The Saudi Payments to Trump Are More Important than the Suspected Egyptian One
As you know, I was calling on the press to focus on the suspected $10 million payment Egypt made to Trump before it was cool — since even before the WaPo significantly advanced the story over a month later.
In the aftermath of Trump’s shitshow presser last week, a slew of people have started calling on the hand–picked set of journalists who’ll attend today’s presser to focus on the Egyptian payment.
It is important that Trump face questions about it.
But, in my opinion, that’s not the most important financial windfall to question. The ongoing Saudi funding of Trump is.
There are four payments of interest:
- The $2 billion investment in Jared Kushner’s investment fund after Mohammed bin Salman overrode the recommendations of advisors who pointed out he’s unqualified and was charging too much.
- The LIV golf tournaments hosted at Trump properties; while Forbes has estimated the tournaments were a minimal part of Trump Organization revenue, they put Trump at the center of a Saudi influence-peddling racket that was too toxic for even Vivek Ramaswamy.
- The freebie branding deal for a development in Oman, for which Trump has already pocketed $5 million.
- The more recent deal — with the same government-connected construction firm as the Oman deal — for a Trump Tower in Jeddah.
There are a bunch of reasons why the Saudi payments are more important.
First, while the Egyptian payment does seem to have coincided with increased coziness on Trump’s part for Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Saudi/Gulf influence-peddling was orchestrated even earlier by Tom Barrack (and assisted by Paul Manafort). There’s good reason to suspect the autocrats of the world are at least chatting openly about efforts to reinstall Trump, because he will undermine democracy and human rights.
The Jared investment, especially, looks like a quid pro quo for America’s help downplaying the Jamal Khashoggi assassination. That is, that payment, at least, looks like a specific payoff, a payoff for letting Mohammed bin Salman chop up a US resident journalist with a bone saw.
As noted, Trump’s involvement in LIV really legitimized a clear Saudi influence-peddling racket.
The branding deals in Oman and Jeddah parallel the free money Moscow Trump Tower deal that was fairly clearly an attempt to purchase Trump (and put Trump back in the business of selling money laundering vehicles to corrupt people again).
The branding deals are especially troubling given the closer involvement of Eric and Don Jr in Trump’s campaign this time. Will Trump do what he did the last time, and install his children in the White House and give them access to classified records they would otherwise never be cleared to access?
And finally, there are the missing stolen documents. According to the indictment, Trump took boxes of documents with him to Bedminster after he hid them from Evan Corcoran (and he had the classified Iran document with him the previous summer in Bedminster). As ABC reported last month, Trump snuck back to Mar-a-Lago, a trip witnesses described was an effort to check on his stolen documents. Then, weeks later, the Saudis arrived for their golf tournament. By all accounts, there must be documents outstanding, and one possible explanation for their disappearance is they left the country.
Finally, and most simply, Trump has not (as far as I’ve seen) even remotely addressed what he will do with his existing Saudi deals if he is elected in November. Even if he agreed to shelter himself from the business (assuming, of course, that he doesn’t give either Don Jr or Eric a job in the White House), we would have to assume he was lying, just like he lied the last time.
We literally do not know whether Trump would enter the White House as a business partner, an employee, or an unregistered foreign agent of the Saudis.
The Saudi financial tie is ongoing and prospective. That makes it a far more urgent issue than a payment that may have been made over seven years ago.
Update: Amicus12 adds another reason to worry about the Saudi deals: Trump’s past efforts to strike a nuclear deal with the Saudis, which could be used to get nukes.
And yet, for any other candidate, a $10 million campaign payment from a foreign country would tank their campaign
You say that as though Kamala Harris hasn’t been snubbing the Beltway Press. ;-)
For the Beltway press, read the WaPo and, especially, the NYT, which are such snowflakes.
There are two other prior items worth considering.
Trump, Tom Barrack, Flynn and Manafort proposed to transfer US nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia outside the restrictions of the Atomic Energy Act and the associated non-proliferation commitments for such transfers. While dressed up as a nuclear power plant deal it appeared to many as a pathway for the Saudis to develop nuclear weapons.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/19/white-house-saudi-arabia-nuclear-technology-house-oversight-inquiry-report
And let us not forget Kushner (Trump’s) apparent green lighting of Mohammed bin Salman’s coup.
By all means, shine a spotlight on Trump and the Saudis.
Good point!
With the growing Christian Nationalism, both in the narrow MAGA world and in the US more generally, Michael Flynn worries me more and more. Christian Nationalism used to be whispered about, not publicly celebrated.
I wonder if to many uninformed people Christian Nationalism sounds benign. Would Christian Nazism be a more apt title?
“Christian Nationalism” and “Christian Nazism” are contradictions in terms. Jesus did not seek to supplant an occupying Roman army’s physical and political power. He wanted it to allow his followers to practice their faith in spite of it.
Religion and government are separate spheres. Stephen Jay Gould described religion and science similarly. They are “non-overlapping magisteria.” They represent facts vs. values. They can inform but not replace each other.
Religion and government represent values vs. earthly power. Values can inform the way power is expressed – Harris//Vance’s inclusionary governance vs. Trump/Vance’s menacing retribution. Power, however, tends to corrupt values. Medieval, Renaissance, and early modern era religions wars exemplify the contradiction.
Some people use the word “Christianist” instead of “Christian” in this context. This parallels the word “Islamist”, and for the same reason: these far-right movements use religion as a mask.
Extremist Christian Caliphate.
Christo-fascist seems to apply
Christian Nationalism seems to be a battle for the land not promised.
A novel (to me) variant on Christian Nationalism is espoused by Russ Vought – “Christian nation-ism” as in
“ [Vought spent some time expounding] complaints that the GOP was too focused on “religious liberty” instead of “Christian nation-ism.”
See secret recording of Project 2025 Co-Author
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/russ-vought-project-2025-trump-secret-recording-invs/index.html
The Trump administration also attempted to terminate a tracking program for extracted resources roughly about the time Kushner attended a pajama party with MBS in fall of 2017.
There was a LOT more the Trump administration attempted to do on behalf of KSA. I just don’t think we’ve gotten a grip on all of it.
Verdad.
“It Will Take Years to Undo the Damage from Trump’s Environmental Rollback” [alone]
Miranda Green
TNR
June 29, 2020
https://newrepublic.com/article/158323/will-take-years-undo-damage-trumps-environmental-rollback
Not to put a military jargon spin on this (sorry, not sorry!) but it’s a “target rich environment”, which might be a feature not a bug? You can’t put us all in jail! (My inner voice says “wanna bet?”)
My take is that the MAGA crowd do not think they can win via legitimate efforts. But their sense of righteousness demands that they must win. So they must cheat. And that makes Trump a perfect candidate for them, since he apparently gets away with cheating all the time.
We are a minority-ruled country.
The outsized power of Southern Senators has illustrated that point since 1787.
“ I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.”
Stalin
said in 1923; Boris Bazhanov The Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary (1992); see Stoppard
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00010383
I don’t understand how Donald Trump can even get the security clearance to do the job of President. When I try to look up felons getting the clearance, it seems that financial crimes are one of the larger red flags due to possibility (higher likelihood) of future compromise. And that is before all these financial and nuclear smoke trails that emptywheel tracks around him.
Presidents don’t get or need security clearance. The President is above the clearance process.
“Presidents, members of congress, and other elected officials don’t go through a traditional background investigation process. The 13 adjudicative guidelines that apply to the typical security clearance holder do not apply to elected officials, including presidents – whether incoming or outgoing.”
Lyndi Kyzer
Clearance Jobs
November 30, 2020
https://news.clearancejobs.com/2020/11/30/former-presidents-and-eligibility-to-access-classified-information/
Thank you.
de nada.
:)
Same for federal judges, though, I believe, not their clerks.
MSM has decided that they must now focus on Harris because she has not had a press conference, so sadly, they are proving they appear incompetent to addressing the selling of US to Saudi’s. :-(
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Forbes may consider the LIV golf tournaments a “minimal” part of the Trump Organization’s revenue. But it could only conclude that by relying on Trump’s unaudited claims about his finances. As Rayne might say, Trump’s golf course finances are a hot mess and quite possibly centers for money laundering.
But cash from LIV is found money, for a guy whose liquidity has always been frail. Politically, though, as EW emphasizes, the LIV revenue puts Trump at the center of Saudi influence-peddling. Toxic is Trump’s middle name.
It’s not just the money laundering through the golf resort business.
Imagine what it takes to set up a tournament event — lots of trucks. Nobody watching the trucks. Trucks that could carry contraband and pallets of cash.
Absolutely. Trump considers disciplined organization a weakness, largely because it’s beyond him. He,rather LIV, will probably have outsourced such things to competent vendors. Otherwise, players, agents, advertisers, and broadcasters would abandon the tournaments.
But imagine the opportunities. As you say, tents, marquees, trucks and transportation are everywhere. Tons of equipment moving in and out. (Trump could probably move Ivana’s coffin half a dozen times without being noticed.) A lot of vendors being paid – or stiffed. Endless opportunities to network among sponsors, advertisers, and agents. Money everywhere, and within networks of movers and shakers, like IMG, that make millions though aggressive tax…planning for their clients.
I’m also not so sure that Forbes also considered the overseas courses as well as US ones. IIRC, Convict-1 bought these in cash with obscure funding that triggered the Green Party in Scotland to agitate for an Unexplained Wealth Order investigation.
As noted elsewhere, financial strain is a classic leverage method and for someone as feral as Convict-1 he will do whatever the pro quo is for the quid.
I really like your characterization of the LIV payoff as “found money”. Trump does nothing that he wouldn’t do without being paid, and he collects checks. Excellent.
I actually came here to snark about
Is “really legitimized” the right word? I’d gladly accept “gave cover for”, but “Trump” and “really legitimized” should never appear together in the same sentence.
FWIW in the context of the sentence and the preceding text,
I took “really legitimized “ to mean “in reality [served to] legitimize”
That’s fair!
The Saudi thing is ongoing, a gift that keeps giving. For el-Sisi he might have just opposed Clinton, 2016. There was the Mubarak ouster, suggestions Huma Abedin had Muslim Brotherhood ties, the intervening government before el-Sisi ousted it, as cause he might have had to favor the non-Clinton candidate. Making it look more like a one-shot thing, if proven at all. Huma Abedin has all but disappeared from the face of the earth since the Clinton 2016 loss, in terms of any public persona.
Re Claims of a link between Abedin and the Muslim Brotherhood
From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/08/25/does-huma-abedin-have-ties-to-the-muslim-brotherhood/
.
See also: John McCain in the US Senate: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/18/mccain-huma-abedin-attacks-bachmann
Huma is still around and appears semi-regularly on MSNBC in “Know Your Value” segments with Mika Brzezinski:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrMM2bMkHoI
The Supreme Court legalized bribery as long as it’s done after the fact. To me, the Saudi investment in Kushner’s portfolio fits that description perfectly.
I recall an endorsement made by the Saudi government before the 2016 election. It stood out to me because it only mentioned that they trusted trump because he came from a good family, or words to that effect. The statement by the Saudi’s stands out to me more now given all the ties they have with Trump that are being uncovered by dogged work by Marcy. I’ve searched for the actual quote for the past several months without success. Does anyone here have a link to the quote?
Marcy,
I always struggle to find the most important point you make in your posts, because there are so many candidates for “most important”. In this post, I’m focusing on
You said this in another post today:
If Ivanka was the familial advisor in the first Trump administration, and if she doesn’t return, I’m more worried about Don Jr. and Eric in a second Trump administration – especially since Eric probably won’t have much to do as the figurehead for the court-supervised Trump Organization, so would be much more available to help Donald and Don Jr. make stupid choices as President.
Excellent piece!
Jared Kushner, his father Charlie Kushner, Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Roman Abramovich, Putin’s closest personal oligarch friend, have been close friends for years.
Abramovich and Putin have helped the Kushners, the Trumps and Netanyahu become business associates of MBS and the Saudi Royal Family.
Organized crime syndicates, like Putin’s and MBS’s, by their nature, are authoritarian and anti-democratic.
If necessary, MBS can remove the Trump name from any building in Saudi Arabia within two hours. And Trump knows that.
As long as Trump has something to give of value to MBS other than the Trump name, MBS will continue paying Trump and the Kushners.
The question has always been what thing or things of value does MBS covet that Trump can give him.
The US secrets that Trump had access to as president of the US are coveted by MBS. So is loyalty to the Royal Family.