Tracking former Trump officials

[China]

Trump told Jordan’s king he would give him the West Bank, shocking Abdullah II, book says

 

President Trump once offered what he considered “a great deal” to Jordan’s King Abdullah II: control of the West Bank, whose Palestinian population long sought to topple the monarchy.

“I thought I was having a heart attack,” Abdullah II recalled to an American friend in 2018, according to a new book on the Trump presidency being published next week. “I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over.”

 

The unreported offer to Abdullah is among the startling new details about Trump’s chaotic presidency in the book “The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021” by Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, and Susan Glasser, staff writer for the New Yorker.

 

The book, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the latest in a long-running series of deeply reported behind-the-scenes accounts featuring, or written by, Trump administration insiders, with some claiming that they tried to curb the 45th president’s worst instincts.

 

One theme that emerges in the book is the growth of Trump’s fixation with attacking his perceived enemies and an increasing concern among top officials in his administration that they must prevent Trump’s lawlessness and erratic demands.

 

Several top officials “were on the verge of quitting en masse,” according to the book, citing an October 2018 message Kirstjen Nielsen, then the homeland security secretary, wrote to a top aide over the encrypted app Signal.

 

Chief of Staff John F. Kelly; Defense Secretary Jim Mattis; Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “all” wanted to quit, Nielsen wrote, according to the book.

 

While he was in the White House, Trump also tried to use his office to punish — demands his own aides saw as illegal and tried to stop, according to the book.

 

Trump not only tried to block a merger between CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, and the telecommunication giant AT&T, driven by his anger over the network’s coverage of him, but also tried to prevent a government contract from going to a company owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. (Bezos owns The Washington Post). “He’d do anything to get Bezos,” a senior Trump official told the book’s authors.

 

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[China]

Trump asked his Homeland Security secretary to eliminate the entire 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, book says

 

President Donald Trump asked his Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen to write a bill to eliminate an entire federal Circuit Court of Appeals after it ruled against him, according to an upcoming book by The New York Times' Peter Baker and The New Yorker's Susan Glasser. 

 

The West Coast-based Ninth Circuit, one of the most liberal circuits, became a frequent target of Trump's ire, the authors detail in the book "The Divider," which Insider obtained ahead of its September 20 publication. Trump raised the idea of simply abolishing the court altogether after it ruled against one of his administration's policies seeking to more easily deport asylum seekers in 2018, according to the authors.

 

"Let's just cancel it," Trump told Nielsen, instructing her that if such a move required legislative action, to write a bill to "get rid of the ****ing judges" and send it to Congress, the book said. 

 

Nielsen was "hardly surprised by anything by that point, but even for Trump it seemed a step beyond, to demand elimination of a court just because it ruled against him," Glasser and Baker wrote. 

 

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[China]

Trial of Trump Adviser Tom Barrack Could Shed Light on Foreign Agents

 

The trial of Thomas J. Barrack Jr., an informal adviser to former President Donald J. Trump accused of acting as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates, could shed light on how foreign governments jockeyed for access to the Trump administration — efforts that may have created lucrative opportunities for businessmen close to the White House.

 

Jury selection for the trial, which is expected to last into October, begins Monday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Barrack — a Los Angeles-based private-equity investor — of using his sway with Mr. Trump to advance the interests of the Emiratis and of serving as a secret back channel for communications without disclosing his efforts to the attorney general, as the government contends he should have.

 

While Mr. Barrack served the Emirati government, prosecutors say, he was also seeking money from the rulers for investment funds, including one that would support projects to boost Mr. Trump’s agenda and benefit from his policies.

 

In 2019, prosecutors say, Mr. Barrack repeatedly lied to the F.B.I. about his activities.

 

Mr. Barrack has denied wrongdoing. In court filings, his lawyers have suggested that prosecutors delayed charging him until Mr. Trump left office and said the charges were not supported by facts. A spokesman for Mr. Barrack declined to comment.

 

In all, Mr. Barrack faces seven counts, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, obstruction of justice and making false statements. He is to be tried alongside his former assistant, Matthew Grimes, who was charged only on the lobbying counts. Both were arrested in July 2021; prosecutors filed a second indictment in the case in May with additional details about Mr. Barrack’s efforts.

 

Lawyers for Mr. Grimes did not respond to a request for comment. In a February motion to dismiss the indictment, they said there was no allegation that he ever agreed to be an agent for the U.A.E.

 

A third defendant, Rashid al-Malik, an Emirati businessman who left the United States in 2018 after federal agents interviewed him, remains at large, prosecutors said.

 

Foreign governments have long sought favored status with U.S. presidential administrations. Wealthier nations, including the U.A.E., have tried to influence American politics and society through large donations to universities and think tanks, and through hiring armies of lobbyists to steer bills in Congress.

 

But during the Trump administration, some Persian Gulf nations intensified efforts to gain access to the president and his top aides, many of whom had little foreign policy experience and were viewed as particularly susceptible to influence.

 

According to the indictment, in May 2016, Mr. Barrack agreed to serve as a back channel between the Emiratis and the Trump campaign. Soon after, Mr. Barrack sent Mr. al-Malik a copy of a speech that he said he had personally drafted for Mr. Trump, in which he praised Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Emirati ruler who was at the time the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

 

“They loved it so much! This is great,” Mr. al-Malik responded, according to the indictment, which quotes extensively from email and text messages.

 

As the speech went through revisions, Mr. Barrack worked with campaign officials to ensure the remarks kept a positive reference to Persian Gulf allies, according to the indictment. After the speech, a senior Emirati official emailed Mr. Barrack to say “everybody here are very happy with the results.”

 

During the Republican Party convention, Mr. Barrack worked with the Trump campaign to tailor parts of the platform with Emirati input, prosecutors said.

 

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[China]

Trump chief of staff used book on president’s mental health as guide

 

Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff secretly bought a book in which 27 mental health professionals warned that the president was psychologically unfit for the job, then used it as a guide in his attempts to cope with Trump’s irrational behavior.

 

News of John Kelly’s surreptitious purchase comes in a new book from Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of the New Yorker. The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

 

The book Kelly bought, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, was a bestseller in 2017. In January 2018 its editor, then Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee, described its aims in a Guardian column.

 

She wrote: “While we keep within the letter of the Goldwater rule – which prohibits psychiatrists from diagnosing public figures without a personal examination and without consent – there is still a lot that mental health professionals can tell before the public reaches awareness.

 

“These come from observations of a person’s patterns of responses, of media appearances over time, and from reports of those close to him. Indeed, we know far more about Trump in this regard than many, if not most, of our patients.

 

“Nevertheless, the personal health of a public figure is her private affair – until, that is, it becomes a threat to public health.”

 

Kelly, a retired general, became Trump’s second chief of staff in July 2017 – after Trump fired Reince Priebus by tweet – and left the job in January 2019.

 

His struggles to impose order on Trump and his underlings and his virulent falling out with the president have been extensively documented. According to Baker and Glasser, who interviewed Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general bought a copy of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump as he “sought help to understand the president’s particular psychoses and consulted it while he was running the White House, which he was known to refer to as ‘Crazytown’”.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

[Fergasun]

He has identified at least 200 to 250 e-mails used for official government business that NARA is going after.  He wants immunity in exchange for returning the e-mails, which are government property. He used Protonmail (swiss based encrypted e-mail).

[EmirOfShmo]

 

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

Federal prosecutors plan to call former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as a witness in the New York trial of Thomas Barrack, a billionaire friend of former President Donald Trump accused of unlawfully lobbying on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, Barrack's attorneys said Saturday in a letter to the judge presiding over the trial.  Tillerson would be the first Cabinet official from the Trump administration to testify in the trial, which is entering its third week.

Surprised this guy didn't run away to another country with no extradition laws.

[China]

On 9/7/2021 at 9:50 PM, China said:

Former Coal Baron Blankenship’s Defamation Suit Aims To Knock Out Trump, Jr.

 

Don Blankenship is pugnacious. He has battled federal prosecutors. And he just delivered a staggering blow to Donald Trump, Jr., who tried to upend the former coal baron’s 2018 bid for a U.S. Senate seat — a plan that went offtrack when Junior falsely tweeted that Blankenship was a “felon.” Blankenship sued for defamation and a U.S. federal judge just decided that the case can go forward. 

 

Blankenship was convicted of a single misdemeanor for violating federal mine safety laws. He was found not guilty on two felony counts of securities fraud and of making false statements. Any search of the internet would reveal this. And thus the judge said that the public could infer that Junior knowingly sought to destroy Blankenship’s reputation. Junior, who argued it was a mistake, left up the incriminating tweets long after they were originally posted. 

 

This is a huge win for Blankenship, reached just before the Labor Day weekend. This dispute won’t settle.

 

Blankenship’s “allegations are sufficient at this stage to create a ‘plausible inference’ that Trump, Jr. published his tweet with knowledge of its falsity,” writes Judge John Copenhaver, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. “Trump, Jr.’s remaining arguments fail because labeling (Blankenship) a felon can constitute a provably false assertion of fact.”

 

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Supreme Court leaves Don Blankenship conviction in place

 

The Supreme Court says it won’t review the conviction of former coal CEO Don Blankenship, who was found guilty of conspiring to violate safety standards at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine before the 2010 explosion that killed 29 men.

 

The justices said Monday they would not take the case of the former CEO of Massey Energy who spent a year in prison following his conviction stemming from the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in 40 years. That leaves in place lower court decisions rejecting his efforts to get his misdemeanor conviction thrown out. As is typical, the high court did not explain its decision and denied the case among a long list of others. Monday is the first day of the court’s new term.

 

A federal jury in West Virginia convicted Blankenship in 2015 of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards but acquitted him of more serious charges. He was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $250,000.

 

In 2019, however, a federal magistrate judge recommended that Blankenship’s conviction be thrown out. The judge agreed with Blankenship that his rights were violated because prosecutors didn’t turn over evidence that was favorable to him. That included FBI and Department of Labor interviews with Massey employees. A government review separately found that some material should have been turned over.

 

A federal district judge, however, ruled that despite the prosecution’s failure to disclose numerous documents, the conduct ”resulted in no prejudice” toward Blankenship.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[LadySkinsFan]

I want to see them tracked right into prison.

[Dan T.]

On 10/4/2022 at 1:10 AM, China said:

 

Supreme Court leaves Don Blankenship conviction in place

 

The Supreme Court says it won’t review the conviction of former coal CEO Don Blankenship, who was found guilty of conspiring to violate safety standards at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine before the 2010 explosion that killed 29 men.

 

The justices said Monday they would not take the case of the former CEO of Massey Energy who spent a year in prison following his conviction stemming from the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in 40 years. That leaves in place lower court decisions rejecting his efforts to get his misdemeanor conviction thrown out. As is typical, the high court did not explain its decision and denied the case among a long list of others. Monday is the first day of the court’s new term.

 

A federal jury in West Virginia convicted Blankenship in 2015 of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards but acquitted him of more serious charges. He was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $250,000.

 

In 2019, however, a federal magistrate judge recommended that Blankenship’s conviction be thrown out. The judge agreed with Blankenship that his rights were violated because prosecutors didn’t turn over evidence that was favorable to him. That included FBI and Department of Labor interviews with Massey employees. A government review separately found that some material should have been turned over.

 

A federal district judge, however, ruled that despite the prosecution’s failure to disclose numerous documents, the conduct ”resulted in no prejudice” toward Blankenship.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

Don Blankenship

 

 

WWE's Paul Bearer

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

 

WWE's Paul Bearer

 

 

 

 

MyPillow's Mike Lindell

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

I assume that's supposed to be Alina Habba, not Alina Hanna.

[China]

On 4/17/2022 at 7:02 PM, China said:

Rudy Giuliani unlocks phones for prosecutors in Ukraine-related lobbying probe

 

Federal prosecutors may soon reach a charging decision regarding Rudy Giuliani's foreign lobbying efforts involving Ukraine, after he helped investigators unlock several electronic devices that were seized by the FBI, according to multiple sources familiar with the probe.

 

Giuliani has also offered to appear for a separate interview to prove he has nothing to hide, his lawyer told CNN, renewing a proposal that federal prosecutors have previously rebuffed.

Investigators seized 18 devices during high-profile raids on Giuliani's home and office last April. Since then, a court-appointed special master has been reviewing materials on devices to shield from prosecutors any materials that could be personal or protected by attorney-client privilege. The review has been long-running, in part, because investigators haven't been able to unlock several of the devices.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Feds end Ukraine-related foreign lobbying investigation into Rudy Giuliani without filing charges

 

Federal prosecutors investigating Rudy Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine have closed their investigation after more than two years and said no criminal charges will be brought.

 

Prosecutors with the office of US Attorney for the Southern District of New York have been investigating Giuliani, the former personal attorney to former President Donald Trump, for possible violations of foreign lobbying laws since early 2019.

 

On Monday, they informed a judge overseeing the investigation that they were closing the case.

 

The notification came in a court filing with prosecutors asking the judge to terminate the special master who was appointed to oversee a review of documents obtained when the FBI executed a search warrant on the former New York City mayor’s home in April 2021.

 

“The Government writes to notify the Court that the grand jury investigation that led to the issuance of the above-referenced warrants has concluded, and that based on information currently available to the Government, criminal charges are not forthcoming,” prosecutors wrote.

 

A spokesman for the US attorney’s office declined to comment.

 

 Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

So he thinks a better message would be that it's OK to steal classified documents, and that high up politicians shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes?

 

Pence says FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ‘sent the wrong message’

 

Though he believes “no one is above the law,” former US vice-president Mike Pence says he hopes federal prosecutors “give careful consideration before they take any additional steps” in investigating Donald Trump’s role in inciting the rioters who staged the January 6 Capitol attack and tried to hang him.

 

Pence made those remarks on Sunday in an interview with the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd, in which he also said that the FBI “sent the wrong message” with its search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August to retake government secrets that were stored there without authorization.

 

According to Pence, Trump was “repeating … what he was hearing from that gaggle of attorneys around him” before the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol nearly two years ago, which supporters of the president at the time launched in a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to halt the certification of his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

 

Trump has been under congressional investigation after telling his supporters – some of whom wanted Pence to stop the certification or hang from a gallows – to “fight like hell” that day, among other things. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Friday appointed a special counsel to weigh charges against Trump for the Capitol attack and the government secrets at Mar-a-Lago, two days after the former president announced that he would again seek the Republican nomination for the White House.

 

But, when asked on Sunday if he thinks Trump committed a crime in connection with the Capitol attack, Pence replied: “I don’t know if it is criminal to listen to bad advice from lawyers” who were consulting the president on efforts to sow distrust about his loss to Biden.

 

As for the Mar-a-Lago search, Pence suggested that federal authorities had not exhausted alternative methods to recoup the secret documents in question. “There had to be many other ways to resolve those issues,” Pence told Todd.

 

The justice department had issued a grand jury subpoena seeking all documents bearing classification markings in Trump’s possession before the Mar-a-Lago search.

 

Trump’s lawyers produced some documents in early June in response to that subpoena. But the justice department subsequently received evidence that other classified documents remained at Mar-a-Lago, leading to the search there on 8 August.

 

Ultimately, Pence said it sent a “wrong” and “divisive” message, particularly “to the wider world that looks to America as the gold standard”.

 

“I want to see the credibility of the [US] justice department restored after years of politicization,” Pence added.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Pence can **** off as well.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

 

[China]

Trump and his administration makes Tweed and Tammany Hall look like saints.

[China]

6 hours ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

 

 

More:

 

Key Democrats ask State, Defense for records on Kushner family business

 

Two Democratic congressional committee chairs have co-authored letters to the State and Defense departments on Tuesday asking for an array of records on Jared Kushner’s family business, raising concerns about his financial interests as he influenced the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the Persian Gulf.

 

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (Ore.) in asking for the records cited previously undisclosed emails that largely relate to a 2018 bailout of a Kushner-owned office building. The request comes as part of the committees’ investigation into whether the former White House senior adviser’s financial conflicts of interest improperly influenced U.S. policy.

 

The letters, which were first reported by The Washington Post, detail how Canadian investment firm Brookfield Asset Management cut a previously known deal to pay a 99-year lease up front on the Kushner family’s 39-story office building in midtown Manhattan, worth about $1.1 billion, helping the Kushners avoid defaulting on impending loan payments.

 

Maloney and Wyden stressed that the fund that paid for the bailout included the Qatar sovereign wealth fund as its second-largest investor.

 

“Given the substantial personal financial benefit Brookfield conferred on Mr. Kushner and his family, we are deeply concerned by Mr. Kushner’s personal involvement in a range of policy-making processes in which he appears to have exercised his influence as a senior U.S. government official on matters directly affecting Brookfield and its investors,” Maloney and Wyden wrote.

 

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[China]

Giuliani avoids jail in dispute over payments to ex-wife

 

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani beat a contempt order and avoided jail Monday in an ongoing dispute over money he owes to his third wife, Judith Giuliani, as part of a divorce settlement reached three years ago.

 

At a brief court hearing, Giuliani said he's making progress in paying the debt, though he and Judith remain far apart on how much he still owes for things like her country club memberships, condominium fees and health care.

 

Judge Michael Katz lifted the contempt order he issued after Giuliani missed a September court date. At the time, Judith Giuliani said the ex-mayor owed her more than $260,000. Katz had given Giuliani a final warning at a hearing a few weeks later, telling him the sheriff was “on notice to come at a moment’s notice” to jail him if he didn’t pay up.

 

Giuliani, also known for his work as former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has since provided copies of $150,000 worth of checks he's written to Judith and said he paid another $45,000 on Sept. 9, Katz said.

 

“It seems to me that he’s shown proof of payment," Katz said Monday. “I am going to direct that he makes those payments and to remain current with any other obligations under the stipulation.”

 

Katz, exasperated with both sides, added: “I am hoping this is the last time I have to sit through this kind of exercise.”

 

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[China]

While advising Trump on judges, Conway sold her business to a firm with ties to judicial activist Leonard Leo

 

Longtime judicial activist Leonard Leo appears to have helped facilitate the sale of former White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway’s polling company in 2017 — as she was playing a key role in advocating for Leo’s handpicked list of Supreme Court candidates, according to previously unreported financial documents reviewed by government ethics and finance experts.

 

The transaction came at a critical moment for Conway — shortly after her ownership of The Polling Company had come under scrutiny from a congressional oversight committee for potential “conflicts of interest,” likely creating pressure to unload it even though its value was unclear because she was its biggest asset and committed to her White House job.

 

It appears Leo, via one of his dark money groups, helped finance the transaction between the firm, Creative Response Concepts Inc., and Conway — worth between $1 million and $5 million, according to experts citing the timing of the transactions filed through the same attorney and bank. At the time, CRC was also bringing in millions of dollars from dark money groups to promote Leo’s picks.

 

It’s the latest example of how Leo has used his network to secure and protect allies at the highest levels of government to successfully advance his decadeslong agenda of shifting the Supreme Court rightward for the next generation. Conway was among a small circle of advisers with outsized influence over a newly elected president whose commitment to overturning major precedents like the right to abortion was in doubt by some social conservatives. While former President Donald Trump — a onetime supporter of abortion rights and former registered Democrat — was considered unpredictable by some social conservatives, Conway proved from the earliest days of Trump’s presidency to be an outspoken advocate for Leo’s list of handpicked candidates.

 

If Leo helped facilitate the transaction, it could violate ethics laws designed to prevent executive branch employees from obtaining benefits from people with whom they interact in their official capacities, said Bruce Freed, president of the nonpartisan Center for Political Accountability, which tracks corporate spending in politics. Federal ethics laws prohibit executive branch employees from using their positions for private personal gain and from accepting gifts.

 

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