign of letting up. A federal judge ruled yesterday in Vance’s favor, saying the city prosecutor should be allowed to investigate Trump and obtain several years of tax records from the real-estate mogul turned president.

Trump’s lawyers have appealed the decision, and the next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 23.

[...]

The district attorney is trying to determine whether the Trump Organization violated the New York state law against manipulating a company’s books and records to hide illicit activity. The extent of the inquiry is unclear, but the questions that Vance’s team already asked indicate an interest the Trump Organization’s inner workings.

  Bloomberg

If New York had been more diligent in routing out mob corruption in the city when Trump was a businessman there, we wouldn't now be saddled with Trump as president.

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

It seems Adam Schiff is serious

Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has hired a veteran prosecutor with experience fighting Russian organized crime to lead his investigation of the Trump Administration. Last month, according to a committee source, Daniel Goldman, who served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 2007 to 2017, joined the committee’s staff as a senior adviser and the director of investigations.

  New Yorker

Gee....what would Russian organized crime have to do with Trump?

Schiff’s panel is tackling the most provocative and, so far, most elusive subject related to the President: whether so-called collusion occurred between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Seems there might be a little more to it than campaign collusion if he's hiring a Russian mob expert.

In public comments, Schiff has suggested that Trump’s interest as a private citizen in building a tower in Moscow led him to curry favor with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. American intelligence agencies long ago concluded that the Russian government made significant efforts, through the hacking of e-mails and use of social media, to help elect Trump over Hillary Clinton. The question of whether the Trump campaign facilitated, assisted, or knew about these efforts has been at the heart of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller—and will also be central to Schiff’s inquiry.

[...]

As deputy chief of the organized-crime section of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, Goldman supervised the prosecution of more than thirty defendants accused of racketeering, gambling, and money laundering. During his decade in the office, Goldman convicted individuals associated with Russian organized crime of securities fraud and health-care fraud, and convicted leading figures in the Genovese crime family of racketeering and murder.

But, ok, campaign collusion. Whatever you say.

The conflict between Trump and Schiff dates back to well before the Democrat took over as the chair of the Intelligence Committee, after the midterm elections. In a tweet, Trump once rendered Schiff’s name as “Schitt,” and, in his recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the President bestowed the congressman with the nickname Shifty Schiff.

Calling names versus calling in prosecutors.

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

Speaking of Buzzfeed

Donald Trump’s security guards once shoved, threatened, and held a 12-year-old boy and his mother against their will after her husband promised to go public with damaging allegations against the Trump Organization, according to the family’s account in FBI records and court filings.

The incident is one of several in which Trump surrogates have been accused of going to extreme lengths to protect him.

A bankruptcy attorney who represented Trump Entertainment Resorts investors once received a phone call warning him “if you keep fucking with Mr. Trump, we know where you live and we’re going to your house for your wife and kids.” A New York City housing commissioner told the NYPD his life was threatened for refusing to grant a $20 million tax abatement for the construction of Trump Tower. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Daily Beast reporters that he would “mess your life up” before they published a story saying Trump made his first wife feel “violated” during sex.

  Buzzfeed

A very mob oriented outfit.

This time, it was September 1995 and Daut Bajrushi, a superintendent at one of Trump’s buildings, claimed he could prove “financial improprieties” and other misconduct by the Trump Organization. Bajrushi, then 46 years old, worked at Trump Palace, a skyscraper on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

[...]

Days before he was to reveal this information to board members at Trump Palace, Bajrushi fell ill and sent his wife and 12-year-old son to retrieve items from his office. They were gathering paperwork, according to a suit Bajrushi later filed, when someone used a screwdriver to bust the lock. The door burst open and a team of Trump security officials poured in.

According to the lawsuit, four men prevented Hatixbe Bajrushi and her son from leaving. Matthew Calamari, the hulking head of security, shoved the boy. Trump’s brother-in-law, James Grau, barked questions, demanding to know why they were there. Michael Nicoll, another guard, pushed them back when they tried to leave. Grau snatched her purse and passed it to Calamari, Nicoll, and Domenic Pezzo to rifle through.

How terrifying. So terrifying, in fact...

The boy started to cry and his mother fainted, they claim. Daut Bajrushi, informed by his wife in a phone call of what was happening, had a friend call the police.

Calamari threatened to harm the family if they spoke to police about what happened, according to the lawsuit. After 90 minutes, the police arrived and the Bajrushis were freed.

[...]

“The allegations, from over 20 years ago, are completely inaccurate, ridiculous and utterly false,” a Trump Organization spokesperson wrote in a statement.

The testimony of a 12-year-old and the fact that the police showed up would normally be plenty good evidence that the allegations were accurate and true.

None of the security guards were charged in this case. Even though its officers were called to the scene, the New York Police Department has refused to turn over records about the case, citing privacy concerns.

How interesting.

The incident was cited in an FBI document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by BuzzFeed News and Ryan Shapiro, an MIT doctoral student. The document was compiled as part of a racketeering investigation.

How very interesting.

In response to the false imprisonment lawsuit filed by the family, the Trump Organization countered with claims that Bajrushi was disloyal, committed fraud, and embezzled money.

Even if those things were true, how would that make it legal for them to hold the woman and child against their will?

In their response to the lawsuit, Calamari and Nicoll said that they told the woman and her child they were free to leave, but that they couldn’t remove any Trump Palace property.

Which is why the boy was crying and the woman fainted.

The lawsuit never went anywhere, and the legal bills piled up for Bajrushi. His attorney met with Trump and his attorney, Jay Goldberg, to discuss a settlement. Bajrushi’s attorney, Jonathan Mark, said Trump made no offer.

Of course not.

After the confrontation, Calamari continued to climb the ranks at the Trump Organization, working his way up to his current title: executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Calamari is someone Michael Cohen named to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday as a person who would know about the Trump Organization activity.

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

Speaking of conspiracy theories

The prurient details of this scandal surrounding Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and foibles of a man worth $160 billion (before his looming divorce, anyway) sending sexts just like every horny 17-year-old, could fuel TV cable news and newspaper headlines for weeks — and it probably will.

But what if I told you that Bezos’s smartphone self-portrait gallery is arguably the least sexy thing (heh) about this entire affair? That a billionaire’s racy texts are merely the tip of a global iceberg that — as Bezos himself darkly hinted in his shocking Medium post exposing his alleged blackmail by the publishers of the National Enquirer — potentially involves the oil billions of Saudi Arabia and the president of the United States?

  Will Bunch

Pretty damned sure it involves the president of the United States.

Or that it could tie into shadowy international hacking operations, and maybe even the high-profile murder of a U.S.-based journalist?

And what if I told you something else: That the Bezos scandal is ripping away the curtain on a secret world that’s been hiding in plain sight: That a nation founded in the ideals of democracy has been increasingly fallen prey to a new dystopian regime that melds the new 21st century dark arts of illegal hacking and media manipulation with the oldest tricks in the book: blackmail and extortion.

Media manipulation isn't new, but I take his point.

In January the Amazon mogul announced that he and his longtime wife MacKenzie are divorcing, hours ahead of a report in the National Enquirer laden with the content of racy texts between the billionaire and his mistress. On Thursday, Bezos — who’d hired a well-known investigator to find out how the supermarket tabloid got his private communications — took to Medium with a post accusing the Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, whose CEO is David Pecker, of threatening to publish embarrassing photos of Bezos and his lover if he didn’t drop his investigation and state (falsely, Bezos asserts) that its coverage was not politically motivated.

[...]

The [Bezos-owned] Washington Post — where the slain [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi was a beloved colleague and where the political murder of a columnist was seen as a threat against all journalism — vowed to stay on the story until the truth was revealed. In mid-December, the Post memorialized Khashoggi in a full-page ad and its publisher Fred Ryan said its reporters would push the Saudi regime “until meaningful action is taken.”

[...]

Only now is the world figuring out that making up stories to sell papers may have been the least of the sins committed by the [AMI-owned National] Enquirer, which was propped up in its 1950s’ infancy by Mafia money and which later forged a close relationship with Roy Cohn, the notorious New York fixer attorney who took an up-and-coming New York developer named Donald Trump under his wing while fighting off allegations including (wait for it) extortion and blackmail.

[...]

[David] Pecker’s AMI reached a deal with federal prosecutors in Manhattan to avoid prosecution and tell all about how it aided Trump by working with Trump’s legal fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay Trump’s mistress Karen McDougal $150,000 in a scheme to keep her out of the news right before the November 2016 election [...] paying off a doorman with a salacious Trump rumor [about an illegitimate child] to publishing false stories that his opponent Hillary Clinton was gravely ill.

[...]

[W]hile the Enquirer was aiding and protecting Trump it was also — according to reports — holding onto a remarkable source of protection: a safe containing damaging stories about the president it had buried over the years.

[...]

What the public didn’t know in the early months of Trump’s presidency was that Donald Trump Jr. had secretly met in Trump Tower in early August 2016 with a longtime emissary for the Saudis and its closest ally, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), George Nader, and two figures from the world of intelligence: Erik Prince, founder of the notorious firm known as Blackwater, and an ex-Israeli intelligence agent named Joel Zamel.

Nader, according to the New York Times, said the Saudis and the UAE wanted to help Trump win the election. Zamel proposed a covert social media campaign.

[...]

In July 2017, the president invited his good friend David Pecker to the White House and — after chatting with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was developing close ties with [Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman] MBS — the two men had dinner with Kacy Grine, a French businessman who’s a longtime adviser to MBS. Two months later, Pecker went to Saudi Arabia and met personally with MBS and Grine and pitched business opportunities.

About six months later, shoppers in U.S. supermarkets, Walmart and other retailers might have been shocked to see a colorful piece of pro-Saudi propaganda at the checkout.

The magazine — just ahead of an MBS visit to America where he met Trump, Pecker (and, ironically, Bezos) and other luminaries — was of course published by AMI.

[...]

At the same time, Trump fumed over the investigative journalism of the Bezos-owned Washington Post. Even though Bezos is by all accounts a hands-off owner with no say in the Post’s journalism, Trump at one point reportedly demanded that the U.S. Postal Service hike the rates charged Amazon.

Which brings us to Oct. 2, 2018, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and the Post’s vow to get to the bottom of it. Three months later came the salacious Enquirer report on Bezos.

[...]

Bezos didn’t take the news lying down. He hired a well-known investigator, Gavin de Becker, to launch a detailed investigation of how the Enquirer obtained his private text messages. Early reports suggested a focus on the brother of Bezos’s paramour, Michael Sanchez, who is a political supporter of Trump and a friend of Trump-Russia scandal figures such as Carter Page and (wait for it … again) Roger Stone.

Okay, I need to stop right there. Conspiracy? Hell yes. How did Bezos meet this woman whose borther is a friend of Roger Stone? Honey trap perhaps?

Bezos, in his Medium post, noted some of the AMI-Trump-Saudi history chronicled in this column. He said that Trump has “wrongly concluded” that Bezos is an enemy and that the Post’s Khashoggi journalism is “highly unpopular in some circles.” He added: “For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve” with AMI, which then allegedly threatened Bezos, verbally and then (incredibly) by email, with publication of the photos.

[...]

In December, a Saudi dissident who lives in Canada and was close friends with the murdered Khashoggi filed a lawsuit alleging that an Israeli software company called the NSO Group — which according to reports sold its spyware program called Pegasus to Saudi Arabia for $55 million — had used its technology to hack into his smartphone and his communications with Khashoggi. Other dissidents have made similar allegations — that the Saudis have used phone hacking to spy on them.

[...]

Which brings us back to the question of why AMI was demanding not only that Bezos drop its investigation of the hacking but to state that the probe found no political motivation behind its article on the Amazon chief.

[...]

Remember, AMI signed an agreement with federal prosecutors to avoid prosecution in the Michael Cohen-Karen McDougal plot that included a promise to refrain from criminal activity for three years or else the deal was off and AMI, and presumably Pecker, could be charged in the Cohen case. Why, then, would they take the insane risk of opening that can of worms with a threat to Bezos that could meet the legal definition of blackmail? They must be hiding something very bad.

[...]

Meanwhile, Trump is ignoring a congressionally mandated deadline to find if the Saudis violated human rights in Khashoggi’s murder. And a top Saudi official just warned that linking MBS to Khashoggi’s murder would be crossing “a red line.”

[...]

We know that what we’re experiencing now is not true democracy. And with the Bezos and Khashoggi revelations, it’s totally fair to ask: Are we increasingly ruled by blackmail and extortion?

That's not new either. J. Edgar Hoover, anyone? House UnAmerican Committee? Spiro Agnew? New York "boodle" Board? San Francisco post 1900 earthquake? San Francisco & LA Chinatowns? Huey Long in Louisiana? Chicago and New Jersey pretty much all the time? To name a few big ones. "Increasingly"? I don't know. But undoubtedly it hasn't been so pervasive in an administration as in this one.

[I]s Trump’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller getting $15,000 a month from the Republican National Committee for his do-little-or-do-nothing job, or because he knows too many secrets? What are we to make of the fact that Michael Cohen and Roger Stone knew all about a hidden sex-abuse scandal involving then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — and that the New York AG’s office didn’t investigate the Trump Foundation until after Schneiderman was forced out? Why do so many GOP senators who once brutally criticized Trump now support him?

[...]

What if America’s new amateur blackmail regime is being blackmailed by a professional: Russia’s Vladimir Putin? Much like the government’s kowtowing to the Saudis and MBS, there is too much about the administration’s bending to Russia’s will.

[...]

Shocking as it may seem, it’s not unreasonable to now ask: Who are the world’s leaders blackmailing, and who is blackmailing them?

As Sarah Kendzior always says, the world is being run by an international crime syndicate.

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

More subpoenas for Trumpworld

Maryland prosecutors have subpoenaed a company owned by Donald Trump for records related to his Scottish golf courses, seeking information about the president’s possible violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. According to The Times of London, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh demanded the financial filings of DJT Holdings LLC—which owns the president’s Scotland resorts, as well as Trump International Hotel in Washington.

[...]

“We are confident that at the end of discovery we will be able to prove our case that President Trump is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, America’s first anti-corruption laws,” Frosh told the Times.

[...]

But despite Frosh’s confidence, emoluments cases are rare, and challenging to prove. Potentially more worrisome for the president is the possibility that the Maryland subpoena could reveal the unknown source of DJT Holdings’s funding.

  Vanity Fair

Russia....if you're listening...

In a congressional hearing last year, Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS—the research firm that hired Christopher Steele to assemble a dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia—intimated the company could be financially linked to foreign powers. “The Irish courses and the Scottish courses . . . don’t, on their face, show Russian involvement, but what they do show is enormous amounts of capital flowing into these projects from unknown sources,” he said. “It’s hundreds of millions of dollars. And these golf course are just, you know, they’re sinks. They don’t actually make any money.”

They launder it, eh?

Trump has attempted to push back on Maryland’s emoluments probe against him, but in July a judge ruled that the case could proceed. A district judge in D.C. issued a similar ruling in September, allowing congressional Democrats to move forward with their own emoluments inquiry.

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

His own worst enemy

Roger Stone’s downfall is the logical conclusion of continuing to act like Roger Stone.

[...]

He has a brand: truculent and unjustified self-confidence, meandering trash-talking, and a penchant for lashing out at perceived enemies. These things make him a reliable eye-catcher.

But these same qualities make Stone and people like him easy targets for a ruthless prosecutor. The indictment depicts Stone acting in private more or less the way he acts in public.

[...]

The indictment charges that Stone eagerly pitched himself to the Trump campaign as the man with connections to WikiLeaks (thinly disguised as “Organization 1” in the document); that he vigorously mined his network to suggest questions for WikiLeaks to answer, amid a media blitz in which he touted upcoming leaks about Trump's Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton.

  The Atlantic

Is that an accurate reading? I thought I read somewhere that Trump's campaign went to him asking for assistance. Either way...

The common theme of Stone’s compulsive texts and emails to Corsi, Credico, and the Trump campaign was not just an appetite for dirt on Clinton, but Stone’s own relentless self-promotion. It appears he was successful in getting the attention he wanted—the indictment reveals that a “high-ranking Trump Campaign official” sent Stone a text message reading “well done” after WikiLeaks released stolen Clinton campaign emails in October 2016. [...] Stone idolizes Nixon and aspires to dirty tricks—this, too, is part of his brand. It may not have occurred to him to do anything but lie.

[...]

The indictment says that Stone quoted Richard Nixon: “Stone wall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan.” Stone, according to the indictment, also invoked The Godfather: Part II, telling Credico to do a “Frank Pentangeli,” referencing a character who tells Congress he knows nothing of Michael Corleone and then kills himself in prison. Perhaps Stone hoped that Credico hadn’t watched the whole movie. Eventually, Stone allegedly turned to abuse and threats, calling Credico a rat and a stoolie, threatening to take his dog away, and telling him to “prepare to die,” the indictment said. Stone did all of this in writing because—again—Roger Stone can’t stop being Roger Stone. Credico, for his part, repeatedly advised Stone to smarten up, stop perjuring himself, and tell the truth. When Randy Credico is the most sensible person in your indictment, you’ve fallen upon hard times.

[...]

The indictment says that Stone quoted Richard Nixon: “Stone wall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan.” Stone, according to the indictment, also invoked The Godfather: Part II, telling Credico to do a “Frank Pentangeli,” referencing a character who tells Congress he knows nothing of Michael Corleone and then kills himself in prison. Perhaps Stone hoped that Credico hadn’t watched the whole movie. Eventually, Stone allegedly turned to abuse and threats, calling Credico a rat and a stoolie, threatening to take his dog away, and telling him to “prepare to die,” the indictment said. Stone did all of this in writing because—again—Roger Stone can’t stop being Roger Stone. Credico, for his part, repeatedly advised Stone to smarten up, stop perjuring himself, and tell the truth. When Randy Credico is the most sensible person in your indictment, you’ve fallen upon hard times.

And that's understandable, since they think themselves incredibly smart. But even more importantly, Roger Stone (and Donald Trump and Paul Manafort) have gotten away with slime, threats, lies and crimes all their lives.

A white-collar-criminal defense attorney’s hardest job often is persuading clients to shut up. Their clients see themselves as Masters of the Universe and have and have enjoyed great success by being dynamic, decisive, and persuasive. They have a hard time accepting that the very volubility that got them where they are can send them to federal prison. [...] Lawyers used to have to make 15-year-old references to Martha Stewart’s conviction to wheedle clients into a prudent silence. In the age of Mueller, they can just point to the front page of nearly any newspaper.

And behind the actions of all the players, there's the Russian mob (and the American and/or Italian mobs) that so many of them are in some way connected to.

Trump’s invocation of the Mafia’s code of honor and omertà has been noted by many writers.

[...]

No less an expert than Nicholas Pileggi has explained how Trump’s vocabulary often echoes the idiom of the Brooklyn mob. Trump himself has called his former lawyer Michael Cohen a “rat” for agreeing to cooperate with Mueller, and has praised his campaign chief Paul Manafort’s initial refusal to “break” as worthy of “such respect for a brave man!” Trump’s recent claims that Cohen is cooperating with Mueller to mask shady dealings by his father-in-law smack of a classic don’s intimidation tactics.

  The Atlantic

And it's also quite rich, since Trump is probably connected to the same shady people Cohen's father-in-law is connected to.  I'd bet that if you dig into the father-in-law's dealings, you'd find Donald Trump.

And like a spate of next-generation mobsters in the US in the late 20th century, Stone is a fool. Too interested in self-promotion, bragging and threatening in plain sight.

Stone’s language as recounted in Mueller’s latest indictment is striking. “Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan,” Stone texted Credico in November 2017, according to the indictment. By last spring, Stone had escalated his tone sharply. “You are a rat,” he emailed Credico. “A stoolie. You backstab your friends—run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds.” In the next sentence, Stone threatened to “take that dog away from you,” referring to Credico’s emotional support dog, a tiny white Coton de Tulear named Bianca.

“I am so ready,” Stone added. “Let’s get it on. Prepare to die …”

[...]

If a horse’s head turns up in somebody’s satin sheets, should anybody still be surprised?

Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, the former underboss of the Gambino organized-crime family, is a mass murderer (19 bodies, maybe more, across his distinguished career), and also the most consequential turncoat in the history of organized crime. Gravano, whom I came to know while covering the Mob in the 1990s, had many thoughts about respect and loyalty, which he shared with me in a number of conversations.

[...]

I have not seen Gravano in a very long time—he has spent most of the past two decades in prison, after having failed to hide his drug-distribution business from his federal monitors—but my thoughts turned to him [in August 2018], when I read President Donald Trump’s tweet on the subject of loyalty and respect. The president, who is obviously perturbed by the felony conviction of his former campaign chair Paul Manafort and the plea deal taken by his former attorney Michael Cohen, wrote the following: “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. ‘Justice’”—a cutting reference to the Justice Department, which he oversees as the leader of the executive branch—“took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break’ - make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.’ Such respect for a brave man!”

What we see in this astonishing tweet is an implicit endorsement by the president of the United States of omertà, the Mafia code of silence, which has been honored, especially over the past 30 years or so, more in theory than in practice.

[...]

“It’s called ‘flipping’ and it almost ought to be illegal,” Trump said. “I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years, I have been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go.”

In these statements, Trump displays contempt for the rule of law, and honors criminals who refuse to cooperate with law enforcement. He’s doing nothing less than elevating gangster ideology to the status of high principle. He’s also evincing a gauzy and archaic understanding of the nature of gangsterism. I heard, in his statements, echoes of many conversations I had while trying to understand the culture of organized crime.

A former Gambino Family soldier named Dominick Montiglio told me once, in explaining his decision to turn against the Mob, that “those guys who can stand up to the government, I respect them a lot. Nobody does this anymore. It’s too hard.” (Montiglio was Scorcese-level insightful in explaining the attractions of the organized-crime lifestyle: “When I was in the life, it was great. I mean, we got respect. I got in once at Studio 54 ahead of Burt Reynolds. That’s what we were attracted to, the glitz. It doesn’t exist anymore … The new generation ruined it.”)

[...]

“I got a lot of respect for the guys who don’t break under the pressure, the FBI pressure, or whatever,” Gravano said. “This is the government we're talking about. They can do a lot to you in terms of pressure, but I didn’t do this for the deal, believe me. Okay? I did this because John was a double-crosser. He double-crossed me. So I double-double-crossed him. I'm the master double-crosser. He got his. He thought he was playing chess. No fucking way he was playing chess.”

[...]

“There's no scruples anymore,” Gravano said. “No respect for rules and regulations. The Godfather has respect in it, but that doesn’t exist anymore … You think there’s respect? Some guys have balls—the real gangsters—they respect the rules we have, they’ll do the time. But most of these guys? No respect.”

[...]

As Gravano told me, by way of illustrating his influence, “I literally controlled Manhattan, literally. You want concrete poured in Manhattan? That was me. Tishman, Donald Trump, all these guys—they couldn't build a building without me.”

  The Atlantic

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

Lanny, he's not acting

Lanny Davis, Cohen’s legal adviser and spokesman, traveled to Capitol Hill in recent days to discuss security and other logistical issues in meetings with House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Democratic committee aides. He said he pressed Republicans on Trump’s repeated tweets about Cohen’s family — particularly his client’s father-in-law — urging them to get their party leader to tone down his rhetoric about Cohen.

  Politico

Like they have any control over him.

“I’m very concerned about the president of the United States acting like a mobster,” Davis said in a short phone interview Friday, just before an MSNBC appearance. “It’d not be any difference if the ‘don’ called somebody telling the truth a ‘rat’ and attacked the family and sent the implicit message to beware.”

Minutes later, Davis went on MSNBC to reiterate that message: “Family is out of bounds. There is only one person in this country — one president in our history — that would threaten family as a tactic to make fear of somebody he calls a ‘rat’ by telling the truth. And that’s President Trump, and the Republicans should be holding him accountable.”

They SHOULD have done that a long time ago.

Davis also said Friday that no decision had been made yet on whether Cohen will indeed appear before Congress.

“I don’t know if we’re ready to cancel,” Davis said. “He’s very fearful.”

[...]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, a senior Oversight panel member, said his party should go back and review how Congress protected witnesses during a series of sensitive hearings they had in the 1960s on organized crime and the mafia.

“It’s not even a veiled attempt at intimidation of a witness and obstruction of the process of witnesses wanting to come forward to testify before the legislative branch of government,” the Virginia Democrat said Friday. “It’s a repugnant act on the part of the president who clearly is afraid of public testimony by Mr. Cohen under oath.”

[...]

Davis said he’s spoken with Hill aides about the logistics of Cohen’s testimony, including keeping him protected that day.

“We’re certainly hoping to have security provided to him. Something will be done to help him get in and out,” Davis said.

But Cohen’s concerns aren’t limited to his appearance on Capitol Hill. Davis in his MSNBC appearance noted that there were Trump supporters all around as well as foreign actors who may want to do the bidding of the president, who have all but put a target on his client.

[...]

Asked whether he thought his GOP counterparts on the committee might use their relationships with Trump to get him to back off—ranking Republican Jim Jordan and panel member Mark Meadows are close allies of the president—Connelly said no.

“Both of them have become such apologists for this president that I think they would be impervious to those pleadings,” he said.

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

Speaking of money laundering

Newsweek will be publishing an issue laying out Trump's mobster links. 








Thank you.  We do need it.  A reminder before the Mueller report is filed and the House investigations get underway.

Comments on the "rat"

Are we sure his lawyers are telling him not to do it?  I mean one of them is Rudy G.


video here







Also in that interview Giuliani first says the SDNY doesn't have corroborating evidence of Cohen's claims, because he knows how that office does things - he used to run it.  A not two minutes later he says, "I don't know how the Southern District is run."

And then he runs on with a number of other lies and bullshit and incorrect interpretations of set  law.
He's neck and neck with Trump for being impossible to listen to.



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

UPDATE: