Society The Donald J. Trump Show - 4 more years editions

Splinty said:

Mitt Romney is trying to get Trump to win 2020

Which moron came up with this campaign?
Associate your name with shit.
Imply Trump 2020 allegiance in the lizard brain.


Worst slogan since love Trump's hate.

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Splinty said:

Mitt Romney is trying to get Trump to win 2020

Which moron came up with this campaign?
Associate your name with shit.
Imply Trump 2020 allegiance in the lizard brain.


Worst slogan since love Trump's hate.

Click to expand...

Tom Terrific said:

I really hope Romney is not involved with this dumpster fire

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Splinty said:

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Donald Trump's impeachment blockade has collapsed.

The president's former top Russia adviser, Fiona Hill — the first White House official to cooperate in Democrats' investigation of the Ukraine scandal — has detailed for lawmakers a trail of alleged corruption that extends from Kyiv to the West Wing. In dramatic testimony on Monday, she roped in some of Trump's top advisers as witnesses to the unfolding controversy.

And on Tuesday, a senior State Department official, George Kent, testified for nearly 10 hours about his knowledge of the episode despite an attempt by Trump administration lawyers to block him, according to a source working on the impeachment inquiry. The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena for his testimony Tuesday morning, and Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, complied.

According to people familiar with his testimony, Kent told House impeachment investigators that he was alarmed at the role Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, was playing in Ukraine. In particular, one lawmaker in the room said Kent was concerned because the president was apparently listening to Giuliani, who had mounted a months-long campaign to discredit Joe Biden on unfounded charges.

“He was concerned at the undue influence a private attorney — not an official with the United States government and not someone charged with the responsibility of U.S. relations with Ukraine — was exerting, and that Giuliani was listening to discredited sources and had ties to some questionable characters in Ukraine, and nonetheless had the ear of the president,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said in a brief interview as he emerged from Kent’s deposition.

Kent’s appearance on Tuesday was just the latest evidence that the White House’s stonewalling against congressional requests for documents and testimony is crumbling — and Democrats now have a new sense of momentum.


“The walls are closing in. The details we are learning about the shadow foreign policy operation Trump has been running to benefit himself personally are stunning.”

- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

“Thank you to patriots like @realDonaldTrump appointee Fiona Hill who chose to ignore the obstruction from Trump and gave testimony to Congress today,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “The truth will keep coming out. And Trump cannot stop it.”

In closed-door testimony described by a source in the room, Hill said she raised concerns with White House officials over Giuliani’s campaign to pressure Ukrainian officials to probe Trump’s political rivals.

Hill said she shared her concerns with then-national security adviser John Bolton, who encouraged her to report her concerns about Giuliani's efforts to a National Security Council lawyer. She told House impeachment investigators that she met with the lawyer, John Eisenberg, twice. Hill also connected Giuliani's efforts to Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, and said Bolton characterized their efforts on Ukraine as a “drug deal.”

According to a source in the room Monday, Hill said Bolton compared Giuliani to “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

And the flood of damaging information isn’t subsiding.

As lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a growing number of witnesses are poised this week to describe their own roles in the controversy, even as the White House has vowed not to engage with House Democrats’ “illegitimate” impeachment effort.

On Wednesday, Michael McKinley, who abruptly resigned last week as a top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, intends to testify before lawmakers.

On Thursday, lawmakers are expected to hear from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union whose text messages revealed by lawmakers indicated he was aware of efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden. Sondland reportedly is ready to deflect any blame onto Trump about whether there was a quid pro quo involving military aid to Ukraine or a meeting between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart in Washington.

Congressional investigators on Friday will hear from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper, who oversees Russia- and Ukraine-related matters at the Pentagon.

But despite the series of breakthroughs, Democrats still face resistance from the White House to some of their high-level requests.

When asked whether Trump's budget office had planned to comply with a Tuesday subpoena deadline for documents, a senior administration official would not comment, instead pointing to a White House letter last week that deemed the House impeachment probe “unconstitutional” in part because there has not been a House vote authorizing the inquiry.

Meanwhile, Giuliani, who is facing a mounting set of legal woes, parted ways with his attorney Jon Sale on Tuesday after Sale sent a letter to the three key investigative committees stating that Giuliani would not comply with a congressional subpoena seeking documents. Sale wrote that the subpoena was “overbroad” and “unduly burdensome.”

“Jon has done what I retained him for,” Giuliani told POLITICO.

An official working on the impeachment inquiry slammed the former New York City mayor and said his refusal to comply with the subpoena would be treated as evidence of obstruction and of a cover-up.

“If Rudy Giuliani and the president truly have nothing to hide about their actions, Giuliani will comply — otherwise, we will be forced to consider this as additional evidence of obstruction, and may infer that the evidence withheld would substantiate the accusations of President Trump’s misconduct and efforts to cover it up,” the official said.

Similarly, Vice President Mike Pence rejected House Democrats’ request for Ukraine-related documents, a demand which also had a deadline of Tuesday. Pence’s counsel, Matthew E. Morgan, echoed the White House’s position that the impeachment inquiry is illegitimate. A subpoena to Pence is likely to follow.

The Pentagon, too, rejected a subpoena seeking documents. In a letter to Democratic committee chairs, the Defense Department’s legislative affairs chief also cited the White House’s view on the impeachment inquiry.

But the recent spate of witness interviews underscores how the president’s once-impenetrable barrier to meaningful testimony in Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has been blown apart.

“The walls are closing in. The details we are learning about the shadow foreign policy operation Trump has been running to benefit himself personally are stunning,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “Why have a democracy, if we allow this to happen without consequence?”

Though Hill's testimony was the most damning to date, she wasn't the first to put a crack in Trump’s wall.

Earlier this month, former NATO Ambassador Kurt Volker provided text messages between himself and other diplomats in which they described concerns that Trump was using a potential White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and possibly even military aid, as a cudgel to force the besieged country to probe Biden. Volker testified for nine hours to lawmakers and aides behind closed doors. Trump has forcefully denied any “quid pro quo” occurred.

Last Friday, Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testified about her abrupt removal by Trump, which came amid a smear campaign by Trump's allies that accused her of disloyalty. Yovanovitch's ouster in May infuriated senior State Department officials, and she testified that the ability of bad actors to engineer her removal could be exploited by foreign adversaries.

Kent served under Yovanovitch in Ukraine for three years. A former State Department official said Kent is “able to peel back layers of the onion that many people can’t,” and he is likely to speak out against Yovanovitch’s ouster. Connolly said Kent “implicitly” defended Yovanovitch during his testimony.

House Republicans have said little about the substance of Hill's testimony but have complained vehemently about Democrats’ decision to hold witness interviews behind closed doors. They contend a matter as weighty as the potential impeachment of a president should be conducted publicly.

Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has countered, arguing that the secrecy surrounding the initial interviews is meant to prevent witnesses from aligning their statements. Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, Schiff said public hearings would soon follow the evidence-gathering phase of the impeachment inquiry.

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A Colorado Springs lawyer appointed by President Donald Trump to a federal education board is a prolific author of self-help Illuminati books whose education company has been accused of handing out certificates to undeserving applicants.

Mentz is a lawyer and a professor of online courses on wealth management at the Texas A&M University School of Law. He also writes for the conservative outlet Newsmax, which is owned by a Trump confidante, and he founded an aggregated news website, the New York Gazette.

Mentz’s books include “The Illuminati Secret Laws of Money,” “The Illuminati Handbook,” “50 Laws of Power of the Illuminati,” and “100 Secrets and Habits of the Illuminati for Life Success.” Nearly all of his works are about money and often center on mindfulness secrets to achieving wealth.

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Spoiler

Daglord said:

not even sure why I find this so funny, but I do.

Trump picks Colorado Springs author of Illuminati books for education board

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@ENOCK

• Newly uncovered tax documents from President Donald Trump that were obtained by ProPublica contain several inconsistencies that could point to financial fraud.
• The discrepancies in the numbers made some Trump properties look more valuable to lenders and less valuable to tax authorities, ProPublica said.
• At least one of the filings was made after Trump took office in 2017.
• The public may soon get a window into the president's closely held financial records after two separate court rulings ordered Trump to turn over years of tax returns to Congress and to New York prosecutors.
• An employee at the IRS also recently blew the whistle on "inappropriate efforts to influence" the agency's audit of Trump's taxes.

Newly uncovered tax documents from President Donald Trump contain several discrepancies that real-estate experts said could point to financial fraud, ProPublica reported on Wednesday.

The documents obtained by ProPublica were part of records for four Trump properties in New York City: Trump International Hotel and Tower, 40 Wall Street, Trump Tower, and 1290 Avenue of the Americas.

Tax records for 40 Wall Street and the Trump International Hotel and Tower reportedly contained discrepancies that could raise some red flags — specifically, the numbers made the properties look more valuable to lenders and less valuable to tax authorities, ProPublica said.

In one instance in 2017, according to ProPublica, Trump told a lender that he got twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities that year.

Nancy Wallace, a professor of finance and real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, told the outlet she couldn't see why there were inconsistencies in the first place, adding that they looked like "versions of fraud."

Trump has been at the center of several financial scandals. The New York Times reported last year that Trump used a series of dubious tax schemes to shield a $400 million inheritance from the IRS.

And in September, Mother Jones published an investigation that found that Trump might have fabricated a loan to avoid paying $50 million in income taxes.

But Trump has long maintained that he has committed no financial or tax crimes. He has said he can't release his tax returns because they are under audit, even though there is no rule to prevent him from doing so.

But the president may soon be forced to give his tax returns to investigators. On October 7, US District Judge Victor Marrero ordered Trump to turn over eight years of his tax returns to New York prosecutors investigating whether he violated state laws by fabricating business records.

Days later, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the president to turn over the past eight years of his tax returns to the House Oversight Committee, saying lawmakers have the right to see the documents.

Trump's lawyers have said they will fight both decisions and take them to the Supreme Court if they have to.

But the public may still get a window into the president's closely held financial documents thanks to an employee at the IRS who recently blew the whistle on "inappropriate efforts to influence" the agency's audit of Trump's tax returns.

According to The Washington Post, the person accused of trying to interfere with the audit is a political appointee at the Treasury Department.

There aren't many government officials who have access to the president's and vice president's tax documents, Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor who spent 12 years at the Justice Department, told Insider.

"The president's and vice president's tax returns are kept in a top-secret vault," Cramer said. "It's code-word-protected, the whole nine yards, and not just anyone can get in there. There are very few people — the head of the Treasury, the head of the IRS — who have access."

Trump was also accused of altering his tax and loan records by Michael Cohen, his longtime former lawyer who is serving a three-year federal prison sentence for campaign-finance violations and tax evasion.

In particular, Cohen accused Trump of inflating and deflating his loan and tax documents, respectively — an allegation that appears to bear similarities to what ProPublica reported this week.

Kevin Riordan, a financing expert and real-estate professor at Montclair State University who reviewed the newly revealed tax records, told ProPublica that "it really feels like there's two sets of books," one for lenders and one for tax investigators.

"It's hard to argue numbers," Riordan said. "That's black and white."

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MC Gusto said:

Newly uncovered tax documents show Trump kept '2 sets of books' and may have committed financial fraud

• Newly uncovered tax documents from President Donald Trump that were obtained by ProPublica contain several inconsistencies that could point to financial fraud.
• The discrepancies in the numbers made some Trump properties look more valuable to lenders and less valuable to tax authorities, ProPublica said.
• At least one of the filings was made after Trump took office in 2017.
• The public may soon get a window into the president's closely held financial records after two separate court rulings ordered Trump to turn over years of tax returns to Congress and to New York prosecutors.
• An employee at the IRS also recently blew the whistle on "inappropriate efforts to influence" the agency's audit of Trump's taxes.

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Willthiswork said:

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KWingJitsu said:

No way is that real. Is it real? Please tell me its real.... No way. "Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool"??? LMMFAO!!!

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George Kent told investigators he was cut out of Ukraine policymaking and told to “lay low” on it, after a May meeting orchestrated by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff.

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Former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) has been subpoenaed for documents related to federal prosecutors' investigation into Rudy Giuliani's business dealings with Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Context: Two of Giuliani's business associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were indicted last week for allegedly funneling foreign money into Republican campaigns. According to the indictment, the two men in the spring of 2018 "committed to raise $20,000 or more for a then-sitting U.S. congressman," believed to be Sessions.

• The subpoena is specifically seeking information regarding Sessions' knowledge of Giuliani and his associates' dealings.
• Giuliani has adamantly denied any wrongdoing. There is no evidence that Sessions himself is under investigation.
• A spokesperson for Sessions said he will cooperate with the investigation and will be "providing documents to their office related to this matter over the next couple of weeks as requested."

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President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani told Reuters Monday he was paid $500,000 in consultancy work for the fraud prevention firm Fraud Guarantee, co-founded by indicted Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas.

Why it matters: Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested this month and charged with violating campaign finance laws and conspiracy. The Trump donors had helped connect Giuliani with Ukrainian officials as part of his efforts to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

• The New York Times reported last week that New York federal prosecutors had launched a criminal investigation to determine whether Giuliani "broke lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine."
• The federal prosecutors are looking into Giuliani's personal business relationships with Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier Monday.

What they're saying: Giuliani told Reuters Parnas' company, Fraud Guarantee, "engaged Giuliani Partners, a management and security consulting firm, around August 2018."

• "Giuliani said he was hired to consult on Fraud Guarantee’s technologies and provide legal advice on regulatory issues," Reuters reports.

"Giuliani told Reuters the money came in two payments made within weeks of each other. He said he could not recall the dates of the payments. He said most of the work he did for Fraud Guarantee was completed in 2018 but that he had been doing follow-up for over a year."
The big picture: Fraud Guarantee is based in Boca Raton, Florida. The company's website states its mission is to "help reduce the risk of fraud as well as mitigate the damage caused by fraudulent acts."

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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a law Wednesday that closes a “double jeopardy loophole,” allowing New York to pursue state charges against a U.S. president and his associates who are accused of federal crimes and receive a presidential pardon.

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