June 16, 20214 yr One thing is clear, Moscow Mitch is scared. Republicans move to block inquiry into Trump DoJ’s secret data seizure Top Republicans are moving to block a Senate inquiry into the Trump justice department’s secret seizure of data from Democrats to hunt down leaks of classified information, fearing a close investigation could damage the former president. Trump, who is facing a mounting crisis of legal problems and political criticism, still wields huge power among Republicans, and has hinted recently at a return run for the White House. In fiery remarks, the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, criticized the rapidly expanding congressional inquiries as unnecessary and accused Democrats of embarking on "politically motivated investigations”. "I am confident that the existing inquiry will uncover the truth,” said McConnell. "There is no need for a partisan circus here in Congress.”
June 17, 20214 yr 18 hours ago, jsdarkstar said: Trump Executive Could Face Charges as Soon as This Summer William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Jonah E. Bromwich Wed, June 16, 2021, 7:50 AM Former President Donald Trump speaks during the North Carolina Republican Party's annual convention in Greenville, N.C., June 5, 2021. (Travis Dove/The New York Times) The Manhattan district attorney’s office appears to have entered the final stages of a criminal tax investigation into Donald Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, setting up the possibility he could face charges this summer, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In recent weeks, a grand jury has been hearing evidence about Weisselberg, who is facing intense scrutiny from prosecutors as they seek his cooperation with a broader investigation into Trump and the Trump Organization, the people with knowledge of the matter said. The prosecutors have obtained Weisselberg’s personal tax returns, the people said, providing the fullest picture yet of his finances. Even as the investigation has heated up, it remains unclear whether the prosecutors will seek an indictment of Weisselberg, which would mark the first criminal charges stemming from the long-running financial fraud investigation into Trump and his family company. The investigation into Weisselberg focuses partly on whether he failed to pay taxes on valuable benefits that Trump provided him and his family over the years, including apartments and leased cars as well as tens of thousands of dollars in private school tuition for at least one of his grandchildren. In general, those types of benefits are taxable, although there are some exceptions, and the rules can be murky. For months, prosecutors working for District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat, have sought to pressure Weisselberg into cooperating with their investigation into Trump, and any deal could turn the trusted executive into a star witness against the former president. For now, Weisselberg appears to have rebuffed Vance’s office and continues to work at the Trump Organization. The district attorney’s office recently questioned Weisselberg’s top lieutenant, Jeffrey McConney, before a special grand jury hearing evidence in the Trump inquiry, people with knowledge of the matter have said. The testimony was the first sign that the grand jury was hearing evidence about Weisselberg. When hoping to turn an insider into a cooperating witness, prosecutors often seek leverage over the person, and then typically offer leniency in exchange for testimony or assistance. The Trumps have long been able to count on Weisselberg’s fealty. After beginning his career working for Trump’s father, Weisselberg has served as the Trump Organization’s financial gatekeeper for more than two decades. Even if Weisselberg chooses not to assist the investigation into his boss, charges against him could portend trouble for Trump, signaling that the prosecutors have identified what they believe is misconduct at his family business. As part of the investigation into the fringe benefits Trump provided, Vance’s prosecutors have sought records for Mercedes-Benz cars leased for Weisselberg, his wife and other Trump Organization employees over the course of more than a decade, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The full scope of the investigation into Weisselberg, including whether prosecutors are considering other charges against him separate from the fringe benefits, could not be determined. It is rare for prosecutors to build a criminal case solely around a failure to pay taxes on fringe benefits. Vance’s wider investigation into the Trump Organization has included scrutiny of whether Trump and the company manipulated property values to obtain certain loans and tax benefits, among other potential financial crimes. A lawyer for Weisselberg, Mary Mulligan, declined to comment, as did a Trump Organization representative. Trump, a Republican, has long lashed out at the investigation, calling it a "continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our country.” A spokesperson for Vance, who has served three terms but is not running for reelection this year, declined to comment. Before recently convening the special grand jury, Vance’s office was already using other grand juries to issue subpoenas for documents and hear some testimony. The new panel is expected to hear from a wide range of witnesses in the coming months and, if prosecutors present charges, could vote on indictments. Still, there is no indication that the inquiry into Trump has reached that advanced stage, or even that prosecutors have decided to seek charges against the former president or his company. The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, who had been conducting a civil examination of some of the same issues that the district attorney’s criminal investigation is examining, has joined Vance’s inquiry. She, too, has obtained Weisselberg’s tax returns, people with knowledge of the matter said. While pursuing Weisselberg’s cooperation, Vance’s prosecutors appeared to be building a picture of his financial life, securing earlier this year not only his tax returns and the underlying documents but also his personal bank records. They also asked the Trump Organization to turn over documents related to any benefits Trump or the company may have provided to other employees. The investigation has led the prosecutors to subpoena the records of Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, an Upper West Side private school, seeking information about tuition payments Trump made on behalf of at least one of Weisselberg’s grandchildren. Prosecutors additionally questioned Weisselberg’s former daughter-in-law, Jennifer Weisselberg, who is in the midst of a contentious custody battle with her ex-husband, Barry. Her lawyer, Duncan Levin, has said she has been interviewed six times and is cooperating with the investigation. Jennifer Weisselberg has said that prosecutors had asked her about the tuition payments as well as gifts Barry Weisselberg received from Trump, including an apartment on Central Park South and several cars that were leased for him. Barry Weisselberg manages the Trump Wollman Rink in Central Park. The prosecutors have also focused on whether Trump provided Allen Weisselberg with a Manhattan apartment. Allen Weisselberg’s lawyers could argue that some of the benefits were not taxable, or that Weisselberg did not know he needed to pay taxes on them. The rules around tuition, for example, are somewhat open to interpretation. If prosecutors eventually seek charges against Weisselberg based on the fringe benefits, depending on what the evidence shows, they could choose from several potential crimes, including grand larceny, scheme to defraud or tax fraud, experts said. To prove scheme to defraud, Vance’s prosecutors would need to show that Weisselberg engaged in a "systematic ongoing course of conduct with intent to defraud.” To prove he committed tax fraud, they would have to show that he willfully failed to pay taxes on the benefits. With tax fraud, the fallout for Weisselberg would be steeper than under the scheme to defraud charge: Failing to pay more than $10,000 in taxes in a single year can be punishable by up to seven years in prison, while the penalty for scheming to defraud is a maximum of four years. "Those dollar amounts could make it relatively easy for the Manhattan district attorney to make a criminal case,” said Cono Namorato, a lawyer at Caplin and Drysdale and a former senior official at the Justice Department’s tax division. Still, Namorato and other tax lawyers said that it would be unusual to bring such a case on failure to pay taxes on fringe benefits alone; the lawyers could think of no other recent example. Weisselberg has kept a low profile during his long tenure at the company, but his name surfaced three years ago in connection with a federal investigation into hush money paid during the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who said they had affairs with Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer who helped arrange the payments to the women, has said Weisselberg was involved as well. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018, is now cooperating with Vance’s investigation. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. ^^ Michael Cohen said last night that a) more likely within the next few weeks, and b) he believes that Weisselberg has already cooperated and given them sufficient information to indict Trump along with many others, including family members and other top members of the org. ...
June 17, 20214 yr Quote Ostensibly showing up on pal Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Wednesday night to discuss the recent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump instead spent much of his time grumbling about the thing he hates most: windmills! Over the years, Trump has obsessively railed against wind turbines, accusing them of causing cancer, killing birds, and being just plain ugly. That obsession hit the next level on Wednesday night. "They’re making windmills all over the place. They kill our land and kill our birds. They kill everything,” the disgraced ex-president groused. Trump was on Hannity - talking about the important things. Windmills. They kill the land and the birds. Plus cancer. 681,000 birds are currently killed by wind turbines in the U.S. each year. THE REAL KILLER IS WINDOWS! ie: Bill Gates, the guy chipping you and making you magnetic.
June 17, 20214 yr 1 hour ago, Toastrel said: THE REAL KILLER IS WINDOWS! We have a large window in front of house. We get about a dozen strikes a year. Most are just stunned, some don’t make it.
June 22, 20214 yr Bill O’Reilly and Trump "History tour.” Hope they give refunds when Trump can’t make it. https://nypost.com/2021/06/08/trump-and-bill-oreilly-announce-three-city-history-tour/
June 22, 20214 yr Author Quote In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as White House officials debated whether to bring infected Americans home for care, President Donald Trump suggested his own plan for where to send them, eager to suppress the numbers on U.S. soil. "Don’t we have an island that we own?” the president reportedly asked those assembled in the Situation Room in February 2020, before the U.S. outbreak would explode. "What about Guantánamo?” "We import goods,” Trump specified, lecturing his staff. "We are not going to import a virus.” Aides were stunned, and when Trump brought it up a second time, they quickly scuttled the idea, worried about a backlash over quarantining American tourists on the same Caribbean base where the United States holds terrorism suspects. 🤡🌍
June 22, 20214 yr BWAHAHAHA Trump Wanted His Justice Department to Stop ‘SNL’ From Teasing Him It was the middle of Donald Trump’s presidency, and he was—yet again—mad at Saturday Night Live. And he wanted the federal government to help him settle the score. In March 2019, the then-president of the United States had just watched an episode of the long-running, liberal-leaning NBC sketch comedy series (it wasn’t even a new episode, it was a rerun), and grew immediately incensed that the show was gently mocking him. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-wanted-his-justice-department-to-stop-snl-from-teasing-him?ref=author
June 22, 20214 yr 17 minutes ago, Dave Moss said: "Don’t we have an island that we own?” Wait, Trump thought we owned Cuba? 90th percentile IQ right there
June 22, 20214 yr 12 minutes ago, Gannan said: How could I forget about the "moat at the border" Just take any dumb half-baked solution that ever popped into your head (but you were too smart to say out loud) and Trump has likely suggested it. You just know that when the sea levels start to rise off of Florida's coast, he's gonna be pitching the idea of a giant sponge.
June 22, 20214 yr 34 minutes ago, Gannan said: How could I forget about the "moat at the border" Dude must be getting that good weed.
June 22, 20214 yr 50 minutes ago, Gannan said: How could I forget about the "moat at the border" I forgot that one as well. He said so many bat-ish crazy and idiotic things it's easy to forget a few really.
June 23, 20214 yr No one is safe Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner distance themselves from the former President and his constant complaints Sometimes the former President complains for several hours about the "stolen" 2020 election. Other times, his frustrations emerge in fits and starts -- more likely when he is discussing his hopeful return to national politics. And while he often has a rotating audience of cheering listeners, the gap between Trump and his daughter and son-in-law grows wider by the week, according to 12 former Trump White House officials, former administration officials, family friends, acquaintances and members of Trump's team who spoke with CNN about changes to the former President's current inner circle. A large part of the reason for the separation is Trump's constant harping on the past and his inability to move on. The former President has also started to question the role that Kushner -- one of the few people who were able to stay close to Trump throughout his two presidential campaigns and White House tenure -- has played in his presidential legacy. http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/LZI63cf9jwY/index.html
June 25, 20214 yr Pence contradicts Trump on January 6, calling plan to decertify 2020 election 'un-American' https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/24/politics/mike-pence-donald-trump-january-6/index.html They are going to start chanting his name again, I bet.
June 25, 20214 yr On 6/23/2021 at 12:55 PM, DaEagles4Life said: No one is safe Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner distance themselves from the former President and his constant complaints Sometimes the former President complains for several hours about the "stolen" 2020 election. Other times, his frustrations emerge in fits and starts -- more likely when he is discussing his hopeful return to national politics. And while he often has a rotating audience of cheering listeners, the gap between Trump and his daughter and son-in-law grows wider by the week, according to 12 former Trump White House officials, former administration officials, family friends, acquaintances and members of Trump's team who spoke with CNN about changes to the former President's current inner circle. A large part of the reason for the separation is Trump's constant harping on the past and his inability to move on. The former President has also started to question the role that Kushner -- one of the few people who were able to stay close to Trump throughout his two presidential campaigns and White House tenure -- has played in his presidential legacy. http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/LZI63cf9jwY/index.html So he is basically Lord Denethor the Second now?
June 25, 20214 yr Author Top US general rejected Trump suggestions military should 'crack skulls' during protests last year, new book claims "That's how you're supposed to handle these people," Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, according to Bender. "Crack their skulls!" Trump also told his team that he wanted the military to go in and "beat the f--k out" of the civil rights protesters, Bender writes. "Just shoot them," Trump said on multiple occasions inside the Oval Office, according to the excerpts. When Milley and then-Attorney General William Barr would push back, Trump toned it down, but only slightly, Bender adds. "Well, shoot them in the leg—or maybe the foot," Trump said. "But be hard on them!"
June 25, 20214 yr Love this. https://www.yahoo.com/news/top-us-general-mark-milley-103141229.htmlTop US general Mark Milley told Stephen Miller to 'shut the f---up' when he said BLM protests were turning US cities into war zones, book says CNN published excepts from WSJ reporter Michael Bender's upcoming book on Trump's election loss. Bender wrote Trump aide Stephen Miller and Gen. Mark Milley clashed as protests raged across the US. Milley told Miller to "shut the f--- up" after Miller said US cities were like war zones, the book said.
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