'A serious risk of prosecution': Trump's PAC fundraising and spending questioned by legal experts

Tom Boggioni
August 02, 2021



Donald Trump (MSNBC)


According to a report from the Guardian, financial information released by political action committees (PACs) linked to Donald Trump are being scrutinized by critics and legal experts alike who see evidence that the former president may be engaged in fraud as he amasses millions of dollars.

As the Guardian's Peter Stone writes, Trump has "has built an arsenal of political committees and nonprofit groups, staffed with dozens of ex-administration officials and loyalists" who are now using his election loss to rake in millions for the purported reason of contesting his loss in the courts, yet there are few dollars being spent on lawyers and a lot of questions about what the money is being used for.

Focusing on Trump's "Save America" PAC, the report states, it "had raised a whopping $31.5m by year's end, but Save America spent nothing on legal expenses in this same period, according to public records. Run by Trump's 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Save America only spent $340,000 on fundraising expenses last year."

Additionally, Trump is now touting a lawsuit --and asking for donations to finance it -- against Facebook, Google and Twitter which experts claim looks like another fundraising "ploy" which is leading to even more questions.

According to Paul S. Ryan, vice-president of policy and litigation with Common Cause, "Donald Trump is a one-man scam Pac. Bait-and-switch is among his favorite fundraising tactics. This time he's got the unlimited dark money group America First Policy Institute in on the racket."

Adav Noti, a former associate general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, concurred, explaining, "The president deceived his donors. He asked them to give money so he could contest the election results, but then he spent their contributions to pay off unrelated debts," before adding, "That's dangerously close to fraud. If a regular charity – or an individual who didn't happen to be president of the United States – had raised tens of millions of dollars through that sort of deception, they would face a serious risk of prosecution."

With the Guardian's Stone writing, "Veteran campaign finance analysts say that the bevy of Trump-linked groups launched since his defeat raise new questions about his motives and political intentions," Sheila Krumholz, who leads the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics added, "Trump's aggressive fundraising, using a variety of committees and surrogates, raises questions about whether his continual hints at running in 2024 is primarily a ploy for donations. Trump may be more interested in fundraising than actually running, especially given how unprecedented his post-loss fundraising is."

You can read more here.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-donation-fraud/

 

As I have said many times Trump didn't drain the Swamp. He turned the Swamp into The Blob that spread and devoured everything it touched and left a stinking gutter crawling shit stain behind.

Secret IRS files reveal how much the ultrawealthy gained by shaping Trump’s 'Big Beautiful Tax Cut'

Justin Elliott, ProPublica

Robert Faturechi, ProPublica
August 11, 2021



Donald Trump and Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago (Photo: Screen capture)


In November 2017, with the administration of President Donald Trump rushing to get a massive tax overhaul through Congress, Sen. Ron Johnson stunned his colleagues by announcing he would vote “no."

Making the rounds on cable TV, the Wisconsin Republican became the first GOP senator to declare his opposition, spooking Senate leaders who were pushing to quickly pass the tax bill with their thin majority. “If they can pass it without me, let them," Johnson declared.

Johnson's demand was simple: In exchange for his vote, the bill must sweeten the tax break for a class of companies that are known as pass-throughs, since profits pass through to their owners. Johnson praised such companies as “engines of innovation." Behind the scenes, the senator pressed top Treasury Department officials on the issue, emails and the officials' calendars show.

Within two weeks, Johnson's ultimatum produced results. Trump personally called the senator to beg for his support, and the bill's authors fattened the tax cut for these businesses. Johnson flipped to a “yes" and claimed credit for the change. The bill passed.

The Trump administration championed the pass-through provision as tax relief for “small businesses."

Confidential tax records, however, reveal that Johnson's last-minute maneuver benefited two families more than almost any others in the country — both worth billions and both among the senator's biggest donors.

Dick and Liz Uihlein of packaging giant Uline, along with roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, together had contributed around $20 million to groups backing Johnson's 2016 reelection campaign.

The expanded tax break Johnson muscled through netted them $215 million in deductions in 2018 alone, drastically reducing the income they owed taxes on. At that rate, the cut could deliver more than half a billion in tax savings for Hendricks and the Uihleins over its eight-year life.

But the tax break did more than just give a lucrative, and legal, perk to Johnson's donors. In the first year after Trump signed the legislation, just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings, an analysis of confidential tax records shows. Republican and Democratic tycoons alike saw their tax bills chopped by tens of millions, among them: media magnate and former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg; the Bechtel family, owners of the engineering firm that bears their name; and the heirs of the late Houston pipeline billionaire Dan Duncan.

Usually the scale of the riches doled out by opaque tax legislation — and the beneficiaries — remain shielded from the public. But ProPublica has obtained a trove of IRS records covering thousands of the wealthiest Americans. The records have enabled reporters this year to explore the diverse menu of options the tax code affords the ultrawealthy to avoid paying taxes.

The drafting of the Trump law offers a unique opportunity to examine how the billionaire class is able to shape the code to its advantage, building in new ways to sidestep taxes.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the biggest rewrite of the code in decades and arguably the most consequential legislative achievement of the one-term president. Crafted largely in secret by a handful of Trump administration officials and members of Congress, the bill was rushed through the legislative process.

As draft language of the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers friendly to billionaires and their lobbyists were able to nip and tuck and stretch the bill to accommodate a variety of special groups. The flurry of midnight deals and last-minute insertions of language resulted in a vast redistribution of wealth into the pockets of a select set of families, siphoning away billions in tax revenue from the nation's coffers. This story is based on lobbying and campaign finance disclosures, Treasury Department emails and calendars obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and confidential tax records.

For those who benefited from the bill's modifications, the collective millions spent on campaign donations and lobbying were minuscule compared with locking in years of enormous tax savings.

A spokesperson for the Uihleins declined to comment. Representatives for Hendricks didn't respond to questions. In response to emailed questions, Johnson did not address whether he had discussed the expanded tax break with Hendricks or the Uihleins. Instead, he wrote in a statement that his advocacy was driven by his belief that the tax code “needs to be simplified and rationalized."

“My support for 'pass-through' entities — that represent over 90% of all businesses — was guided by the necessity to keep them competitive with C-corporations and had nothing to do with any donor or discussions with them," he wrote.

By the summer of 2017, it was clear that Trump's first major legislative initiative, to “repeal and replace" Obamacare, had gone up in flames, taking a marquee campaign promise with it. Looking for a win, the administration turned to tax reform.

“Getting closer and closer on the Tax Cut Bill. Shaping up even better than projected," Trump tweeted. “House and Senate working very hard and smart. End result will be not only important, but SPECIAL!"

At the top of the Republican wishlist was a deep tax cut for corporations. There was little doubt that such a cut would make it into the final legislation. But because of the complexity of the tax code, slashing the corporate tax rate doesn't actually affect most U.S. businesses.

Corporate taxes are paid by what are known in tax lingo as C corporations, which include large publicly traded firms like AT&T or Coca-Cola. Most businesses in the United States aren't C corporations, they're pass-throughs. The name comes from the fact that when one of these businesses makes money, the profits are not subject to corporate taxes. Instead, they “pass through" directly to the owners, who pay taxes on the profits on their personal returns. Unlike major shareholders in companies like Amazon, who can avoid taking income by not selling their stock, owners of successful pass-throughs typically can't avoid it.

Pass-throughs include the full gamut of American business, from small barbershops to law firms to, in the case of Uline, a packaging distributor with thousands of employees.

So alongside the corporate rate cut for the AT&Ts of the world, the Trump tax bill included a separate tax break for pass-through companies. For budgetary reasons, the tax break is not permanent, sunsetting after eight years.

Proponents touted it as boosting “small business" and “Main Street," and it's true that many small businesses got a modest tax break. But a recent study by Treasury economists found that the top 1% of Americans by income have reaped nearly 60% of the billions in tax savings created by the provision. And most of that amount went to the top 0.1%. That's because even though there are many small pass-through businesses, most of the pass-through profits in the country flow to the wealthy owners of a limited group of large companies.

Tax records show that in 2018, Bloomberg, whom Forbes ranks as the 20th wealthiest person in the world, got the largest known deduction from the new provision, slashing his tax bill by nearly $68 million. (When he briefly ran for president in 2020, Bloomberg's tax plan proposed ending the deduction, though his plan was generally friendlier to the wealthy than those of his rivals.) A spokesperson for Bloomberg declined to comment.

Johnson's intervention in November 2017 was designed to boost the bill's already generous tax break for pass-through companies. The bill had allowed for business owners to deduct up to 17.4% of their profits. Thanks to Johnson holding out, that figure was ultimately boosted to 20%.

That might seem like a small increase, but even a few extra percentage points can translate into tens of millions of dollars in extra deductions in one year alone for an ultrawealthy family.

The mechanics are complicated but, for the rich, it generally means that a business owner gets to keep an extra 7 cents on every dollar of profit. To understand the windfall, take the case of the Uihlein family.

Dick, the great-grandson of a beer magnate, and his wife, Liz, own and operate packaging giant Uline. The logo of the Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, firm is stamped on the bottom of countless paper bags. Uline produced nearly $1 billion in profits in 2018, according to ProPublica's analysis of tax records. Dick and Liz Uihlein, who own a majority of the company, reported more than $700 million in income that year. But they were able to slash what they owed the IRS with a $118 million deduction generated by the new tax break.

Liz Uihlein, who serves as president of Uline, has criticized high taxes in her company newsletter. The year before the tax overhaul, the couple gave generously to support Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. That same year, when Johnson faced long odds in his reelection bid against former Sen. Russ Feingold, the Uihleins gave more than $8 million to a series of political committees that blanketed the state with pro-Johnson and anti-Feingold ads. That blitz led the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to dub the Uihleins “the Koch brothers of Wisconsin politics."

Johnson's campaign also got a boost from Hendricks, Wisconsin's richest woman and owner of roofing wholesaler ABC Supply Co. The Beloit-based billionaire has publicly pushed for tax breaks and said she wants to stop the U.S. from becoming “a socialistic ideological nation."

Hendricks has said Johnson won her over after she grilled him at a brunch meeting six years earlier. She gave about $12 million to a pair of political committees, the Reform America Fund and the Freedom Partners Action Fund, that bought ads attacking Feingold.

In the first year of the pass-through tax break, Hendricks got a $97 million deduction on income of $502 million. By reducing the income she owed taxes on, that deduction saved her around $36 million.

Even after Johnson won the expansion of the pass-through break in late 2017, the final text of the tax overhaul wasn't settled. A congressional conference committee had to iron out the differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill.

Sometime during this process, eight words that had been in neither the House nor the Senate bill were inserted: “applied without regard to the words 'engineering, architecture.'"

With that wonky bit of legalese, Congress smiled on the Bechtel clan.

The Bechtels' engineering and construction company is one of the largest and most politically connected private firms in the country. With surgical precision, the new language guaranteed the Bechtels a massive tax cut. In previous versions of the bill, construction would have been given a tax break, but engineering was one of the industries excluded from the pass-through deduction for reasons that remain murky.

When the bill, with its eight added words, took effect in 2018, three great-great-grandchildren of the company's founder, CEO Brendan Bechtel and his siblings Darren and Katherine, together netted deductions of $111 million on $679 million in income, tax records show.

And that's just one generation of Bechtels. The heirs' father, Riley, also holds a piece of the firm, as does a group of nonfamily executives and board members. In all, Bechtel Corporation produced around $2.3 billion of profit in 2018 alone — the vast majority of which appears to be eligible for the 20% deduction.

Who wrote the phrase — and which lawmaker inserted it — has been a much-discussed mystery in the tax policy world. ProPublica found that a lobbyist who worked for both Bechtel and an industry trade group has claimed credit for the alteration.

In the months leading up to the bill's passage in 2017, Bechtel had executed a full-court press in Washington, meeting with Trump administration officials and spending more than $1 million lobbying on tax issues.

Marc Gerson, of the Washington law firm Miller & Chevalier, was paid to lobby on the tax bill by both Bechtel and the American Council of Engineering Companies, of which Bechtel is a member. At a presentation for the trade group's members a few weeks after Trump signed the bill into law, Gerson credited his efforts for the pass-through tax break, calling it a “major legislative victory for the engineering industry." Gerson did not respond to a request for comment.

Bechtel's push was part of a long history of lobbying for tax breaks by the company. Two decades ago, it even hired a former IRS commissioner as part of a successful bid to get “engineering and architectural services" included in one of President George W. Bush's tax cuts.

The company's lobbying on the Trump tax bill, and the tax break it received, highlight a paradox at the core of Bechtel: The family has for years showered money on anti-tax candidates even though, as The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has written, Bechtel “owed almost its entire existence to government patronage." Most famous for being one of the companies that built the Hoover Dam, in recent years it has bid on and won marquee federal projects. Among them: a healthy share of the billions spent by American taxpayers to rebuild Iraq after the war. The firm recently moved its longtime headquarters from San Francisco to Reston, Virginia, a hub for federal contractors just outside the Beltway.

A spokesperson for Bechtel Corporation didn't respond to questions about the company's lobbying. The spokesperson, as well as a representative of the family's investment office, didn't respond to requests to accept questions about the family's tax records.

Brendan Bechtel has emerged this year as a vocal critic of President Joe Biden's proposal to pay for new infrastructure with tax hikes.

“It's unfair to ask business to shoulder or cover all the additional costs of this public infrastructure investment," he said on a recent CNBC appearance.

As the landmark tax overhaul sped through the legislative process, other prosperous groups of business owners worried they would be left out. With the help of lobbyists, and sometimes after direct contact with lawmakers, they, too, were invited into what Trump dubbed his “big, beautiful tax cut."

Among the biggest winners during the final push were real estate developers.

The Senate bill included a formula that restricted the size of the new deduction based on how much a pass-through business paid in wages. Congressional Republicans framed the provision as rewarding businesses that create jobs. In effect, it meant a highly profitable business with few employees — like a real estate developer — wouldn't be able to benefit much from the break.

Developers weren't happy. Several marshaled lobbyists and prodded friendly lawmakers to turn things around.

At least two of them turned to Johnson.

“Dear Ron," Ted Kellner, a Wisconsin developer, and a colleague wrote in a letter to Johnson. “I'm concerned that the goal of a fair, efficient and growth oriented tax overhaul will not be achieved, especially for private real estate pass-through entities."

Johnson forwarded the letter from Kellner, a political donor of his, to top Republicans in the House and Senate: “All, Yesterday, I received this letter from very smart and successful businessmen in Milwaukee," adding that the legislation as it stood gave pass-throughs “widely disparate, grossly unfair" treatment.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, responded with a promise to do more: “Senator — I strongly agree we should continue to improve the pass-through provisions at every step. You are a great champion for this." Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but Treasury officials were copied on the email exchange. ProPublica obtained the exchange after suing the Treasury Department.

Kellner got his wish. In the final days of the legislative process, real estate investors were given a side door to access the full deduction. Language was added to the final legislation that allowed them to qualify if they had a large portfolio of buildings, even if they had small payrolls.

With that, some of the richest real estate developers in the country were welcomed into the fold.

The tax records obtained by ProPublica show that one of the top real estate industry winners was Donald Bren, sole owner of the Southern California-based Irvine Company and one of the wealthiest developers in the United States.

In 2018 alone, Bren personally enjoyed a deduction of $22 million because of the tax break. Bren's representatives did not respond to emails and calls from ProPublica.

His company had hired Wes Coulam, a prominent Washington lobbyist with Ernst & Young, to advocate for its interests as the bill was being hammered out. Before Coulam became a lobbyist, he worked on Capitol Hill as a tax policy adviser for Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Hatch, then the Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee, publicly took credit for the final draft of the new deduction, amid questions about the real estate carveout. Hatch's representatives did not respond to questions from ProPublica about how the carveout was added.

ProPublica's records show that other big real estate winners include Adam Portnoy, head of commercial real estate giant the RMR Group, who got a $14 million deduction in 2018. Donald Sterling, the real estate developer and disgraced former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, won an $11 million deduction. Representatives for Portnoy and Sterling did not respond to questions from ProPublica.

Another gift to the real estate industry in the bill was a tax deduction of up to 20% on dividends from real estate investment trusts, more commonly known as REITs. These companies are essentially bundles of various real estate assets, which investors can buy chunks of. REITs make money by collecting rent from tenants and interest from loans used to finance real estate deals.

The tax cut for these investment vehicles was pushed by both the Real Estate Roundtable, a trade group for the entire industry, and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts. The latter, a trade group specifically for REITs, spent more than $5 million lobbying in Washington the year the tax bill was drafted, more than it had in any year in its history.

Steven Roth, the founder of Vornado Realty Trust, a prominent REIT, is a regular donor to both groups' political committees.

Roth had close ties to the Trump administration, including advising on infrastructure and doing business with Jared Kushner's family. He became one of the biggest winners from the REIT provision in the Trump tax law.

Roth earned more than $27 million in REIT dividends in the two years after the bill passed, potentially allowing him a tax deduction of about $5 million, tax records show. Roth did not respond to requests for comment, and his representatives did not accept questions from ProPublica on his behalf.

Another carveout benefited investors of publicly traded pipeline businesses. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, added an amendment for them to the Senate version of the bill just before it was voted on.

Without his amendment, investors who made under a certain income would have received the deduction anyway, experts told ProPublica. But for higher-income investors, a slate of restrictions kicked in. In order to qualify, they would have needed the businesses they're invested in to pay out significant wages, and these oil and gas businesses, like real estate developers, typically do not.

Cornyn's amendment cleared the way.

The trade group for these companies and one of its top members, Enterprise Products Partners, a Houston-based natural gas and crude oil pipeline company, had both lobbied on the bill. Enterprise was founded by Dan Duncan, who died in 2010.

The Trump tax bill delivered a win to Duncan's heirs. ProPublica's data shows his four children, who own stakes in the company, together claimed more than $150 million in deductions in 2018 alone. The tax provision for “small businesses" had delivered a windfall to the family Forbes ranked as the 11th richest in the country.

In a statement, an Enterprise spokesperson wrote: “The Duncan family abides by all applicable tax laws and will not comment on individual tax returns, which are a private matter." Cornyn's office did not respond to questions about the senator's amendment.

The tax break is due to expire after 2025, and a gulf has opened in Congress about the future of the provision.

In July, Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., proposed legislation that would end the tax cut early for the ultrawealthy. In fact, anyone making over $500,000 per year would no longer get the deduction. But it would be extended to the business owners below that threshold who are currently excluded because of their industry. The bill would “make the policy more fair and less complex for middle-class business owners, while also raising billions for priorities like child care, education, and health care," Wyden said in a statement.

Meanwhile, dozens of trade groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, are pushing to make the pass-through tax cut permanent. This year, a bipartisan bill called the Main Street Tax Certainty Act was introduced in both houses of Congress to do just that.

One of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, pitched the legislation this way: “I am committed to delivering critical relief for our nation's small businesses and the communities they serve."


https://www.rawstory.com/trump-tax-cuts/

 

Rand Paul's wife bought stock in company that makes anti-COVID drug -- and he didn't report it for 16 months





Rand Paul (AFP)


On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that 16 months ago, the wife of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) bought stock in Gilead Sciences, the company behind a broad-spectrum antiviral called remdesivir that was used to treat COVID-19 before the vaccine was available — and Paul did not report it as required by law until now.

Members of Congress have 45 days to report stock purchases, which means that Paul has been in violation of stock disclosure rules for more than a year.

"The investment, but especially the delayed reporting of it, alarmed experts in corporate and securities law, who said it undermined trust in government and raised questions about whether Paul's family had profited from non-public information about the looming health emergency and plans by the U.S. government to combat it," writes Washington Post reporter Isaac Stanley-Becker. "Several senators sold large amounts of stocks in January or February of last year, prompting a handful of insider trading probes. Most of those investigations concluded last spring, according to notifications from the Justice Department to lawmakers under scrutiny."

Paul has repeatedly attacked the science of public health restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19. He has demanded Dr. Fauci, the nation's top adviser on the pandemic, answer conspiracy theories about "gain of function" experiments that allegedly engineered the virus on taxpayer dime. He has also claimed that people wearing masks are "science deniers," urged mass disobedience against the CDC, and this week got temporarily kicked off YouTube for spreading medical misinformation.

"Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, said the senator completed a reporting form for his wife's investment last year, but learned only recently, while preparing an annual disclosure, that the form had not been transmitted. He sought guidance from the Senate Ethics Committee, she said, and filed the supplemental report along with an annual disclosure Wednesday," said the report. "She also said Paul's wife, Kelley, who is an author and former communications consultant, lost money on the investment, which she made with her own earnings. The purchase was of between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in Gilead, which makes the antiviral drug known as remdesivir."

You can read more here.

https://www.rawstory.com/rand-paul-2654637219/

 

Money and lies: Your definitive guide to 21 legal cases and investigations now engulfing Trump and the family business

Alison Greene, DC Report @ Raw Story
August 12, 2021





Trump family facing cash crunch as lenders say they are wary of dealing with ousted president: WSJ. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Bookmark this article. It's your scorecard to the trials and tribulations of Donald J. Trump.

DCReport@RawStory has compiled a list of 21 legal cases, investigations and related matters now engulfing Trump, his family and their four-generation criminal enterprise, the Trump Organization.

The items range from the widely reported grand jury investigation by the Manhattan district attorney to an obscure $1 million dispute regarding a Chicago property tax refund, from the Congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to two defamation cases brought by women who claim Trump assaulted them.

What you read here is based on our own reporting as well as the ongoing Trump Litigation Tracker maintained by the online forum Just Security at New York University School of Law. We have also relied on the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, which has created a central database of court records related to the events of the Jan. 6. Capitol Insurrection.

We believe our list is complete, but we invite anyone with knowledge of other pending or ongoing legal matters to alert us.

Our takeaway? In reviewing his legal battles, we noticed two common themes: Money and Lies. Trump's penchant for lying, particularly his pattern of lying about his finances and the election is coming back to bite him legally.

Throughout Trump's presidency the phrase "No one is above the law," was heard frequently. But other than a record-setting two impeachments, Trump has effectively evaded legal consequences. So far. That's changing. Now that Trump is a private citizen, these lawsuits and investigations will determine whether he will be held accountable for his illegal conduct and sedition.

The Money
1. Manhattan DA's Criminal Investigations into Trump's Finances

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. has been investigating Trump, the Trump Organization, and its officers since at least 2018. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, and the former daughter-in-law of Trump's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, are both known to be cooperating with the DA's office and a grand jury is well underway. Court filings and witnesses have indicated that one of the main components of the DA's investigation is whether the former president and his company falsely inflated the value of their properties for banks and insurers and then undervalued the properties for tax purposes. Both the grand jury and Cy Vance's tenure are set to expire in November so we expect announcements, not to mention indictments, before then.

2. New York Attorney General's Civil and Criminal Investigations

In a similar vein to the Manhattan DA's office, New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating Trump for altering property values to avoid taxes. Although the case started as a civil case, James announced in May that the case had expanded to a criminal investigation.

3. D.C. Civil Suit over Misuse of 2017 Inauguration Funds

For the 2017 inauguration, Trump raised a staggering and record-setting $107 million. The civil suit alleges that Trump used various schemes to siphon money from that inauguration fund and direct it to the Trump businesses. In one example Trump's inaugural committee allegedly paid $175,000 for event space at Trump's own Washington hotel. That same day that same space was rented to a nonprofit for $5,000—in line with the hotel's standard pricing guidelines. The suit alleges that the Trump nonprofit was used to enrich Trump's personal businesses.

4. Mary Trump Fraud Litigation

Michael Cohen once told Congress that in his experience "Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes." In niece Mary Trump's case, however, the daughter of his dead brother Fred Trump Jr. alleges that Trump devalued the family assets in order to defraud her out of tens of millions of her grandfather's inheritance. Mary Trump—a psychologist and author of the bestselling Too Much and Never Enough—alleges that her aunt and uncles presented her with fraudulent valuations to hide the real value of the estate, thereby keeping tens of millions for themselves.

5. Panama Hotel Fraud and Tax Litigation

Ithaca Capital, a real estate holding company, alleges that it purchased a majority share of the Trump Hotel in Panama based on false and misleading information. Ithaca claims that Trump's company misrepresented the hotel as profitable and artificially deflated the expenses. The company alleges that the Trump Organization failed to report or fully pay social security withholdings for hotel employees or pay income taxes to the Panama government. Additionally, Trump's management company paid itself more than what was listed on the financial statements all while the hotel sat virtually empty and went uncleaned for years.

6. Doe vs. The Trump Corporation Class Action

In a class-action suit filed in 2018 by the New York law firm of Kaplan, Hecker & Fink, the plaintiffs allege that from 2005 to 2015 Donald, Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric Trump used the Trump brand to promote and endorse various "Secrets of His Success"-style seminars, business opportunities and training programs through companies he claimed were "independent" of him. The suit alleges that the Trump family allowed these companies to use his brand name and endorsements to defraud thousands of struggling Americans who invested in a range of exorbitantly priced offerings from these companies, knowing that their likelihood of success was minuscule. The family was paid millions by the companies, the suit claims.

7. Chicago State's Attorney Blocks a $1 Million Tax Refund

The Cook County State's Attorney Kimberly Foxx has filed a suit to block a $1 million property tax refund awarded in June by the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board. The board found that the Cook County Board of Review had overestimated the value of Trump's Chicago skyscraper and overcharged his firm in 2011. The refund has been controversial after an initial investigation was undertaken in 2020 due to allegations that a Republican state official who was the Executive Director of the Property Tax Appeal Board pressured his staff to reduce the value of the tax bill to try and obtain the $1 million refund for Trump. That state official was let go in October 2020 and the vote was delayed until after Trump left office but it still passed unanimously in favor of Trump.

The Lies

8. Atlanta Criminal Election Influence Investigation

On Feb. 10, 2021, the Fulton County district attorney's office opened an investigation into attempted election interference, based on the widely reported recording of a phone call between Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump was heard pressing him to overturn the election results saying, "I just want to find 11,780 votes." The case looked to be stalled until last month when the county provided additional funds to the DA's office to help handle a severe backlog of cases.

9. Washington, D.C., Incitement Criminal Investigation

Shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, D.C.'s Attorney General Karl Racine said, "I know that I'm looking at a charge under the D.C. code of inciting violence, and that would apply where there is a clear recognition that one's incitement could lead to foreseeable violence." Inciting a riot in Washington is a misdemeanor with a very high bar to be able to prove, but related lawsuits and the Congressional Jan 6 investigation could help AG Racine with his case.

10. Incitement Suit for Jan 6 Capitol Attack

Ten Democratic members of Congress are suing Trump, Rudy Giuliani the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Warboys and the head of the Warboys, Enrique Tarrio. The suit says that Trump violated the Ku Klux Klan Act by inciting the rioters with the intent to prevent the members from discharging their official duty of approving the Electoral College vote. The 1871 act allows members of Congress to sue individuals who conspire to violently "molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede" the discharge of a public official's duties. The suit was originally filed in February by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who later withdrew his name when he was appointed to chair the House select committee investigating the riot.

11. Eric Swalwell Incitement Suit for Jan 6 Riots

On March 5, 2021, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) brought a suit against Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Representative Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Rudy Giuliani. Like the suit brought by other members of Congress, Swalwell claims Trump violated the Ku Klux Klan Act and that Trump and the other defendants incited the violence in the Capitol. Swalwell's suit additionally claims that the defendants should be held civilly liable for negligence because they committed criminal incitement under D.C.'s local code. Swalwell's suit may lay the groundwork for the criminal charges that the DC Attorney General announced he was investigating.

12. Capitol Police Suit for Jan 6 Riots

Two Capitol Police officers who were injured in the Jan. 6 riot have sued Trump, arguing that he was responsible for their physical and emotional injuries. They claim that Trump "inflamed, encouraged, incited, directed, and aided and abetted" the "insurrectionist mob" to force its way "over and past the plaintiffs and their fellow officers, pursuing and attacking them inside and outside the United States Capitol."

13. NAACP's Legal Defense Fund Voting Rights Case

The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and three Michigan voters in November sued Trump and his campaign, alleging that Trump falsely spread stories of widespread fraud and pressured election officials to disenfranchise black voters in Detroit and other cities with large Black populations, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. The complaint was amended a month later to include the NAACP as a plaintiff and the Republican National Committee as a defendant.

14. 572 Federal Cases Against Capitol Insurrectionists

While Trump has not been charged for his role in the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, individual rioters have been. We are including the Capitol cases here because Trump's role in the insurrection is at the very center of events—many rioters have claimed that they went to Washington and marched on the Capitol because Trump told them to—and he may well end up being charged for his incitement of the riot.

Congressional Investigations
15. House Ways and Means Committee

On July 30, the Department of Justice reversed a Bill Barr-era decision, saying that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) had made valid arguments and the IRS must hand over to the committee Trump's elusive tax returns, two years after Neal's initial request.

16. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

A federal judge this week ruled that Trump's accountants must turn over two years' worth of his tax and financial records to the committee investigating whether Trump and his businesses profited from his service in the White House. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta approved a subpoena for Trump's records covering 2017 and 2018 but turned down most of the panel's request for similar information dating back to 2011. The decision is likely to be appealed by Trump's lawyers and could also be challenged by the House panel.

17. House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees

The House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Deutsche Bank in 2019, seeking years of the president's personal and business records. In a filing on May 17, the parties said they were "continuing to engage in negotiations intended to narrow or resolve their disputes and believe they are close to an agreement."

18. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi established the committee after efforts to form a bipartisan commission were rebuffed by Republicans. She appointed seven Democrats and two Republicans—Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, both of whom had voted to impeach Trump in January. Cheney has said the committee must focus on Trump's role in the insurrection: "We must know what happened here at the Capitol. We must also know what happened every minute of that day in the White House—every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during, and after the attack." The committee, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, held its first public testimony on July 27.

19. Senate Judiciary Committee

Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is focusing on the Trump-era politicization of the Department of Justice, starting with the department's acquisition of metadata related to some members of the House of Representatives—including Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was the chief prosecutor in Trump's first impeachment. The committee has since expanded its areas of interest to include the department's role in the obstruction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and its role in regard to Trump's lies about the 2020 presidential election. The committee has taken testimony from former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and Byung J. Pak, the U.S. attorney in Atlanta who abruptly resigned rather than say there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia.

Sexual Assaults
20. E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case

In 2019, journalist E. Jean Carroll wrote about her experience more than 20 years ago, when, she says, Trump shoved her against the wall of a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room, forced himself on her and raped her. Trump accused Carroll of lying saying he didn't even know her. Carroll disputed his claim with evidence in the form of a picture showing them together and by filing a defamation suit. Carroll's civil defamation suit became complicated when Bill Barr's Justice Department stepped in arguing that Trump was protected from being prosecuted for lying under the Federal Tort Claims Act which provides blanket immunity to federal employees who commit certain torts–including defamation–arising out of their official duties. The Justice Department also argued the case should be moved to Federal court as it was a federal case as opposed to a state civil suit. In June, Merrick Garland's Justice Department filed a reply continuing Barr's arguments that the president is an "employee" under the act and that elected officials act within the scope of their employment when they respond to media inquiries.

21. Summer Zervos Defamation Suit

Before and after the 2016 Presidential campaign, more than 25 women accused Trump of unwanted sexual conduct. Summer Zervos was one of Trump's accusers. After Trump claimed she was lying, Zervos responded by filing a suit for defamation which was filed on January 17, 2017, three days before Trump took office. The case faced various delays during Trump's presidency but on March 30, the New York Court of Appeals denied Trump's ongoing argument that a state court could not hear a suit against a sitting president. In a one-sentence order, the court stated that the issue of Trump's presidency was now moot, and the case can now go forward

Where's the Justice Department?
While Attorney General Merrick Garland's Justice Department is on the periphery of many of these cases and investigations, the department is notably absent from any primary cases directed at Trump himself.

Indeed, in some cases such as the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit, Garland and the department have actually supported Trump against his accusers. In other matters directly involving the politicization of the department, Garland has chosen to let its inspector general take the point.

"Sometimes we have to make decisions about the law that we would never have made and that we strongly disagree with as a matter of policy," he told a Senate committee in June.

In July, the department cleared the way for government officials to testify in the Congressional election interference investigation. The department said that it "would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege with respect to communications with former President Trump and his advisers and staff on matters related to the committee's proposed interviews."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-crime-family-2654650361/

 

So I did a little check on your raw story information McGill- toolen.org listed your source as truly a misinformation organization used to generate likes,clicks,and profits shared on most social media sites to generate a great political disinformation platform to basically generate rage in progressives

 

So you’re being lied to

 

You are not the first one to try this. Here read through this thread and you will find RAWSTORY is actually more credible than Fox News.

https://xxxbestrank.mobi/s__forum/threads/credibility-of-fringe-media-frequently-cited-in-forum.615778/

Nope. RAWSTORY is definitely a left wing propaganda site with some of the worst click bait headline writers in the world as I have always freely admitted. But its not a false propaganda site like most right wing sites that do actually publish and broadcast out and out lies.

And I can prove that to you right here. If you can find a story on RAWSTORY that is even wrong let alone false you post it right here. But if you can't then you will prove you are the one that is being lied to. And just bullshitting yourself.

 

I thought you would definitely do this so I checked more sources and low and behold your raw story site is ranked by most of the non political news sources as the disengenious it distorts headlines and deliberately leaves out important information on the topics that it covers and it generates money by deliberately misleading people I do not have to do anything to disprove it it disproves itself

 

I don’t ever look at right wing sites either I don’t trust any of them I listen to people like victor Davis Hanson who by the way is a liberal but ihesees the problem with the way progressive movement ideology is not what they claim to be the mob mentality of neo liberalism is inherently dangerous and true threat to all of us

 

I really want for all of us to stop being rude and hateful to each other I am guilty of it and I don’t want to be this is what both parties want because they want total control of all of us it’s like when you take a toddler to get a picture taken you have an assistant distracting them with a shiny little toy they love this division of American people while they demoralize,dehumanize us and I am just tired of this game I wanna quit

 

So truce I respect your point

 

I think you and I have a common interest and that we can agree to disagree so looky here lets just not be so damn argumentative I’ll respect your view if you will respect mine and let us not be stubborn asses

 

Where are your sources for this? You simply saying so does not make it so.

And by the way all you do is spout false right wing propaganda in post after post. Nothing but the same old right wing talking points I could find hundreds of examples of right here on our little forum.

 

Goddamn it didn’t you read what I posted or are you just that much of an ass

 

For fucks sake man I offered you an olive branch and you fuckin won’t let me be

 

New details make suspicious stock purchase made by Rand Paul's wife look even shadier





Rand Paul (Youtube)

For the first time in at least ten years, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and his wife purchased stock in the maker of Remdisivir, early on in the COVID-19 crisis.

According to a CNBC report Thursday, the stock purchases made by Paul's wife happened the day after clinical trials began for the drug company's COVID treatment. The records revealed earlier this week showed that the couple then failed to disclose the purchase for 16 months after it was made, even though lawmakers are supposed to disclose such purchases within 45 days.

The concern is that as part of his role on the Senate Health Committee, Paul had inside information about the drugs being used to help the COVID-19 crisis and that was the reason for the purchase.

"The purchase of up to $15,000 worth of Gilead shares was made three weeks before the World Health Organization declared Covid a pandemic. On Feb. 26, 2020, the day Kelley Paul bought the shares, there were only 14 confirmed cases of Covid nationwide," said CNBC.

What makes the purchase even more suspicious, however, is that it is completely different from other stock purchases made by the Pauls.

"Since 2012, Paul has disclosed 187 transactions involving mutual funds, EIFs, trusts and government bonds in his annual reports. But only one transaction in an individual stock: Gilead," the report explained. "Paul's office claimed he filled out a disclosure form about the Gilead purchase on time in 2020, but through an oversight it was not transmitted to the Senate records office."

Read the full report at CNBC.com.

https://www.rawstory.com/rand-paul-sketchy-investments-remdisivir/

 

You are a pussy

 

I have offered to honestly debate you @Stillhard so let's see which one is the pussy. And if you refuse to accept that challenge then the real pussy is you.

 

Jared Kushner ally who got last-minute Trump pardon gets charged with crimes again

Brad Reed
August 18, 2021



Jared Kushner (Time)


A longtime ally of Jared Kushner who got a last-minute pardon this year from former President Donald Trump has once again been charged with crimes.

The New York Daily News reports that former New York Observer editor-in-chief Ken Kurson has now been hit with state charges related to the same alleged cyberstalking scheme for which he was granted a pardon by Trump mere hours before the end of his first term.

"Kurson allegedly wrote negative online reviews of some of his victims using aliases and visited their places of work," writes the New York Daily News. "He also took photographs of two his victims' workplaces and inquired about one's work schedule, creeping out coworkers, prosecutors said."

Kurson first came under law enforcement officials' radars after Trump nominated him to serve on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities, where a background check into his past conduct reportedly "alarmed" authorities.

Kurson was charged by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's office and he arrived in custody Wednesday at the Manhattan Supreme Court for his arraignment.

https://www.rawstory.com/jared-kushner-crimes/

 

More noses in troughs!



Thinskin