U.S. Politics megathread (merged)

[RobboM]

Ooooffft! 🙂
 

 

[Unknown user]

1 hour ago, RobboM said:

Ooooffft! 🙂
 

 

 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

Civil suit with no criminal penalties, but they have referred the information to the IRS and the Justice Department for criminal followup.

 

Still

[Pans Jambo]

Hope Auld Joe tell Truss to feck aff wi her "trickle down" economics to her face!

[Watt-Zeefuik]

13 hours ago, Sharpie said:

 As a regular Fox viewer and as I have said in the past I do so based on the old saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I agree with your comments, the only thing I would say and its not based on anything I have seen at Fox  I don't think I could ever see myself putting Biden on a pedestal.My own opinion is that Biden is showing his age I do have some doubts about his abilities, but I think he has enough competent support to get the job done. I would though suggest if not his VP that they start to introduce whomever they see as their candidate for the next Presidential election soon. Trump is making lots of noise, but and as an elderly person I think I can say returning Trump to the Presidency would be replacing one old past it politician with another old but has never really been a politician Trump

 

Everything depends on the outcome of the midterms. If the Democrats manage to increase their majorities and pass the rest of Biden's agenda as well as strong voting rights provisions, as well as keeping Republicans from sabotaging investigations into Trump, I think he might walk as a one-term President.

 

The problem is that I think a lot of Democrats hoped Harris would show herself to be the heir apparent, and she's really floundered. The most graceful exit she could manage at this point would be if California governor Gavin Newsome ran for President and she ran for Governor, which I think she would be fine at. But I have a hard time seeing the party rally around her without a fight.

 

Beyond her there's a lot of very good options but no one's a slam dunk. If Stacey Abrams had won in 2018 she'd be the frontrunner, but even if she wins this year, she'll have just stepped in as Governor when the campaign starts. Sherrod Brown from Ohio would make most of the party happy, I think, but clearing the decks for him is going to be tough.

[JFK-1]

I now feel they are looking to financially ruin Trump as well as can him. 

[JFK-1]

Trump Could Now Lose Everything Including His Freedom

 

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell analyzes the latest loss Donald Trump has faced in the Justice Department’s classified documents investigation and explains why the worst two days in Donald Trump’s life are the day he lost the 2020 election and today in light of that court decision and the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

 

 

 

[RobboM]

1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

Trump Could Now Lose Everything Including His Freedom

 

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell analyzes the latest loss Donald Trump has faced in the Justice Department’s classified documents investigation and explains why the worst two days in Donald Trump’s life are the day he lost the 2020 election and today in light of that court decision and the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

 

 

 

Enjoyed that! 🙂

Here's the money shot from Trump's Fox interview 😂
 

 

[Unknown user]

4 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

I now feel they are looking to financially ruin Trump as well as can him. 

Ruin the clan, stop any ideas of dynasty.

[JFK-1]

49 minutes ago, RobboM said:

Enjoyed that! 🙂

Here's the money shot from Trump's Fox interview 😂
 

 

 

In my view there should be some way to discipline this judge who appointed the special master while suggesting Trump should be above the law. It's absolutely ludicrous and a description given by legal experts nails it perfectly.

 

"untethered to the law, a work of legal fiction"

 

Suppose a surgeon carried out an operation that more qualified medical men all agreed was "untethered to medicine, a work of medical fiction"

 

That's akin to what this judge has done. She's like Trump, if she just thinks something then it becomes real. And something like that shouldn't trusted to sit on a bench.

[Mikey1874]

Not just Trump though it is aimed at just Trump.

 

[RobboM]

36 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said:

Not just Trump though it is aimed at just Trump.

 

I guess if you put them all in the same legal jeopardy all down to the one clown in charge it makes it more likely to get one of them to flip

[Unknown user]

2 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

In my view there should be some way to discipline this judge who appointed the special master while suggesting Trump should be above the law. It's absolutely ludicrous and a description given by legal experts nails it perfectly.

 

"untethered to the law, a work of legal fiction"

 

Suppose a surgeon carried out an operation that more qualified medical men all agreed was "untethered to medicine, a work of medical fiction"

 

That's akin to what this judge has done. She's like Trump, if she just thinks something then it becomes real. And something like that shouldn't trusted to sit on a bench.

 

Am I right in saying she's a lifetime appointee too?

[JFK-1]

41 minutes ago, RobboM said:

I guess if you put them all in the same legal jeopardy all down to the one clown in charge it makes it more likely to get one of them to flip

 

I feel Ivanka, apparently his favourite and sometimes inappropriately and creepily so, may ironically be the offspring to go belly up. This shit can result in hard jail time and I don't think Ivanka is up that. And if she's smart she should know he would sell her out in a heartbeat if it got him off the hook.

[JFK-1]

Just now, Smithee said:

 

Am I right in saying she's a lifetime appointee too?

 

To my knowledge yes, that's their system. But surely there has to be some sort of unfit to serve clause, there is for even Presidents which is the 25th amendment. This woman is so far detached from legal reality she's unfit to serve. 

[JFK-1]

Trump Progeny, Eric, Ivanka, Jr., Inextricably Tied To Trump Org And Its Legal Woes

 

Susanne Craig, New York Times investigative reporter, talks with Alex Wagner about the remarkable specificity and quantity of details in the New York Attorney General's lawsuit against Donald Trump and his company, including his sons and daughter who help run the company.

 

 

 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

A federal judge can be impeached, but it's almost never done. That said, there's an internal status among judges about how it's received at the appellate level.

 

The preliminary review yesterday from the appellate court that unanimously temporarily blocked her ruling was . . . not kind.

 

 

[Maple Leaf]

To the surprise of no-one, it seems like Trump is a liar and a fraud as a business man.  His response, predictably, is to attack the Attorney General and ignore the allegations.

 

"“This investigation revealed that Donald Trump engaged in years of illegal conduct to inflate his net worth, to deceive banks and the people of the great state of New York,” James said at the news conference. “Claiming you have money that you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal. It’s the art of the steal.”

"James said her investigation uncovered potential criminal violations, including falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud, conspiracy and bank fraud. She said her office is referring those findings to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service."

 

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2022/09/21/new-york-attorney-general-sues-donald-trump-and-his-company-on-fraud-allegations.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=thestar_world

[JFK-1]

Trump must be amassing the longest rap sheet in history, he's putting mafia bosses in the shade. They only got Al Capone of tax evasion, Trump makes him look like a wannabe mobster in comparison. 

[JFK-1]

Ginni Thomas Agrees To Meet With The Jan. 6 Committee

 

After weeks of negotiations, Ginni Thomas, conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to speak with the Jan. 6 committee, a source close to the House panel said Wednesday. Emails, records and reporting indicate that Thomas was involved in the "fake electors" scheme, and was in touch with Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman about his strategies to overturn the 2020 election.

 

 

 

[JFK-1]

                               The Tipping Point of Stupid

 

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022, 7 AM ET

About the author: Mark Leibovich is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of Thank You for Your Servitude and This Town.

 

Donald trump has a knack for making his most committed apologists look like complete imbeciles—even if they are not complete imbeciles, though many of them are. This has been true for several years. But in recent weeks, Trump’s trickle-down idiocy has become a significant midterm-election issue for Republicans, and a drag on some of the party’s most vulnerable Senate candidates.

If you’re a candidate seeking a GOP nomination, Trump’s blessing can be a political wonder drug. But it comes with debilitating side effects.

 

These go beyond the standard debasements that Trump inflicts on his dependents (for instance, Trump boasting at a Youngstown, Ohio, rally on Saturday that J. D. Vance, who is running for Senate there, was “in love” with him and “kissing my ass, he wants my support so much”).

 

Assuming an acceptable Trumpian posture requires a determined self-lobotomy. In most states, it’s nearly impossible to pass yourself off as an election-denying January 6 truther and still be taken seriously by a majority of voters. Yet many candidates who clearly know better are doing exactly this.

 

You might be a media-slick, Ivy-bred brainiac like Vance or Dr. Mehmet Oz, and even admit backstage that you don’t really believe the asininity you’re spouting. As a general rule, though, discerning swing voters tend not to differentiate between fools and those who just play them on TV.

Not every Trump knockoff is faking it, of course. The former president has mainstreamed an authentic collection of cranks, bozos, and racists. The preponderance of safe, gerrymandered seats probably ensures continued employment in the House for the loony-tunes likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The trickier proposition for Republicans involves statewide elections in toss-up states—which is why someone like Greene would almost certainly never win, say, a Senate race in her home state of Georgia. (The actual Republican nominee, Herschel Walker, is himself bananas, but also something of a special case given that he was a University of Georgia football legend.)

 

While the primary successes of Trump’s protégés have saddled Republicans with, as Mitch McConnell put it, low “candidate quality”—people like Walker, Oz, and Blake Masters in Arizona—the former president has imposed a mental headwind against even the most seasoned GOP incumbents.

 

It is to their great disadvantage, at least with most college-educated voters, that remaining Trump-accredited requires shaving dozens of IQ points off an otherwise sound candidate’s brain.

 

I was contemplating this phenomenon the other day as I watched Senator Marco Rubio of Florida beclown himself in service to the man he used to openly loathe. As Trump’s opponent in 2016, Rubio was one of those ostentatiously saddened and troubled candidates who kept lamenting that Trump was turning that campaign into “a freak show.”

 

Before Rubio became a cast member in the freak show himself, he talked a lot about how dangerous Trump was, how he would not trust Trump with nuclear secrets if, God forbid, he were ever to become president. Perhaps he was worried about something like Trump stashing deeply classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago closets.

 

From the get-go, Republican officials have had to contort themselves in ridiculous ways to navigate Trump’s reality-distortion field. Sean Spicer became the paradigmatic example when the ill-fated White House press secretary spent his second day on the job vomiting his credibility into thin air by insisting—on orders from the new boss—that Trump had drawn a bigger inauguration crowd than Barack Obama had, despite clear visual evidence to the contrary.

We’ve gotten so used to the Trickle-Down-Idiocy Effect that it no longer engenders surprise, let alone outrage. It goes well beyond candidates having to perpetrate lies or offer preposterous explanations such as “storage issue,” “alternative facts,” “normal tourist visit,” and whatnot.

 

Trump’s reckless claims and behaviors have led his dependents into a minefield of topics that, in previous campaign cycles, would likely never have come up, let alone be so fraught.

Absent Trump, Republican candidates in 2022 would be able to focus on subjects that would be more favorable to them and their party, such as inflation, crime, and Biden’s unpopularity. Trump continuously muddles their efforts and requires them to dwell in the bizarre realm of his narcissistic delusions.

 

From Trump’s perspective—and therefore, much of the GOP’s perspective—that world never advanced beyond November 2020. He has done his best to ensure that the stolen-election myth has remained the most important issue in America.

Candidates are well accustomed to playing to the base for the primary and then pivoting to the center for the midterms. Savvy voters understand and tolerate this to a degree. But Trump has made finessing the gap far more complicated.

Dr. Oz, for instance, was recently asked whether he would have voted to certify Biden’s election if he had been in the Senate on January 6. He was never a full-on “it was rigged” guy, but he was always careful to be vague about it. “We cannot leave 2020 behind,” he said more than once during his primary campaign.

 

He was much more definitive this month, however, in response to the question about Biden’s certification. “I would not have objected to it,” Oz said. “By the time the delegates and those reports were sent to the U.S. Senate, our job was to approve it, which is what I would have done.”

By opting for the sky-is-blue answer, Oz took the risk of antagonizing Trump and his election-denying supporters. Was he smart to answer this way, or reckless? Did Trump—being Trump—place Oz in a no-win position where he would come off as either a kook or a traitor?

Oz received this question during a press conference in which he was endorsed by the Republican senator he was vying to replace, Pat Toomey. Again, in any rational political world, the backing of the retiring incumbent would be a straightforward plus.

 

But Toomey’s name has become pure sewage in Trump World over his vote to convict the former president in his second impeachment trial. Trump was reportedly not pleased by Oz’s certification blasphemy or by his willingness to appear with Treasonous Toomey. But props to Oz for doing the bare minimum.

J.d. vance was no Trump fan at first; the Yale Law grad and Silicon Valley venture capitalist once likened the future president to “cultural heroin.” But since converting to MAGAism, Vance has proved a righteous acolyte. On the holy-grail issue of 2020, he has maintained that the election was stolen, sparing himself, at the very least, the embarrassment of whiplash.

 

Vance can be cavalier at times, taking stupid much too far. Back in February, he appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast and declared, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”

I have no idea whether Vance really felt this way or was just engaging in performative indifference and isolationism in an effort to mimic the couch-potato parochialism of his patron (Trump) or the “flood the zone with shit” nihilism of his host (Bannon).

But Vance paid a price. His “I don’t care about Ukraine” grenade detonated in his own face when Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked invasion a few days later.

 

People in both parties rallied behind Ukraine, most notably in northeastern Ohio, home to one of the largest concentrations of Ukrainian Americans in the country. Vance later issued a cleanup statement in which described the Russian invasion as “unquestionably a tragedy.”

 

Like Rubio in Florida, Vance is vying to represent a GOP-trending state that Trump won twice, so he probably has a bigger cushion to absorb whatever pain his election lies cause him. He remains a slight favorite in his race against Democratic Representative Tim Ryan.

 

In a less Trump-hospitable state, Vance would have a much harder time. New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc became the latest toadying Trump endorsee to see his apparent faith rewarded, having won the state’s Republican nomination for Senate this month.

 

He spent more than a year as a loud and unrelenting election denier, but just 36 hours after winning the primary, he made a screeching 180. Bolduc, a retired Army general, said he had “come to the conclusion” that the vote “was not stolen” after all. “I’ve done a lot of research on this,” he claimed. (They always do a lot of research!)

 

Presumably, Bolduc was trying to make himself look like a reasonable general-election candidate, and not a total idiot.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/trump-apologists-republican-candidates-midterm-elections/671501/

 

 

[JFK-1]

Trump ex lawyer Michael Cohen says that the Trump organisation is finished. He said they have an estimated liability of minimum 750 million dollars and in the circumstances who would lend Trump a penny?

 

Even these crappy lawyers he hired insisted on 3 million dollars up front to represent him, they're not that stupid. The way Cohen is describing it anything Trump has is going to be sold out from under him and he plus the entire family will be broke.

 

I hope Melania is making off with anything valuable like jewels right now.

[Maple Leaf]

2 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

Ginni Thomas Agrees To Meet With The Jan. 6 Committee

 

After weeks of negotiations, Ginni Thomas, conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to speak with the Jan. 6 committee, a source close to the House panel said Wednesday. Emails, records and reporting indicate that Thomas was involved in the "fake electors" scheme, and was in touch with Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman about his strategies to overturn the 2020 election.

 

 

 

 

I posted a while back that if Clarence Thomas had a single molecule of integrity in his brain he would resign from the SCOTUS because of his wife's outrageous, outspoken and undeniable bias.  But he hasn't, so he won't.

 

He's one of the reasons that the SCOTUS has a dismal rating among the American public.

[JFK-1]

Michael Cohen has really sunk Trump in this one, Cohen submitted over 400 hours of testimony to various committees about Trumps activities.

 

‘Trump Family Was Running Fraud Business With A Real Estate Sideline’ Expert Alleges

 

New York Attorney General Letitia James has laid out a massive fraud case against Donald Trump and three of his adult children, accusing them of years of tax cheating and fraud.

 

The lawsuit makes it clear that the family's claims of tremendous wealth were always a myth, which Trump himself destroyed by entering the world's biggest fishbowl, by becoming president of the United States. Joy Reid and her panel bring their expert analysis of these developments.

 

 

 

[JFK-1]

There are similarities between Trump and Robert Maxwell. Maybe Trump will jump off a yacht and Ivanka will end up pimping for some real billionaire.

[JFK-1]

What's unfunny about this is he's actually describing is what an extremist Republican party would do to law agencies in the country if they had power. They would put election denying crazies in charge of everything of any consequence. The lunatics really are trying to take over the asylum. Surely the sane majority will not let this happen.

 

 

 

 

 

[Horatio Caine]

10 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

What's unfunny about this is he's actually describing is what an extremist Republican party would do to law agencies in the country if they had power. They would put election denying crazies in charge of everything of any consequence. The lunatics really are trying to take over the asylum. Surely the sane majority will not let this happen.

 

This is what we thought before the 2016 election.  Surely they wouldn't be as insane as to elect Trump?  Insanity rules.

 

 

 

 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

On 22/09/2022 at 22:39, JFK-1 said:

 

I hope Melania is making off with anything valuable like jewels right now.

I hope she ends up, in tattered clothes and smeared cheap makeup, down in the pawn shop trying to hawk her jewels to afford a place to live as she tries desperately to avoid working for a living while Donald rots in prison.

[JFK-1]

3 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

I hope she ends up, in tattered clothes and smeared cheap makeup, down in the pawn shop trying to hawk her jewels to afford a place to live as she tries desperately to avoid working for a living while Donald rots in prison.

 

The guy examines her diamonds, says maam this is cubic zirconia, you were conned.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

18 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

The guy examines her diamonds, says maam this is cubic zirconia, you were conned.

If someone asks me if I feel bad for her facing utter financial ruin, my response:

 

[JFK-1]

6 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

If someone asks me if I feel bad for her facing utter financial ruin, my response:

 

 

Think I would rather see her turn super snitch if she knows anything. That would tear him up.

[JFK-1]

Michael Cohen: The Last Guy In Trump’s Ear Owns The Brain. Everybody…Wants To Be That Last Guy

 

At New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ press conference last Wednesday, she gave a shout-out to one person in particular for helping her department kickstart its investigation into the Trump Organization’s fraudulent business practices: Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

 

“The vast majority of [the lawsuit]….I had provided information on, early, early on,” he says. For over a decade, Cohen was smack dab in the middle of Trump’s inner circle, but now he’s spilling the beans. And he thinks the worst is yet to come for Trump.

 

“Let’s see if the Southern District of New York that’s no longer under his control will pick up the mantle,” Cohen tells Ali Velshi. “Numbers don’t lie. People do and Trump is one of the biggest liars you’ll ever meet.”

 

 

 

[Sooks]

On 23/09/2022 at 03:39, JFK-1 said:

Trump ex lawyer Michael Cohen says that the Trump organisation is finished. He said they have an estimated liability of minimum 750 million dollars and in the circumstances who would lend Trump a penny?

 

Even these crappy lawyers he hired insisted on 3 million dollars up front to represent him, they're not that stupid. The way Cohen is describing it anything Trump has is going to be sold out from under him and he plus the entire family will be broke.

 

I hope Melania is making off with anything valuable like jewels right now.

Hope fully is arse hole son can not afford to go shooting more endangered wild life afterwards 

[JFK-1]

Why Trump Could Start Running Out Of Lawyers

 

The Mar-a-Lago investigation is testing the loyalty of former President Trump’s attorneys, who are now required to back up his wild claims about declassification and the FBI in court.

 

“Trump puts his lawyers in precarious positions, but I don’t think he cares,” says former prosecutor Charles Coleman. He and New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich discuss the “very delicate line” Trump’s legal team is walking with the special master.

 

 

[JFK-1]

I think it's Karmic that it looks like Michael Cohen has been the key to putting Trump in jail. Multiple state criminal laws broken and even federal criminal laws in some instances.  All of which they have been guided to by Cohen.

 

Trump is sunk and I wonder if it's getting through the orange fog yet. And I predict he will try to mobilise another mob when they come for him.

 

Michael Cohen: ‘Do I Believe There Will Be Criminality For Donald? Absolutely.'

 

After New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against Donald Trump and his adult children, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen joins Katie Phang to discuss the case that he’s spent countless hours contributing to.

 

 

 

 

[JFK-1]

Trump Visibly Scared in Interview

 

I can see where this guy is coming from with that title, I had never seen this because I don't watch Fox. Trump is incoherently rambling utter nonsense, nothing new there for me. But what is new is that he's lost the bluster, I have never seen Trump so blusterless.

 

He's like a deflating orange balloon, even this complete moron has at last grasped the reality of what's coming his way. This has never happened to Trump in his life despite the fact he's been involved in an ocean of litigation.

 

He just blustered his way through all that, talking utter shite and buying his way out of some. And probably his entire working life been stiffing the the IRS, because his father before him did, he's the one who taught Trump.

 

His niece, Mary Trump wrote that her aunt, Trumps sister who was a federal judge, had been concerned when Trump became president. Her concern was, they're going to be all over his taxes, doubtless she knew he was tax scamming on a massive scale.

 

And possibly her greatest concern was her share of their inheritance from their father which was I think over 200 million to each sibling. And that no doubt was suspect too tax wise.

 

But anyway, I diverge, feast your eyes on the disintegration of Trump, he's shitting himself. There was a time all of us thought we would never see this waste of carbon dragged into the real world and humbled. It's coming and he now knows it.

 

 

[JFK-1]

January 6 committee technical adviser Denver Riggleman being interviewed by 60 minutes Australia. This guy says there was a phone call from the WH to a rioter during the riot on Jan 6th.

 

This thing was infinitely more coordinated than we have been told up to now. He's produced a graph of the many thousands of calls going on within the riot area.

 

The committee are pissed off with this guy for talking, he's even wrote a book about his work on the committee, and it may be the case he's revealing details they wanted to hold back till later.

 

 

[Mysterion]

15 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

January 6 committee technical adviser Denver Riggleman being interviewed by 60 minutes Australia. This guy says there was a phone call from the WH to a rioter during the riot on Jan 6th.

This was a genuinely interesting interview. Thanks for sharing.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

8 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

January 6 committee technical adviser Denver Riggleman being interviewed by 60 minutes Australia. This guy says there was a phone call from the WH to a rioter during the riot on Jan 6th.

 

This thing was infinitely more coordinated than we have been told up to now. He's produced a graph of the many thousands of calls going on within the riot area.

 

The committee are pissed off with this guy for talking, he's even wrote a book about his work on the committee, and it may be the case he's revealing details they wanted to hold back till later.

 

 

 

This guy is the former rep for Charlottesville, VA, where I went to graduate school. He may be stopped-clock right here, but he's an absolute joke of a figure. A mediocre businessman and camera-chasing attention-seeker, and a mince politician.

 

For a good laugh (although warning, you may not be able to un-see it even though you'll probably want to) google "denver riggleman bigfoot".

[JFK-1]

2 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

camera-chasing attention-seeker

 

I suppose that answers why he's doing this and pissing off the committee in the process. But the info appears genuine and damnibg.

[JFK-1]

Sounds like there's something off about this Alvin Bragg guy, New York county DA. I had never heard of him but one of the things they're discussing early on in this video is first briefly verifying Letitia James has Trump well and truly nailed. Then talking about this Bragg guy.

 

His office too had been investigating Trump but has been laying off prosecutors winding it down. The question is why?

 

Prosecutors who have been laid off from this investigation have all said that all of them agreed that not only did they have enough to indict Trump, they had enough for a guaranteed conviction.

 

As does Letitia James because she has all the same information they do. What's going on there?

 

Top prosecutor offers brutal news for Trump

 

Brian Tyler Cohen interviews Glenn Kirschner about the $250 million lawsuit against Trump from the NY Attorney General, his failed gamble with the special master, and even what punishments Ron DeSantis could face from his migrant stunt.

 

 

 

 

[JFK-1]

Seth takes a closer look at Vladimir Putin once again threatening the world with nuclear weapons in Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, which prompted Donald Trump to say something totally insane and incoherent.

 

 

[JFK-1]

15 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

 

This guy is the former rep for Charlottesville, VA, where I went to graduate school. He may be stopped-clock right here, but he's an absolute joke of a figure. A mediocre businessman and camera-chasing attention-seeker, and a mince politician.

 

For a good laugh (although warning, you may not be able to un-see it even though you'll probably want to) google "denver riggleman bigfoot".

 

This goes into some detail about his background.

 

 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

The dirty side deal that Schumer agreed to attach to the emergency budget bill in order to get Joe Manchin's vote on the IRA climate and inflation bill is dead.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/government-shutdown-senate-vote-funding-bill

 

Ironically, Manchin expected it to pass with Republican votes as the measure would flatten environmental protections for fossil fuel projects. But because the deal was part of Manchin, whose family owns multiple coal processing businesses, agreeing to the IRA and thereby giving Biden a big win, Republicans are in a snit about it and refused to support it.

 

Saul Alinsky said that people do the right thing for the wrong reasons. The GOP did the right thing today for really stupid reasons. In any case, this is huge. The Mountain Valley Pipeline and a bunch of Gulf of Mexico oil projects would have been effectively approved by Congressional fiat. Instead the MVP is now on life support and with any luck will get scrapped sooner rather than later.

[JFK-1]

Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen weighs in on New York Attorney General Tish James’s sweeping new civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and explains why he believes criminal prosecutions against Trump and the Trump family are coming soon.

 

Michael Cohen On Deadline White House – Part 1

 

 

 

Michael Cohen tells Nicolle Wallace what else he believes Donald Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago and why Donald Junior and Ivanka have never faced this much legal jeopardy. Cohen also weighs in on the strange and sudden resignation of two top veteran prosecutors from the Manhattan DA Office’s investigation into Donald Trump.

 

Michael Cohen On Deadline White House – Part 2

 

 

 

[JFK-1]

I commend Michael Cohen for what he has done, he's going to be a notable figure when the history of the Trump nemesis is written. And I did say commend, I don't think he should be eulogised.

 

Keep in mind his book is called 'Revenge' not repentance. Would he have been so frank with the authorities if Trump had not made threats about indicting his wife and had him thrown in jail?

 

And while that was malicious it's a drop in the ocean in comparison to Trumps crimes. An irrelevance in the big picture to anybody but Michael Cohen.

 

Would Cohen have remained working for Trump if that hadn't happened? I suspect he might.

[Mysterion]

28 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

Keep in mind his book is called 'Revenge' not repentance. Would he have been so frank with the authorities if Trump had not made threats about indicting his wife and had him thrown in jail?

 

Revenge is an examination about how Trump used the DoJ for revenge to attack his critics rather than about Cohen's taking revenge. 

 

The second part if your point is fair though. 

[JFK-1]

This is an interesting Mother Jones article describing how Trump managed to continue acquiring large loans after being shunned by all the big lenders following a string of unpaid debts and bankruptcies in the 1990's

 

The Scottish golf courses were part of a fabrication to massively overvalue assets. I expect all the journalists to have been poring over that 225 page indictment, that's where these details come from. 

 

“Grossly Inflated, Objectively False, and Therefore Fraudulent and Illegal”

 

Donald Trump has always blustered about his wealth. But the $250 million civil fraud lawsuit filed last week by New York’s attorney general paints a truly astonishing picture of the former president’s alleged financial exaggerations.

 

At his Park Avenue condo building, Trump valued 12 unsold units at $49 million—but they were actually rent-controlled apartments that were unavailable for sale on the market, so their real value was closer to $750,000, according to Letitia James, the state’s AG.

 

Trump figured the value of his Mar-a-Lago resort at around $739 million—perhaps a reasonable number for such a large piece of oceanfront property in Palm Beach if it could be sold as a residence and subdivided to build more homes.

 

But, James alleges, Trump knew very well from the deeds he himself had signed that the property can’t ever be divided up into residential lots. It’s arguably worth about one-tenth of what he told bankers, according to James.
 

Then there’s his Trump Tower penthouse, which Trump guesstimated was probably worth $327 million—after all, he pointed out to anyone who asked, it was over 30,000 square feet. Except, it wasn’t.

 

According to James, it was only 11,000 square feet, which Trump definitely knew because, as he told everyone, he designed the place himself. Also, only one apartment in New York had ever sold for more than $100 million.

Confronted with the Trump Tower discrepancies, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, conceded that the number might have been erroneous by “give or take $200 million.”

 

These are just a few of the stunning allegations in James’ lawsuit describing how Trump has goosed his numbers for years. After burning his reputation with most big lenders in the 1990s through a string of unpaid debts and corporate bankruptcies, Trump bounced back in the 2000s.

But the degree to which he was able to sweet talk lenders into fronting money for his projects left many scratching their heads; during his presidency, it fed conspiracy theories about foreign involvement in his finances.

A whole cottage industry sprung up trying to explain how Trump managed to lose so much money running his Scottish golf courses, yet continually valued them each year as being worth more and more money.

According to new details included in James’ suit, the answers were far more simple. Trump did it by just lying to the banks, using nonsensical methods to value the golf courses, and pretending certain things were true when they weren’t—like that the Scottish courses had the potential for thousands of vacation homes to be built on the surrounding land, or that rent-controlled apartments were actually not rent-controlled.

Once he had numbers that looked good, James says in her suit, Trump would go to banks and tell them what they needed to hear in order to secure a good loan.

 

In most cases, James argues, when Trump couldn’t get a loan he wanted, he would offer his good name and his personal wealth to back the deal with a personal guarantee. Any skepticism about that good name and wealth would be papered over by providing financial statements that simply weren’t accurate. 

 

 

The complaint details, for example, how the Trumps routinely approached German banking giant Deutsche Bank’s commercial loan office and were given less-than-favorable loan offers. They would then turn around and make the same requests to the bank’s private wealth management office, a separate division that caters to high-net-worth individuals, which said it would be willing to offer much better terms if Trump promised to personally guarantee the loans.

 

And, as proof that he would indeed be good for the loans that he was guaranteeing, Deutsche’s private wealth office asked for detailed and honest statements of Trump’s personal finances. Those financial statements were deliberately constructed in fraudulent ways, James alleges, to suggest that Trump was far wealthier than he really was, that his businesses were worth far more than they really were, and that they were far more profitable.

 

The Trumps have protested that James’ lawsuit targets them over things that are standard practice, and that no banks actually were hurt by any misrepresentations. But at a press conference last week, James said the way the family operated was not something that would be acceptable on any other level.

 

“Everyday people can’t lie to a bank about how much money they have,” James said. “And if they did the government would throw the book at them, why should this be any different? This is a tale of two justice systems—one for everyday working people and one for the elite, the rich and the powerful.”

 

According to James, nearly all of the loans that Trump got to finance his highest-profile projects—his Doral golf course in Florida, his Chicago hotel and tower, Trump Tower, the 40 Wall Street office building in New York City—were secured with the aid of these financial statements.

 

The accounting firms that worked for Trump didn’t actually audit any of the data in those statements—they essentially just compiled it and stamped the reports with their name.

 

All of the information came from the Trump Organization itself, and Trump was supposed to certify it as accurate. In some cases, James says, the Trumps falsely told lenders that a valuation had been developed by an independent entity.

 

In 2011, when Trump wanted to purchase the Doral Resort—a famous but aging course outside Miami—his first approach to Deutsche Bank did not go well.

 

According to James, after talking to the CEO of Deutsche’s securities division about a loan, a banker inside the firm’s commercial real estate division wrote that the resort was “a tough asset and our initial reaction was not enthusiastic.”

 

Still, a few days later, Deutsche’s commercial real estate division offered Trump a $130 million loan—with a minimum interest rate of 10 percent.

 

The commercial bankers at Deutsche apparently didn’t think much of Trump’s plans, and they wanted a lot of money to make up for what they saw as a big risk.

 

The Trumps didn’t accept that loan, but a few weeks later, Trump and Ivanka Trump met with Rosemary Vrablic, who ran a separate section of Deutsche—the private banking division. This part of the bank was generally more willing to play ball with rich clients, but it all depended on whether they had sufficient wealth to cover their loans.

This time when Trump asked for a loan, James says, Vrablic offered him one with a far lower interest rate, which at the time was between 2 and 3 percent. The catch was Trump needed to personally guarantee the whole loan—meaning if he couldn’t make payments, Deutsche could come after his personal assets, not just Doral.

To make sure Trump owned enough collateral, he had to certify his own net worth by providing copies of his statement of financial condition.

 

And, the agreement said, he had to continue providing such statements annually so the bank could be assured that he had a net worth of at least $2.5 billion and at least $50 million in liquid assets.

James does not say whether Trump was able to maintain that minimum net worth, but she does include emails from executives at the Trump Organization talking about how worried they were about the terms of the deal.
 

After advising Ivanka Trump that he was concerned it was too risky for Trump to guarantee the whole loan, longtime Trump Organization attorney Jason Greenblatt added, “Also, the net worth covenants and DJT indebtedness limitations would seem to be a problem?”
 

According to James’ lawsuit, Ivanka responded that this was the only way the Trumps could get the money they needed.
 

“We wanted to get a great rate and the only way to get proceeds/term and principle where we want to get them is to guarantee the deal,” she responded.
 

James cites internal Deutsche Bank records showing that it was the bankers’ evaluation of Trump’s financial statements that persuaded them to accept the future president’s personal guarantee.
 

As with Doral, James says Trump approached Deutsche Bank’s commercial bank in 2013 looking for a loan to pay for the overhaul and reopening of Washington DC’s iconic Old Post Office building as a luxury hotel. 

 

The commercial division once again agreed to loan him the money, but only at a middling interest rate. Again, the private bank stepped in—on the condition that he provide annual financial statements to prove his net worth, Trump was able to get a much lower interest rate.

In Chicago, a similar scenario played out in 2012 when Trump sought to refinance an existing loan from Deutsche’s commercial bank. That division offered to refinance the debt at an interest rate that would be 8 percent above the LIBOR rate (a reference number often used to set interest rates).

But the private bank offered to refinance the loan at 4 percent above the LIBOR rate—if he provided his personal guarantee, based on his financial statements.
 

James says that from 2011 to 2021, Trump sent financial statements to Deutsche annually, certifying his financial health. Thanks to this arrangement, Trump saved anywhere from $85 million and $150 million. James alleges that all of those financial statements were incorrect—and that the Trumps knew it. 

 

The Trumps have denied that they did anything wrong—or anything that the rest of the industry does not do on a regular basis.

 

At her press conference, James said this can’t be true because the degree to which the financial statements were distorted was too big, and the representations too obviously based on bad numbers.

“This conduct can not be dismissed as some sort of good faith mistake,” she said. “The statements of financial condition were grossly inflated, objectively false, and therefore fraudulent and illegal.”

The schemes James alleges are wide-ranging. According to the attorney general, Trump claimed that he had plots of land available north of New York City, ready to develop into fancy mansions that he could sell for tens of millions of dollars apiece—while simultaneously claiming that he had agreed not to develop the land and keep it as green space in exchange for tax breaks.

 

From 2014 to 2018, according to the suit, Trump based the value of retail space he controlled on numbers he said were provided by outside professional—but there was no outside professional.

 

Trump’s approach to golf courses appeared even more arbitrary. He has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into purchasing and developing a network of courses, but the properties have not all been particularly profitable.

 

That’s not too unusual—the business of running a golf course isn’t as lucrative as developing the housing around a golf course, which is generally what Trump has intended to do with his most prominent courses.

 

When it came to valuing the courses, James says she has evidence that Trump was told by outside consultants to use a method that focused on how much money the courses actually made.

 

In the case of his Scottish courses, which have never, ever come close to turning a profit, he declined to take the advice.

 

Instead, Trump used a valuation method that took into account how much money he had sunk into developing the courses. But as devoted as he was to using this method to compile the annual financial statements he used to get loans from banks, he did a 180-degree turn when it was time to pay taxes.

 

In fact, James says, Trump’s attorneys argued strongly to the IRS in 2012 and on other occasions that the only fair way to value the courses was to consider how much money they did—or didn’t—make. 

 

Like with his golf course outside of New York City, Trump told banks that his Scottish golf courses had huge development potential. Trump estimated that his Aberdeen resort was reasonably valued at $327 million—thanks largely to his ability to develop 2,500 homes alongside the course he had built there.

 

But, in reality, Trump had only gotten planning permission to build 1,500 homes, not all of them for year-round use as homes. None of those homes have actually been sold in the more than a decade that Trump has owned the property.

 

In 2020, a local reporter told Mother Jones he couldn’t figure out why anyone would spend the sums Trump was bragging the homes would be worth—the location on the stormy North Sea coast of northeastern Scotland isn’t the most likely place to build a resort community:

 

In a statement on the day James announced her suit, the Trump Organization dismissed it as a politically motivated stunt.

 

“While the job of the Attorney General is to protect the interests of the public, today’s filing, for the first time in the history of the Attorney General’s office, seeks to protect the interests of large, sophisticated Wall Street banks,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

 

“However, not only was no bank harmed—actually, they profited handsomely—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in interest and fees—and never once took issue with any of the loans in question—all of which are either current or have been paid off (in many cases early).”

 

Since James began investigating the Trumps, several of the loans she was looking at have indeed been paid off—either outright in the case of the Old Post Office hotel, which Trump recently sold; or refinanced, in the case of Trump Tower.

 

Trump doesn’t appear to have ever missed payments on any of the loans that James investigated. But, James says, that doesn’t mean he didn’t improperly benefit by getting a lower interest rate, and paying less over the years, by using a personal guarantee that really wasn’t what it seemed.

 

James’ lawsuit doesn’t just detail how she says the Trumps faked their numbers to help get business benefits they didn’t deserve. She says they went out of their way to conceal it. 

 

“I want to be clear, white collar financial crime is not a victimless crime,” she said at her presser. “When the well-connected break the law to take in more money than they are entitled to, it reduces resources to working people, regular people, small businesses and all tax payers.”

 

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/letitia-james-trump-lawsuit/

[JFK-1]

A closer look at damning new documentary footage of key Trump ally Roger Stone discussing plans for a violent coup to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 committee debating some of its biggest unanswered questions including whether to subpoena Mike Pence or Trump himself.

 

 

[RobboM]

3 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

This is an interesting Mother Jones article describing how Trump managed to continue acquiring large loans after being shunned by all the big lenders following a string of unpaid debts and bankruptcies in the 1990's

 

The Scottish golf courses were part of a fabrication to massively overvalue assets. I expect all the journalists to have been poring over that 225 page indictment, that's where these details come from. 

 

“Grossly Inflated, Objectively False, and Therefore Fraudulent and Illegal”

 

Donald Trump has always blustered about his wealth. But the $250 million civil fraud lawsuit filed last week by New York’s attorney general paints a truly astonishing picture of the former president’s alleged financial exaggerations.

 

At his Park Avenue condo building, Trump valued 12 unsold units at $49 million—but they were actually rent-controlled apartments that were unavailable for sale on the market, so their real value was closer to $750,000, according to Letitia James, the state’s AG.

 

Trump figured the value of his Mar-a-Lago resort at around $739 million—perhaps a reasonable number for such a large piece of oceanfront property in Palm Beach if it could be sold as a residence and subdivided to build more homes.

 

But, James alleges, Trump knew very well from the deeds he himself had signed that the property can’t ever be divided up into residential lots. It’s arguably worth about one-tenth of what he told bankers, according to James.
 

Then there’s his Trump Tower penthouse, which Trump guesstimated was probably worth $327 million—after all, he pointed out to anyone who asked, it was over 30,000 square feet. Except, it wasn’t.

 

According to James, it was only 11,000 square feet, which Trump definitely knew because, as he told everyone, he designed the place himself. Also, only one apartment in New York had ever sold for more than $100 million.

Confronted with the Trump Tower discrepancies, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, conceded that the number might have been erroneous by “give or take $200 million.”

 

These are just a few of the stunning allegations in James’ lawsuit describing how Trump has goosed his numbers for years. After burning his reputation with most big lenders in the 1990s through a string of unpaid debts and corporate bankruptcies, Trump bounced back in the 2000s.

But the degree to which he was able to sweet talk lenders into fronting money for his projects left many scratching their heads; during his presidency, it fed conspiracy theories about foreign involvement in his finances.

A whole cottage industry sprung up trying to explain how Trump managed to lose so much money running his Scottish golf courses, yet continually valued them each year as being worth more and more money.

According to new details included in James’ suit, the answers were far more simple. Trump did it by just lying to the banks, using nonsensical methods to value the golf courses, and pretending certain things were true when they weren’t—like that the Scottish courses had the potential for thousands of vacation homes to be built on the surrounding land, or that rent-controlled apartments were actually not rent-controlled.

Once he had numbers that looked good, James says in her suit, Trump would go to banks and tell them what they needed to hear in order to secure a good loan.

 

In most cases, James argues, when Trump couldn’t get a loan he wanted, he would offer his good name and his personal wealth to back the deal with a personal guarantee. Any skepticism about that good name and wealth would be papered over by providing financial statements that simply weren’t accurate. 

 

 

The complaint details, for example, how the Trumps routinely approached German banking giant Deutsche Bank’s commercial loan office and were given less-than-favorable loan offers. They would then turn around and make the same requests to the bank’s private wealth management office, a separate division that caters to high-net-worth individuals, which said it would be willing to offer much better terms if Trump promised to personally guarantee the loans.

 

And, as proof that he would indeed be good for the loans that he was guaranteeing, Deutsche’s private wealth office asked for detailed and honest statements of Trump’s personal finances. Those financial statements were deliberately constructed in fraudulent ways, James alleges, to suggest that Trump was far wealthier than he really was, that his businesses were worth far more than they really were, and that they were far more profitable.

 

The Trumps have protested that James’ lawsuit targets them over things that are standard practice, and that no banks actually were hurt by any misrepresentations. But at a press conference last week, James said the way the family operated was not something that would be acceptable on any other level.

 

“Everyday people can’t lie to a bank about how much money they have,” James said. “And if they did the government would throw the book at them, why should this be any different? This is a tale of two justice systems—one for everyday working people and one for the elite, the rich and the powerful.”

 

According to James, nearly all of the loans that Trump got to finance his highest-profile projects—his Doral golf course in Florida, his Chicago hotel and tower, Trump Tower, the 40 Wall Street office building in New York City—were secured with the aid of these financial statements.

 

The accounting firms that worked for Trump didn’t actually audit any of the data in those statements—they essentially just compiled it and stamped the reports with their name.

 

All of the information came from the Trump Organization itself, and Trump was supposed to certify it as accurate. In some cases, James says, the Trumps falsely told lenders that a valuation had been developed by an independent entity.

 

In 2011, when Trump wanted to purchase the Doral Resort—a famous but aging course outside Miami—his first approach to Deutsche Bank did not go well.

 

According to James, after talking to the CEO of Deutsche’s securities division about a loan, a banker inside the firm’s commercial real estate division wrote that the resort was “a tough asset and our initial reaction was not enthusiastic.”

 

Still, a few days later, Deutsche’s commercial real estate division offered Trump a $130 million loan—with a minimum interest rate of 10 percent.

 

The commercial bankers at Deutsche apparently didn’t think much of Trump’s plans, and they wanted a lot of money to make up for what they saw as a big risk.

 

The Trumps didn’t accept that loan, but a few weeks later, Trump and Ivanka Trump met with Rosemary Vrablic, who ran a separate section of Deutsche—the private banking division. This part of the bank was generally more willing to play ball with rich clients, but it all depended on whether they had sufficient wealth to cover their loans.

This time when Trump asked for a loan, James says, Vrablic offered him one with a far lower interest rate, which at the time was between 2 and 3 percent. The catch was Trump needed to personally guarantee the whole loan—meaning if he couldn’t make payments, Deutsche could come after his personal assets, not just Doral.

To make sure Trump owned enough collateral, he had to certify his own net worth by providing copies of his statement of financial condition.

 

And, the agreement said, he had to continue providing such statements annually so the bank could be assured that he had a net worth of at least $2.5 billion and at least $50 million in liquid assets.

James does not say whether Trump was able to maintain that minimum net worth, but she does include emails from executives at the Trump Organization talking about how worried they were about the terms of the deal.
 

After advising Ivanka Trump that he was concerned it was too risky for Trump to guarantee the whole loan, longtime Trump Organization attorney Jason Greenblatt added, “Also, the net worth covenants and DJT indebtedness limitations would seem to be a problem?”
 

According to James’ lawsuit, Ivanka responded that this was the only way the Trumps could get the money they needed.
 

“We wanted to get a great rate and the only way to get proceeds/term and principle where we want to get them is to guarantee the deal,” she responded.
 

James cites internal Deutsche Bank records showing that it was the bankers’ evaluation of Trump’s financial statements that persuaded them to accept the future president’s personal guarantee.
 

As with Doral, James says Trump approached Deutsche Bank’s commercial bank in 2013 looking for a loan to pay for the overhaul and reopening of Washington DC’s iconic Old Post Office building as a luxury hotel. 

 

The commercial division once again agreed to loan him the money, but only at a middling interest rate. Again, the private bank stepped in—on the condition that he provide annual financial statements to prove his net worth, Trump was able to get a much lower interest rate.

In Chicago, a similar scenario played out in 2012 when Trump sought to refinance an existing loan from Deutsche’s commercial bank. That division offered to refinance the debt at an interest rate that would be 8 percent above the LIBOR rate (a reference number often used to set interest rates).

But the private bank offered to refinance the loan at 4 percent above the LIBOR rate—if he provided his personal guarantee, based on his financial statements.
 

James says that from 2011 to 2021, Trump sent financial statements to Deutsche annually, certifying his financial health. Thanks to this arrangement, Trump saved anywhere from $85 million and $150 million. James alleges that all of those financial statements were incorrect—and that the Trumps knew it. 

 

The Trumps have denied that they did anything wrong—or anything that the rest of the industry does not do on a regular basis.

 

At her press conference, James said this can’t be true because the degree to which the financial statements were distorted was too big, and the representations too obviously based on bad numbers.

“This conduct can not be dismissed as some sort of good faith mistake,” she said. “The statements of financial condition were grossly inflated, objectively false, and therefore fraudulent and illegal.”

The schemes James alleges are wide-ranging. According to the attorney general, Trump claimed that he had plots of land available north of New York City, ready to develop into fancy mansions that he could sell for tens of millions of dollars apiece—while simultaneously claiming that he had agreed not to develop the land and keep it as green space in exchange for tax breaks.

 

From 2014 to 2018, according to the suit, Trump based the value of retail space he controlled on numbers he said were provided by outside professional—but there was no outside professional.

 

Trump’s approach to golf courses appeared even more arbitrary. He has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into purchasing and developing a network of courses, but the properties have not all been particularly profitable.

 

That’s not too unusual—the business of running a golf course isn’t as lucrative as developing the housing around a golf course, which is generally what Trump has intended to do with his most prominent courses.

 

When it came to valuing the courses, James says she has evidence that Trump was told by outside consultants to use a method that focused on how much money the courses actually made.

 

In the case of his Scottish courses, which have never, ever come close to turning a profit, he declined to take the advice.

 

Instead, Trump used a valuation method that took into account how much money he had sunk into developing the courses. But as devoted as he was to using this method to compile the annual financial statements he used to get loans from banks, he did a 180-degree turn when it was time to pay taxes.

 

In fact, James says, Trump’s attorneys argued strongly to the IRS in 2012 and on other occasions that the only fair way to value the courses was to consider how much money they did—or didn’t—make. 

 

Like with his golf course outside of New York City, Trump told banks that his Scottish golf courses had huge development potential. Trump estimated that his Aberdeen resort was reasonably valued at $327 million—thanks largely to his ability to develop 2,500 homes alongside the course he had built there.

 

But, in reality, Trump had only gotten planning permission to build 1,500 homes, not all of them for year-round use as homes. None of those homes have actually been sold in the more than a decade that Trump has owned the property.

 

In 2020, a local reporter told Mother Jones he couldn’t figure out why anyone would spend the sums Trump was bragging the homes would be worth—the location on the stormy North Sea coast of northeastern Scotland isn’t the most likely place to build a resort community:

 

In a statement on the day James announced her suit, the Trump Organization dismissed it as a politically motivated stunt.

 

“While the job of the Attorney General is to protect the interests of the public, today’s filing, for the first time in the history of the Attorney General’s office, seeks to protect the interests of large, sophisticated Wall Street banks,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

 

“However, not only was no bank harmed—actually, they profited handsomely—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in interest and fees—and never once took issue with any of the loans in question—all of which are either current or have been paid off (in many cases early).”

 

Since James began investigating the Trumps, several of the loans she was looking at have indeed been paid off—either outright in the case of the Old Post Office hotel, which Trump recently sold; or refinanced, in the case of Trump Tower.

 

Trump doesn’t appear to have ever missed payments on any of the loans that James investigated. But, James says, that doesn’t mean he didn’t improperly benefit by getting a lower interest rate, and paying less over the years, by using a personal guarantee that really wasn’t what it seemed.

 

James’ lawsuit doesn’t just detail how she says the Trumps faked their numbers to help get business benefits they didn’t deserve. She says they went out of their way to conceal it. 

 

“I want to be clear, white collar financial crime is not a victimless crime,” she said at her presser. “When the well-connected break the law to take in more money than they are entitled to, it reduces resources to working people, regular people, small businesses and all tax payers.”

 

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/letitia-james-trump-lawsuit/

“If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.” John Maynard Keynes

As corrupt as Trump and organisation is it is incredible to me that the bankers and auditors have so little liability and will have pocketed huge fees, salaries and (topically here in UK) bankers bonuses on completing such an incompetent job.