Trump Administration - Festering Skidmarks

[goldenvalley]

Apr 5, 2022 21:36:31 GMT LFC said:

Trump said the words "when I didn't win the election." He said it to a group of historians putting together the facts of his presidency. Bold confession mine.

That was his mouth getting ahead of his brain.  

[goldenvalley]

I mentioned how Alex Jones' testimony was Trumpesque.  Well here's the original giving an interview in his Florida home.  Still his greatest hits recitation with some commentary on the war in Ukraine thrown in. This last paragraph made me chuckle grimly.

“I don’t want to comment on running, but I think a lot of people are going to be very happy by my decision," he said, adding: "Because it’s a little boring now.”

[LFC]

Feb 11, 2022 16:32:52 GMT LFC said:

Remember the folks who freaked out about Hillary's emails? Who compared her to a sailor who took photos of classified nuclear sub technology, destroyed them to try to hide evidence, and got a year in jail? Remember "the law's the law?" I wonder what their opinion is on Trump. Just kidding. I don't wonder at all.

Some White House documents that former President Trump took to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, instead of handing them over to the National Archives, were reportedly clearly marked as classified, according to the Washington Post.

The clearly marked classified documents reportedly included those at the “top secret” level.

According to the Post, some of the documents had markings indicating that the information was extremely sensitive and would be limited to a small group of officials with authority to view such highly classified information. It is unclear, however, how many of those classified documents were received by the Archives.

Blatant theft of top secret documents is a serious crime. Even if he was president when the transfer happened possession of those documents is also a serious crime. LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!

The DOJ is finally getting around to investigating this but there's a disturbing accusation that they are blocking the Jan 6 committee from the evidence. WTF is happening at the DOJ anyway?

The Justice Department is reportedly preparing to investigate former President Trump bringing the 15 boxes of White House documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

The DOJ’s probe into Trump’s mishandling of White House documents — some of which were reportedly clearly marked as classified — is in early stages, people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post. It is unclear whether DOJ officials have begun reviewing materials in the boxes the former president took to his Florida resort. Other lingering questions include whether the DOJ will seek to interview people in Trump’s inner circle who might have seen the boxes or had a hand in assembling and moving them.

The development comes as House Oversight Committee chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) alleges that the DOJ is obstructing the panel’s investigation into the 15 boxes of documents the former president took to Mar-a-Lago.

In a letter the House Oversight Committee received from the National Archives dated March 28, Archives General Counsel Gary Stern reportedly wrote that his agency was unable to respond to the committee’s request for more information as part of the panel’s own investigation into the Mar-a-Lago boxes due to the Archives’ “consultation” with the Justice Department, according to CNN.

On Thursday, Maloney reportedly reached out to Attorney General Merrick Garland in a letter requesting additional information about what she characterized as the DOJ “interfering” with the House Oversight’s investigation.

I'm afraid that Garland is doing everything in his power to avoid controversy and get tagged as partisan, to the point of refusing to stand up for the law and democracy. Maybe he'll prove me wrong but I've seen very little to give me any faith.

[jackd]

Garland is obeying the law.

[LFC]

Apr 7, 2022 21:17:14 GMT jackd said:

Garland is obeying the law.

Choosing not to prosecute even with evidence is still obeying the law. Just saying.

[jackd]

You don't know what the evidence is nor the requirements of protecting classified information nor do you know what the DOJ may be doing. Its function is dstinct from that of the committee. just sayin'.

[andydp]

Apr 7, 2022 22:12:32 GMT jackd said:

You don't know what the evidence is nor the requirements of protecting classified information nor do you know what the DOJ may be doing. Its function is dstinct from that of the committee. just sayin'.

Agreed. Once this evidence is part of a criminal investigation it does not have to be released to third parties. I remember reading that in one of the articles cited.

[jackd]

It's also worth remembering that even if the Republicans win the midterms, the DOJ continues under Garland. I think a lot of the concen is over the 1/6 committee getting halted after the midterms.

[LFC]

Yes, the PPP program as handled by the Trump administration was dysfunctional and utterly corrupt.

J. David McSwane, an investigative reporter at ProPublica, knew that the federal government’s pandemic response programs would be a magnet for grifters. But even he was surprised by just how bad things got.

McSwane did a deep dive for his new book Pandemic, Inc., and says the two words he uses most to describe how the Trump administration handled PPE contracts are “chaotic” and “dysfunctional.” He easily discovered some of the taxpayer money was going to “known criminals.”

“We're checking out all these contractors and I would spend about a minute looking into one company and realize, well, they have a history of fraud or they got incorporated on Monday and got a contract on Wednesday. There really was no vetting. These contracts were given out indiscriminately. If you had connections to the Trump White House, you stood a pretty good chance of getting a deal,” he says on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast.

“I knew from the outset of the CARES Act that people were gonna take advantage of these programs. So just sort of instinctively, I knew to look at it,” however, he adds, “I have to admit, I came out more disillusioned than I thought the federal government was so woefully unprepared.”

He says “it truly was a mess.”

The fraud happened on the local level, too.

“FEMA gave a contract to a company, and I detailed this in the book, something like 10 million to deliver COVID-19 test kits to all 50 states and territories. And we started to look at it and this company had no background in the medical equipment space whatsoever,” he says. Not only that, but this “vendor” gave FEMA contaminated test kits that the government did accept—and pay them for.

[LFC]

More Trumpian Grift. First, all records of gifts to both Trump and Pence for 2020 aren't anywhere to be found.

The State Department said it couldn’t come up with a complete list of who gave former President Donald Trump and some of his officials gifts during his final year—because Trump never turned the records over. The department said the Executive Office of the President never submitted any records about Trump’s gifts in his final year in office, nor did the General Services Administration turn over any records of gifts former Vice President Mike Pence received in 2020. It may not have been their fault, the department admitted—it did forget to ask for them before Trump left the White House. However, as it happens, the Trump White House routinely had a “lack of adequate recordkeeping pertaining to diplomatic gifts” for all four years it held office, according to a report set to be published next week and viewed by the Associated Press.

But Jared's the one who really cashed in with their close personal friend in Saudi Arabia.

Of the $2.5 billion that the main fund of Jared Kushner’s firm managed as of late March, roughly 80 percent stems from one bulky investment from the Saudi crown prince, according to The New York Times. Within half a year of having left the White House, the newspaper reported Sunday, Kushner had secured a $2 billion investment from Mohammed bin Salman, despite the fact that his firm, Affinity Partners, has to date no publicly declared focus. MBS also reportedly gave Kushner the money over the express objections of his own fund’s advisers, who rang alarm bells last June over issues like “inexperience,” “unsatisfactory” operations, and the “public relations risks” of associating with the former president’s son-in-law. The prince, leading the board of his Public Investment Fund, overruled his screening panel, according to the Times. Around the same time, MBS underwrote a comparably puny investment of $1 billion in Steven Mnuchin’s new fund, despite the fact that the ex-Trump treasury secretary is a former Goldman Sachs partner. Mnuchin’s fund is also themed around Saudi-prioritized sectors like cybersecurity, financial technology, and entertainment, according to the Times—but all of that apparently pales in comparison to good old-fashioned shilling, with Kushner infamously becoming MBS’ biggest defender inside the White House after multiple intelligence agencies concluded the prince had ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 11, 2022 17:29:00 GMT LFC said:

More Trumpian Grift. First, all records of gifts to both Trump and Pence for 2020 aren't anywhere to be found.

The State Department said it couldn’t come up with a complete list of who gave former President Donald Trump and some of his officials gifts during his final year—because Trump never turned the records over. The department said the Executive Office of the President never submitted any records about Trump’s gifts in his final year in office, nor did the General Services Administration turn over any records of gifts former Vice President Mike Pence received in 2020. It may not have been their fault, the department admitted—it did forget to ask for them before Trump left the White House. However, as it happens, the Trump White House routinely had a “lack of adequate recordkeeping pertaining to diplomatic gifts” for all four years it held office, according to a report set to be published next week and viewed by the Associated Press.

But Jared's the one who really cashed in with their close personal friend in Saudi Arabia.

Of the $2.5 billion that the main fund of Jared Kushner’s firm managed as of late March, roughly 80 percent stems from one bulky investment from the Saudi crown prince, according to The New York Times. Within half a year of having left the White House, the newspaper reported Sunday, Kushner had secured a $2 billion investment from Mohammed bin Salman, despite the fact that his firm, Affinity Partners, has to date no publicly declared focus. MBS also reportedly gave Kushner the money over the express objections of his own fund’s advisers, who rang alarm bells last June over issues like “inexperience,” “unsatisfactory” operations, and the “public relations risks” of associating with the former president’s son-in-law. The prince, leading the board of his Public Investment Fund, overruled his screening panel, according to the Times. Around the same time, MBS underwrote a comparably puny investment of $1 billion in Steven Mnuchin’s new fund, despite the fact that the ex-Trump treasury secretary is a former Goldman Sachs partner. Mnuchin’s fund is also themed around Saudi-prioritized sectors like cybersecurity, financial technology, and entertainment, according to the Times—but all of that apparently pales in comparison to good old-fashioned shilling, with Kushner infamously becoming MBS’ biggest defender inside the White House after multiple intelligence agencies concluded the prince had ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

OF. COURSE.  It's only a matter of time before we learn more.  

I read somewhere that Steven Mnuchin also got money from the Saudis for a fund he's running, but it's only $1 billion.  And he actually has run funds like this in the past...not like Jared who played with real estate and media.   

[pnwguy]

Apr 11, 2022 18:07:58 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 11, 2022 17:29:00 GMT LFC said:

More Trumpian Grift. First, all records of gifts to both Trump and Pence for 2020 aren't anywhere to be found.

But Jared's the one who really cashed in with their close personal friend in Saudi Arabia.

OF. COURSE.  It's only a matter of time before we learn more.  

I read somewhere that Steven Mnuchin also got money from the Saudis for a fund he's running, but it's only $1 billion.  And he actually has run funds like this in the past...not like Jared who played with real estate and media.   

I wouldn't put it past Jared to have cut a deal with MBS in exchange for a few nights with Ivanka.  MBS would have loved to up the competition with Dumpster.

[LFC]

Getting stupid people to empty their wallets in return for making them feel angry and superior is a grift that Trump was practically born for. He has, amazingly, finally decided to give a little bit of that fat cash to the cause it was actually supposed to be for; helping Republicans win races. In this case it's all about punishing the insufficiently obsequious Brian Kemp.

Trump Deigns To Give Some Cash In Other People’s Races For The First Time Because Revenge

Trump’s Save America PAC has raised more than $110 million since he left office (most of which probably came from his exquisite How Fauci Stole Christmas stickers) but hasn’t spent much of it on anyone who isn’t named Donald Trump (which is very shocking) up until now.

• Save America recently funneled $500,000 into a superPAC dedicated to ousting Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), one of Trump’s biggest punching bags, ahead of the state’s May 24 primary, when Kemp will be facing off against the Trump-endorsed David Perdue.

• Trump’s nervous about Perdue trailing Kemp in the race, according to Politico. Right now the incumbent governor’s trouncing Perdue in the polls and has spent/reserved way more money on TV ads than the former governor.

[LFC]

So a Trump judge lifted the airplane mask mandate.

A Trump-appointed Federal judge in Florida has voided a national mask mandate for airplanes and other transportation. “Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle wrote in her decision on Monday. “At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither ‘sanitizes’ the person wearing the mask nor ‘sanitizes’ the conveyance.”

So who is this erudite, experience justice?

Mizelle, 35, was only eight years out of law school at University of Florida when Trump appointed her to the lifetime position in 2020. The Daily Beast noted at the time that her only trial experience was as an intern, and that she held four clerkships, including one for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Mizelle was rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association prior to her appointment, citing her lack of experience.

Young, ignorant, and ideological. That's just the way the Republicans like 'em.

[LFC]

Trump's PAC pretty much just pays his legal bills now.

For the third straight quarter, Donald Trump’s former campaign committee turned in a fundraising loss, shedding $1.2 million to start 2022. And the reason for almost all of the Trump campaign’s money problems is a familiar one: lawyers.

According to a campaign finance disclosure filed in recent days, the committee—“Make America Great Again PAC“—handed over about $1.1 million in legal fees between January and the end of March.

That’s more than 40 percent of the PAC’s $2.6 million in total expenses, for the PAC’s biggest deficit since Trump left office. The $1.4 million it raised barely covered its legal bills.

The loss cut MAGA PAC’s cash on hand from about $6.66 million at year’s end to around $5.47 million as of March 31. The committee, which Trump converted from his old campaign after leaving office, now holds about half the $10.7 million it had at the start of 2021.

In the first half of the year, fresh off of election challenges and an impeachment trial, MAGA PAC ate the vast majority of Trump’s political legal costs—about $7.8 million of the $8 million total. The payouts plummeted in the back half of 2021, with a total $1.7 million spread over those six months, indicating another uptick to kick off 2022.

The biggest winner this quarter was Jesse Binnall, Trump’s top election challenger, whose firm clocked $410,000 for its services. Binnall farms some of those fees out to local counsel, whose names aren’t listed on the reports. One such firm is the Tulsa, Oklahoma, shop Hall Estill, which Binnall retained last year to assist in an ongoing lawsuit alleging civil rights violations at Trump’s COVID comeback rally in June 2020.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 19, 2022 15:08:15 GMT LFC said:

Trump's PAC pretty much just pays his legal bills now.

For the third straight quarter, Donald Trump’s former campaign committee turned in a fundraising loss, shedding $1.2 million to start 2022. And the reason for almost all of the Trump campaign’s money problems is a familiar one: lawyers.

According to a campaign finance disclosure filed in recent days, the committee—“Make America Great Again PAC“—handed over about $1.1 million in legal fees between January and the end of March.

That’s more than 40 percent of the PAC’s $2.6 million in total expenses, for the PAC’s biggest deficit since Trump left office. The $1.4 million it raised barely covered its legal bills.

The loss cut MAGA PAC’s cash on hand from about $6.66 million at year’s end to around $5.47 million as of March 31. The committee, which Trump converted from his old campaign after leaving office, now holds about half the $10.7 million it had at the start of 2021.

In the first half of the year, fresh off of election challenges and an impeachment trial, MAGA PAC ate the vast majority of Trump’s political legal costs—about $7.8 million of the $8 million total. The payouts plummeted in the back half of 2021, with a total $1.7 million spread over those six months, indicating another uptick to kick off 2022.

The biggest winner this quarter was Jesse Binnall, Trump’s top election challenger, whose firm clocked $410,000 for its services. Binnall farms some of those fees out to local counsel, whose names aren’t listed on the reports. One such firm is the Tulsa, Oklahoma, shop Hall Estill, which Binnall retained last year to assist in an ongoing lawsuit alleging civil rights violations at Trump’s COVID comeback rally in June 2020.

The people who donated to his PAC don't care what it's used for.  They're just supporting their hero.

[pnwguy]

Apr 19, 2022 17:09:28 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 19, 2022 15:08:15 GMT LFC said:

Trump's PAC pretty much just pays his legal bills now.

The people who donated to his PAC don't care what it's used for.  They're just supporting their hero.

Some savvy folks need to start the rumor that his PAC money goes to LGBTQ causes, illegal immigrants, Muslims, and pedophiles.  

[LFC]

Apr 19, 2022 17:15:30 GMT pnwguy said:

Some savvy folks need to start the rumor that his PAC money goes to LGBTQ causes, illegal immigrants, Muslims, and pedophiles.  

Not abortions for porn stars? Yeah, right. The "Christians" wouldn't even look twice at that.

[AnBr]

Apr 19, 2022 17:15:30 GMT pnwguy said:

Some savvy folks need to start the rumor that his PAC money goes to LGBTQ causes, illegal immigrants, Muslims, and pedophiles.  

They might like the part about pedophiles.

[LFC]

Apr 19, 2022 21:23:52 GMT AnBr said:

Apr 19, 2022 17:15:30 GMT pnwguy said:

Some savvy folks need to start the rumor that his PAC money goes to LGBTQ causes, illegal immigrants, Muslims, and pedophiles.  

They might like the part about pedophiles.

A lot of them seem to interpret the Bible verse "spare the rod, spoil the child" a LOT differently than I'm pretty sure it was meant.

[goldenvalley]

I swore off of reading any more books about Trump's Administration but based on excerpts in The Hill I may have to read This Will Not Pass.

In the aftermath of devastating storms that knocked out power to tens of thousands of people in Connecticut in August 2020, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) called the White House seeking federal help. Hours later, then-President Trump called back.

“There’s something you want to ask me about FEMA?” Trump said, according to Lamont’s recollection. “Well, ask me nicely.”

In a call with governors after nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, Trump demanded they crack down to restore order in their states. His rant was so unhinged that Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) called her husband into the room to listen in, the book said.

“You can’t make this shit up,” Brown told her husband.

Across the country, Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) called a security guard into the room to listen in on the same call.

“You gotta sit here and listen to this because I think the president of the United States is having a nervous breakdown or something, and it’s scary,” Mills recalled telling the guard, according to the book.

[goldenvalley]

Roger Stone remains crazy and he's found a new way to express it.  I wonder if he'll get the Richard Nixon tattoo altered to look like Jesus.

Stone—who was convicted by a jury on seven counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction in relation to special counsel Robert Muller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election—claims to have become a dedicated Christian because God used Trump to pardon him for his crimes. In this capacity, Stone claims to have developed a new appreciation for the importance of waging “spiritual warfare” through prayer.

Stone asserted that a friend had sent him photos showing a “satanic portal” appearing over the White House after President Joe Biden took office, and so he reached out to conspiracy theorist and “prophet” Robin Bullock to arrange an appearance on “Elijah Streams” so he could share the startling news and photos.

“We who believe, we can close the portal, but we can only close it through prayer,” Stone declared. “Massive prayer, millions of Christians praying to close the portal.”

“It’s like a swirling cauldron,” Stone said of the portal. “I’ve tried to find some natural explanation: a reflection or an aerostat balloon for weather. No. I sent a personal friend down there—he thought I was crazy—I said, ‘Do me a favor, go down there, use a regular digital camera and see what you see.'”

At that point, the images were displayed on screen.

“There you can see it,” Stone proclaimed. “It’s very, very clear. It doesn’t move, day or night. It’s harder to see during the day, but you see it at night. And I’m absolutely convinced about the inherent evil of what’s going on in the White House, what’s going on in the country, and I think it’s imperative that people know about this, that people of good faith and Christians know about this, and we begin a national, essentially a prayer assault to close the portal.”

“We were born for this moment,” Stone continued. “I’ve been preparing for this moment for my entire life without even knowing it. I just thought I was a political warrior. But this is no longer a war in the political realm, and I do know how it comes out because I know how the Bible comes out. I don’t know exactly what the plan is, but I do know that closing this portal is crucial to victory. I want others to talk about it. I want others to see it. … This is not some practical joke. This isn’t some conspiracy theory. I’m absolutely convinced that this is demonic. It is a satanic portal. It is access to this Earth by those who are evil, and only by closing it will we be successful in saving this nation under God

Click on the link to see the portal.  

[andydp]

Moving along, nothing to infer here...

'Trump Gave Us Those Four Years'—Russian TV Analyst Touts Ex-President

An analyst on Russia's state-run television gave a big thank-you to former President Donald Trump, contending that he had upended a decade-long plan supported by President Joe Biden to oust President Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin.

<SNIP>

Although Trump has criticized Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he described the Russian president as a "genius" and "smart" just before it began at the end of February. The former president's remarks, as well as those of right-wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Trump's former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking favorably of Putin have been utilized as propaganda on Russian state TV.

In late March, Russian state TV host Evgeny Popov said that Biden should be removed from office and replaced by Trump, whom he described as a "partner" for Moscow.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-gave-us-those-four-years-russian-tv-analyst-touts-ex-president/ar-AAWON7T?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=b2b0a6ab1cd54a05adc39aad0583f94c&fbclid=IwAR0C-A6_GmWnq_nOUqm2__kSadP9E2e5q0TGdH7yugysOtKVoBKC0dOlOvs

[LFC]

More on how "The Wall" didn't work. Interactive graphs at the link show that it didn't slow anything down.

After a temporary lull in migration during the early part of the pandemic, that very month (October 2020) saw a significant jump in both known successful entries (what the Border Patrol calls “gotaways”), as well as arrests to levels as high as before the pandemic, and the numbers kept rising. Even before Biden assumed office, the Border Patrol was making more arrests and witnessing far more successful crossings after the wall went up than most months before the Trump wall. Figure 1 displays the extent of the available data for known successful entries as well as apprehensions.

Figure 2 focuses specifically on the known successful illegal entries. These refer only to crossers that the Border Patrol believes evaded capture and entered the country. The actual number of successful crossings is naturally higher, but witnessed successful crossings track estimates of total successful crossings based on models that focus on known facts (like recidivism of those who are captured and sent back). In any case, May 2021 saw the most identified illegal crossings in a month since April 2007. This was the eighth highest monthly figure on record. The Trump wall has not stopped immigrants from coming illegally, nor has it stopped them from successfully entering illegally.

Trump may claim that the border wall failed because it was not completed. Not only is that false, his own administration claimed that the wall was the reason that crossings temporarily declined in 2020. In January 2021, just before Biden took office, he said:

I kept my promises. And today we celebrate an extraordinary milestone: the completion of the promised 450 miles of border wall. … You have some areas that are virtually impossible to get by. So we didn’t need walls everywhere, but… in every region that we’ve built the wall, illegal crossings and drug smuggling have plummeted. … One of the big elements of the wall that make it so successful is we can have far fewer people working.

So Trump believed the wall was working too, and that it wasn’t needed everywhere. Regardless, if his $15 billion, 455‐​mile border wall can be defeated by any small gap anywhere in it, it just goes to show the absurdity of the whole project because gaps can and are being made on a near‐​daily basis.

[andydp]

As we all have surmised, Pres Trump's "handlers" don't want him anywhere near a stenographer.  Like the philosophers tell us, once you say it, you can't take it back.  I really feel sad for the people at The Onion, who can't come up with anything this bananas. (<Note how I stuck a fruit metaphor in.)


'Wholly inappropriate': Trump lawyers scrambled to remove some of his deposition answers from lawsuit

According to a report from the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, attorneys for former President Donald Trump frantically attempted to some answers the former president made in a deposition removed from a court filing because they felt his own wordswould be "prejudicial" to his defense.

In the deposition linked to a lawsuit accusing the former president of ordering security officials to rough up protesters at Trump Tower in 2015, Trump expressed his fears that his foes could hurl fruit at him, and described the projectiles as "very dangerous stuff."
According to the former president, the "dangerous stuff" encompassed "pineapples, tomatoes, bananas."

When pressed about tomatoes being thrown at him, Trump then responded, "It’s worse than tomato, it’s other things also. But tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it’s very dangerous. There was an alert out that day.” ***


www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/wholly-inappropriate-trump-lawyers-scrambled-to-remove-some-of-his-deposition-answers-from-lawsuit/ar-AAWSdTa?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=413cc12a02704268be6db218cf63ce77

***  Who could have guessed "APB" stands for "Avoid Projectile Bananas"