Prosecutors in Georgia Still Abusing Their Over Broad RICO Law

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You might remember me complaining that the way Fulton County Attorney’s Office was ridiculous with their application of their state’s RICO provisio. I said that it was absurd, abusive and would lead to further abuse of it.
Well further evidence of that abuse is now here, and it is very ugly. Via the Washington Post:

“A Georgia grand jury has indicted 61 people on racketeering charges connected to protests that seek to block the building of the planned police and firefighter training facility in Atlanta that has been referred by critics as “Cop City.”

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) announced the sweeping indictment Tuesday after a long-running state investigation that mainly focused on members of Defend the Atlanta Forest, which prosecutors called an “anti-government, anti-police, and anti-corporate extremist organization” that has supported a violent movement against law enforcement since the 2020 racial justice protests.The 109-page indictment was filed in Fulton County on Aug. 29, just weeks after the same grand jury charged former president Donald Trump with racketeering charges under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, in connection with efforts to overturn President Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia.”

Yes, you read that right, the same grand jury that rendered the sprawling Trump and friends indictment. At least this time the State of Georgia acted through its proper Attorney General, and not through a local county attorney who took it upon herself.

“Designed to prosecute a criminal enterprise, the law has also been used against gang leaders and human traffickers. The Georgia RICO law is one of the broadest in the country. It allows prosecutors to weave together a wide variety of alleged crimes, including violations of state and federal laws, and even activities in other states. The charges brought against the activists is the latest example of Georgia prosecutors bringing racketeering counts in prominent cases.”

Yeah, no kidding. Yes, RICO was gratuitous as to Trump. In fact, I think it made the Fulton County indictment weaker if cases go to trial. It is complex and confusing. And a jury may well find it so. Or not. We’ll see.
 
As to the protestors, keep in mind that the minimum sentence is 5 years prison. Same for Trump et. al. A judge can modify that, but what if a judge doesn’t? 

This is now going to spread outside of Georgia, and that is very much not a good thing. It was designed for mob bosses, and then drug cartels, and nobody cares about that use. But expansion like in GA to political speach and acts is really bad. It is more than bad, it is heinous. It is a stain and blight on the American criminal justice system.

I warned that what has, and was, being done in Georgia was dangerous. And this is just then tip of the iceberg coming because it will spread.

For anybody that has forgotten, here is Ken White, aka Popehat, on RICO.And, yeah, he pretty much maintains that as to the Trump et. al indictment in Fulton County:

“I am not a Georgia law expert. Federal RICO against Trump would be extremely implausible. Georgia RICO? Won’t speculate. I will say that Georgia RICO seems like a needlessly convoluted and performative approach, but DAs gonna DA.”

That was from Ken’s Mastodon account. He has also said:

“In my view, the Georgia RICO indictment is gratuitous, self-indulgent, and careless of the appearance of legitimacy.”

That is being kind, and the indictment of the protestors for RICO is even more absurd. The moral of the story is be careful of what you cheer for, because what Georgia is doing is truly egregious.

Minority Report: Botheration Benefits Bannon

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[NB: Check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

At the risk of annoying the rest of Team Emptywheel — especially our resident attorney and in part because I’m not a lawyer myself — let me offer a minority report and note we have a serious problem.

You’ll recall one-time Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to then-President Trump Steve Bannon refused to answer a subpoena issued by the House January 6 committee.

You’ll also recall that the House then debated and voted on a charge of contempt of Congress.

The House then referred the charge once passed to the Department of Justice.

Many Americans are disappointed that Bannon is still out walking around as if U.S. laws don’t apply to him. It doesn’t help matters that Trump pardoned Bannon for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering, a pardon which has the appearance that it may have been intended as payback and as advance compensation for helping to organize the January 6 insurrection.

And now those Americans are even more disappointed that Bannon has now blown off Congress without any repercussions so far. It’s not obvious to the public why it takes so long to bring the scruffy bucket of excess shirtage, whiskers, and pudge to answer their representatives’ questions.

Bannon is thumbing his nose at the American people and they know it.

~ ~ ~

Persons who’ve worked in federal law enforcement insist the Department of Justice is working on this and the rule of law simply takes time, chiding us not to be like those people, implying behavior like the “deplorables” who chant “Lock him up!”

Except the American people have seen justice work too rapidly and unfairly for those who aren’t privileged. They expect a reasonable effort to effect justice speedily; justice delayed is justice denied. The tick-tock has been annoyingly like water torture — drip, drip, drip wearing on stone:

July 1 — Six months after the insurrection the House January 6 committee was approved and formed.

September 23 — It took two and a half months to subpoena Bannon who had been an advocate if not an organizer for the rally on January 5 and 6.

October 8 — President Biden refused to exert executive privilege over documents requested from the National Archives by the committee.

October 8 — Bannon was supposed to testify October 14 but his lawyer communicated on October 8 to the committee Bannon would not comply with the subpoena because former president Trump exerted a claim of executive privilege.

October 14 — Bannon does not report to the House committee.

October 19 — The committee began the process to hold Bannon in criminal contempt on the date Bannon was supposed to testify; the committee voted unanimously on October 19 to hold Bannon in contempt.

October 21 — Congress approved the charge on October 21 so that the charge could be referred to the Department of Justice.

October 25 — President Biden again refused to exert executive privilege over documents requested from the National Archives by the committee. No privilege has been claimed by Biden with regard to Bannon.

The public has seen no concrete action by DOJ in response to the contempt charge against Congress — a charge which should result in arresting Bannon, taking him into custody, and charging him with contempt until he complies.

23 days later, what the public sees is Bannon still doing whatever he does on any average day besides shave.

And the folks who’ve worked in law enforcement continue to say this simply takes time.

~ ~ ~

Except Congress itself is irritated, if Rep. Connolly’s opinion is more widely shared among his colleagues:


Congress members have good reason to be irritated; if DOJ couldn’t see ahead from Day One of the Biden administration that some Trump administration officials, staffers, and other supporters would resist a Congressional investigation into any allegation of Trump or Trump-adjacent wrongdoing, they had to be naïve or grossly incompetent. The impeachment investigations gave ample examples of what would happen and hinted at worse.

DOJ could at least have made an effort to appear ready to deal with intransigent witnesses. It’s not as if DOJ is unaware the public is bombarded with messaging all day long and in the absence of official messages, poor messaging will embed in the public’s consciousness.

The DOJ also has no good excuse for failing to execute the contempt charge. Congressional Research Service has at least twice in the last decade examined Congress’s ability to execute subpoenas and inherent contempt — the research has been done, it’s all neatly spelled out. Vet it if necessary but it’s pretty straightforward.

The biggest single reason DOJ shouldn’t dally is that it cannot question Congress’s speech or debate. An attack on the Capitol Building while Congress was in session is the most obviously legitimate reason for the House to issue a subpoena. Congress must know as part of its necessary speech and debate what happened leading up to and during the attack in order to:

(2) identify, review, and evaluate the causes of and the lessons learned from the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol regarding—

(A) the command, control, and communications of the United States Capitol Police, the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region on or before January 6, 2021;

(B) the structure, coordination, operational plans, policies, and procedures of the Federal Government, including as such relate to State and local governments and nongovernmental entities, and particularly with respect to detecting, preventing, preparing for, and responding to targeted violence and domestic terrorism;

(C) the structure, authorities, training, manpower utilization, equipment, operational planning, and use of force policies of the United States Capitol Police;

(D) the policies, protocols, processes, procedures, and systems for the sharing of intelligence and other information by Federal, State, and local agencies with the United States Capitol Police, the Sergeants at Arms of the House of Representatives and Senate, the Government of the District of Columbia, including the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, the National Guard, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region on or before January 6, 2021, and the related policies, protocols, processes, procedures, and systems for monitoring, assessing, disseminating, and acting on intelligence and other information, including elevating the security posture of the United States Capitol Complex, derived from instrumentalities of government, open sources, and online platforms; and

(E) the policies, protocols, processes, procedures, and systems for interoperability between the United States Capitol Police and the National Guard, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region on or before January 6, 2021; and

(3) issue a final report to the House containing such findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures described in subsection (c) as it may deem necessary.

All of which is part of Congress’s legislative purview.

Nor should the DOJ find a way to punt to the judiciary since the court has already repeatedly agreed that under Article I, Section 8, Clause 18, Congress’s implied powers of investigation are essential to its ability to legislate — and subpoenas are part of that power to investigate.

As for the excuse given by Bannon for not complying with the subpoena: executive privilege belongs to the office, not the person. The current executive has so far declined to exert privilege over anything Bannon provided to Trump during the eight months Bannon was a federal employee and adviser to Trump. There’s no executive privilege over any acts Bannon exerted as a private individual on behalf of candidate Trump’s campaign; Bannon can avail himself of his Fifth Amendment rights when questioned by the January 6 committee as he and his attorney feel appropriate.

~ ~ ~

The charge is dirt simple and obvious: Bannon didn’t comply with the subpoena, violating 2 USC 192 – Refusal of witness to testify or produce papers, and 2 USC 194 – Certification of failure to testify or produce; grand jury action. He’s not the executive, nor is Trump the executive, and the current executive has made no claim, making Bannon’s claim of executive privilege at Trump’s request invalid.

The January 6 committee is investigating a domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex, interfering with government operations. Though fewer deaths resulted, it’s a crime on par with 9/11 in that terrorists attacked the United States with intent to disrupt our government — or worse, since it was an attack directly on the people’s representatives with the intent to overthrow the government (through an autogolpe).

Should we really expect the public not to get antsy about the apparent lack of action given the seriousness of the crime and the persistent inability of the House to consistently obtain compliance from witnesses under both the 116th and 117th Congress?

Should we really expect the public not to be itchy when the current Attorney General admits to having been insulated by “the monastery of the judiciary” for years (an approximate paraphrase of an analogy Garland made during during an October 4 interview with Jane Mayer of The New Yorker)?

Should we really expect a majority of the American people not to be concerned about the length of time it takes to arrest and detain a white male investment banker and media executive who was Trump’s adviser, when they elected this administration to both undo the damage of the Trump years AND restore faith in their government?

Minority Report: Putin’s Programma Destabilizatsii Began Much Earlier

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[NB: Note the byline, thanks. / ~Rayne]

By now you should have read Marcy’s post, The Guardian “Scoop” Would Shift the Timeline and Bureaucracy of the Known 2016 Russian Operation which compares much of The Guardian’s article to known details leading up and into 2016 election.

The primary problem with the material journalists Harding, Borger and Sabbagh obtained is the new timeline it offers as well as its attempt to limit Russian interference in the election to a narrow window. In my opinion there are at least two more critical problem.

The reported description of Trump as “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex” is problematic. This implies with treatment — like ADD medications and psychotherapy — Trump might be able overcome this challenge. But far too many professionals in psychology and psychiatry have already indicated Trump is a narcissist; this is not a treatable mental illness but a personality disorder. There’s limited treatment for this which may or may not work, including talk therapy. Such therapy poses an inherent national security risk.

Should Trump suffer from dementia worsening with age, his disorder will only worsen, his increasing boldness, meanness, and disinhibition making him even more unfit for any public office. He should never have access to the power of the executive office again.

But that’s one reason why the subtle disinformation has been planted. If Putin’s goal is to destabilize the U.S. and make it both ungovernable and unable to focus its collective will, encouraging the U.S.’s right-wing to reseat Trump under the misguided belief he will improve over time serves his purpose.

The second problem with The Guardian’s report and the underlying materials is that it treats the 2016 election interference to seat Trump as discrete, an end in itself, when the truth is that it was a single project inside a larger framework — a program of destabilization which predates Trump’s candidacy for presidency in 2015.

You’ll recall the case of three Russian spies arrested in January 2015, a date which in itself may not suggest there was a longer destabilization program, only spying. Even the role of former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page in the three spies case is not a solid indicator of a longer program.

In the indictment of the spies, however, there was a bit of recorded conversation which has troubled me since I first read it, which I noted in early 2017 when revisiting the three spies case:

“And then Putin even tried to justify that they weren’t even tasked to work, they were sleeper cells in case of martial law,” Victor Podobnyy remarked in a conversation about the Illegals Program sleeper cells. What did he mean by, “in case of martial law”? Is this a continuing concern with regard to any remaining undetected sleeper cells?

Emphasis mine, and on the part which has haunted me.

Was the January 6 insurrection always part of the end goal along with the continuing obstruction by the now thoroughly compromised Republican Party? Was Trump supposed to have invoked the Insurrection Act and martial law with it as part of a longer destabilization program?

That same program, then, would have extended beyond 2015, before the FBI began surveillance of the three spies, before one of the three spies, Evgeny Buryakov, began work in New York City.

The program would have predated the expulsion of the identified Illegals Program sleeper cells in June 2010, if the intent was to use them during civil strife in the U.S. resulting in martial law.

The presence of some of the Illegals Program spies pre-dated Putin’s ascension to Russia’s presidency in December 1999 and his role as Director of the Federal Security Service from 1998-1999, but it’s not clear whether Putin co-opted the program to plan for destabilization, or if the program had always been intended for destabilization but thwarted in 2010.

What’s clear, though, is that the U.S. paid little heed to Putin’s preparedness for conditions in the U.S. leading to martial law, going back at least as far as 2010.

The Illegals Program revealed to the American public the presence of sleeper cells. The general public has assumed all sleeper cells were rolled up in 2010; the use of the program as fiction fodder in cable network series The Americans marginalizes sleeper cells as entertainment. There’s nowhere near the level of concern about white persons with Russian accents as there is about Asian Americans of any heritage, the latter becoming the subject of hate crimes while the presence of Russians and Russian Americans is treated as no big deal. How would Florida’s Sunny Isles municipality function without the presence of Russian and Russian Americans’ money, after all?

This is part of the same umbrella program of destabilization: Putin knows the U.S. has a deep schism which goes to its foundation and he’s placed pressure on it to force it to open more widely. We know this from the documented efforts of Russia’s Internet Research Agency in 2016. Racist Americans have been encouraged to focus on an “Other” with the help of Trump whose repeated remarks about the “China flu.” With this redirection of attention, it’s too easy for any other remaining or new sleeper cells to be created undetected.

Some of these cells may not need to be Russians any longer. They can be loosely organized anarchic groups which are united by their preference for white supremacy and theocratic government. They could include peripherally-connected but influential individuals like David Duke who moved to Russia and lived there for a handful of years, to return to the U.S. to foment more racist tension.

Duke moved to Moscow in 1999 — the same year Putin was FSB Director. Did Duke have an invitation?

Does Putin’s Programma destabilizatsii go back that far?

I won’t even go into the much larger possibility that the umbrella destabilization program was meant to end NATO — which may mean Brexit was not a proof-of-concept linked to the interference in the 2016 election by the use of Cambridge Analytica/SCL, but wholly meant to work hand-in-glove to sustain an attack on NATO.

If this is the case, of course Putin would want to wall off interference into the 2016 election as a discrete, isolated event. Why would NATO continue to tolerate multiple sustained attacks using hybrid warfare on its member nations jointly and separately and not invoke Article 5?

Carlson to McCarthy to Nunes: Obstruction or Worse?

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[NB: Note the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Before Axios’ scoop was published last evening and Marcy published her post this morning, I’d started a tick-tock of the events related to Tucker Carlson’s recent fauxtrage claiming the NSA was spying on him.

It sure looked like Carlson was doing more than his usual white rage whining.

28-JUN-2021 – Monday evening – Carlson claimed the National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on him.

More specifically, Carlson said,

It’s not just political protesters the government is spying on, yesterday, we heard from a whistleblower within the US government who reached out to warn us that the NSA, the National Security Agency, is monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.

It’s doubtful Carlson was expressing outrage on behalf of protesters since he doesn’t distinguish between BLM protesters demanding an end to police brutality or MAGA/Qanon rabidly denouncing the outcome of democratic elections.

Who the “we,” “us,” or “our” is to which Carlson referred to is nebulous. The screed was unhinged because there was no evidence provided, just a reference to a shadowy whistleblower who felt compelled to tell Carlson rather than file a complaint through normal channels.

29-JUN-2021 – On Tuesday, Fox News published a partial transcript of Carlson’s program from the previous evening; the network published zero investigative reporting about the alleged spying.

29-JUN-2021 – 8:00 pm ET – The same evening, the NSA tweeted a denial:


As noted in Axios’ and others’ reporting, the NSA pointedly says Carlson “has never been an intelligence target of the Agency” which leaves the possibility Carlson’s communications could have been picked up as incidental to a foreign target if Carlson was communicating with a target.

29-JUN-2021 – 8:46 pm ET – Shortly thereafter, CNN-Business’s Oliver Darcy updated his report including the NSA’s denial while noting that none of Carlson’s Fox News cohort reported on his claim.

30-JUN-2021 – 10:51 am ET – On Wednesday morning, NYU’s Jay Rosen noted Fox’s failure to report such a serious claim.

30-JUN-2021 – 5:07 pm ET – Later that day House minority leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted about Carlson’s allegation:

How convenient – a neat turnaround in less than 48 hours.

~ ~ ~

Note in the partial transcript of Carlson’s Monday fauxtrage this bit toward the end:

…Only Congress can force transparency on the intelligence agencies and they should do that immediately. Spying on opposition journalists is incompatible with democracy. If they are doing it to us, and again, they are definitely doing it to us, they are almost certainly doing it to others. This is scary and we need to stop it right away.

Emphasis mine.

Did Carlson actually demand Congress — meaning McCarthy — take action? Or did Carlson provide cover for McCarthy’s selection of Nunes?

If Fox News had investigated Carlson’s claim and found any credibility, one might believe McCarthy had adequate reason to engage Nunes. But without such investigative reporting and no documented formal whistleblower complaint, it’s purely political posturing on Carlson’s part last Monday which drove McCarthy’s action.

McCarthy’s engagement of Nunes itself is odd since McCarthy has resisted for nearly a decade doing anything to restrain the NSA’s surveillance. Why would he sic Nunes on the fruits of his own inaction?

Nunes’ role in the obstruction of the Special Counsel’s investigation suggests the reason why McCarthy would set Nunes loose, along with a slew of other sketchy and obstructive behavior including Nunes’ role in pressuring Ukraine for disinfo about Hunter Biden. With McCarthy’s blessing, Nunes may be continuing the obstruction both of the past investigation and now the Biden administration’s operation.

Marcy’s post earlier today lays out Nunes’ habit of sowing faux scandal; perhaps Nunes didn’t sow this one directly but indirectly through Carlson, laundered by McCarthy until the Axios’ report last evening.

But timing is everything as they say. The Carlson-McCarthy-Nunes sequence occurred roughly 10 weeks after the exit of one of Nunes’ flunkies, Michael Ellis; you’ll recall Ellis is under investigation for leaking classified info, as is fellow Nunes’ flunkie Kash Patel. Patel left his role with the Trump administration on January 20 along with another Nunes’ flunkie, Ezra Cohen-Watnick.

The Carlson-McCarthy-Nunes sequence also happened 12 weeks after yet another Nunes’ flunkie, Derek Harvey, had been sanctioned along with his attorney for filing a defamation lawsuit against CNN which the judge’s ruling said was filed in bad faith.

If we can account for these sources Nunes might have used in the past to obtain intelligence, assuming Nunes might have used Carlson to move McCarthy on his behalf, who was the “whistleblower within the US government who reached out to warn” him about his communications? This is a rather important question since the “whistleblower” leaked to Carlson about communications collection which may have been related to tracking an identified foreign agent; who is the mole?

Perhaps Nunes, a government employee, tipped Carlson himself, closing the feedback loop?

The tricky part about Carlson’s claim after Axios’ report: if Carlson had not made a good faith effort to request an interview with Putin between the period January 1, 2019 until June 28, 2021 as Carlson indicated in his FOIA to the NSA, is it possible that some or all of his content in his program on Fox has been on behalf of a foreign entity?

Has Fox News, by failing to investigate this matter and report on it as a legitimate news network should have, by failing to exercise adequate editorial oversight of its “talent” contacting foreign leaders, also been in the service of a foreign entity?

Has House minority leader McCarthy allowed himself to be manipulated by a foreign entity in responding to Carlson’s claim by engaging Nunes to investigate it, rather than asking the Department of Justice or the Office of the Inspector General to do so? What if any effort did McCarthy expend to validate Carlson’s claim before handing off the situation to Nunes? Did McCarthy make any effort at all to contact Speaker Pelosi and/or Rep. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee?

~ ~ ~

Marcy wrote, “If the FBI believes that Tucker really was pursuing a long-term relationship with Russian agents, then even Fox News might rethink giving him a platform,” based on the 30-month period of time in which Carlson had been in dialog with Russian agents, allegedly pursuing an interview with Putin.

I don’t think there is or will be any government-based effort to take the Tucker Carlson Tonight show off the air — hello, First Amendment, which Carlson clearly doesn’t understand. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the program or its network was eventually obligated to file paperwork under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Drive for Show, Putt for Dough: Trump’s Accountant’s Putting Method Revealed [UPDATE-3]

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[NB: Check the byline, thanks. This is a work in progress, subject to updates which will be added at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

Trump’s numbers guy, Allen Weisselberg, was indicted yesterday. The indictment was unsealed today and it’s revealing — not because there’s any big surprise but because the fifteen counts with which Weisselberg is charged point to the next hole(s) on this course to be played.

You can read the indictment here (thanks to Adam Klasfeld at Law & Crime News).

There are a lot of folks complaining this is puny stuff, whining that the Trump Organization and its CFO Weisselberg are getting away with a lot. Au contraire, mes amis, it’s too soon for such complaints.

Just Security’s Ryan Goodman notes right off the BIG FAT RED BLINKING LIGHTS embedded in the indictment which point to potential federal charges in the offing:

Sure would like to know how those IRS audits are coming along, hmm?

Here’s the thing: Trump, like his father before him, didn’t do something just once. If it worked — and it always has, never resulting in a criminal prosecution until now — Trump did it again. And again. What we see in this indictment is what will be found for every single business under the Trump Organization umbrella.

I will bet good money there will be other individuals who domiciled in New York whose compensation including living expenses were reported fraudulently to city, state, and federal authorities. The implication is right there in the repeated use of the word “defendants,” references to “Unindicted Co-conspirator #1,” and the conspiracy.

Which of the Trump kindred lived in New York and were also employed by a Trump Organization entity? Does this include ex-wives and their children while they lived at home?

As I noted above, this post is subject to updates; I am only through page 12 of the indictment so far. I’ll share a couple disjointed observations here.

— Jesus Christ, they kept goddamned spreadsheets documenting their criming. I feel like I’m watching The Untouchables with Elliott Ness wielding Capone’s bookkeeper’s black book.

— Trump Org paid tuition for Weisselberg’s family members (which was unreported compensation). This smells hinky; I wondered at first if an actual education facility received payment, but it’s likely. And yet this points to another possibility, that “tuition payments” may appear in the Trump Org’s books and not actually have been tuition payments.

— This is just the State of New York; where else did Weisselberg work for Trump beside NYS? Are there other states where Trump Org employees have failed to report their income? We know Florida doesn’t have personal income tax and can’t expect to see similar charges based on income tax evasion. But what about California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. where other Trump Org golf courses and resorts are located?

I have to say I’m surprised that Weisselberg never moved as much of the Trump Org’s business as possible to Florida because of the lack of personal income tax. There must be some other reason behind retaining a (unreported) domicile in New York instead of “moving” to Florida or any of the other six eight states which don’t have personal income tax.

Ditto the use of an entity, Trump Payroll Corp. — was this created as another opportunity to skim cash off payroll?

— The indictment spells out a period, “during the period from on or about March 31, 2005, to on or about June 30, 2021” in which the offenses occurred. This is only months after Trump’s tenure on NBC’s The Apprentice began. Is there a correlation between offenses delineated in this indictment and the reality TV series?

Is there something in any of the records related to The Apprentice which is an MGM property, and now possibly owned by Jeff Bezos’ Amazon? ~dark laugh~

I hope you stocked up on popcorn because this is going to be entertaining. We haven’t even gotten to property tax and insurance fraud suggested by Michael Cohen’s appearance before the House Oversight Committee when he testified that Trump understated asset values.

UPDATE-1 — 11:00 AM ET 02-JUL-2021 —

Before I continue I have a couple of asks, thanks for any help you can offer:

— Does anyone have access to Dun & Bradstreet? If you do can you pull up a copy of the profile on Trump Organization? I’ve not pulled a D&B in a while, not certain if it will have history of the enterprise available, but it would be VERY helpful at this point to known who the “executives” were at Trump Org according to D&B. These are likely the same individuals legitimate lending organizations understand to be the policy and decision makers for the holding company structure.

— Does anyone have a copy of proceedings mentioned last night on Maddow? (Shut it, bmaz, we know how you feel about that show.) There was a key nugget in an excerpt last night and I can’t find it because MSNBC no longer uploads their evening programs in full. It may have been a transcript related to the grand jury but I couldn’t give it my full attention at the time; it was important enough that it caught my ear, though. What caught my ear was a throwaway remark that Weisselberg had other sources of income besides Trump Org. [See UPDATE-3 below.]

By now you’ve seen Marcy’s post this morning about Weisselberg’s stagnant income requiring tax evasion. My personal suspicion is that any changes to income levels were being hidden out of sight of local, state, and federal regulators as well as banks just about the point when Trump was beginning to think seriously about a run for POTUS, Trump Org was beginning to experience liquidity problems, AND they were pursuing what I might call euphemistically “alternative financing.” Trump Org purchased 4-5 golf courses in the period 2010-2011 (I need to confirm this number and which courses) which may have required filing of documents related to operating expenses for loans. Weisselberg’s income could have been suppressed on the Trump Org’s books but augmented by income not formally reported as Trump Org payroll.

Which brings me to another observation: the indictment mentions an unindicted co-conspirator. It’s not Trump because in the section Overt Acts under item 2 the indictment reads,

2) On or before April 5, 2010, the Trump Corporation, acting through its agent, Unindicted Coconspirator #1, underreported Allen Weisselberg’s taxable income for the tax year 2009.

The term agent makes it likely it’s Mazars, the accounting firm which did the bookkeeping for Trump Org.

What’s interesting to me looking at the timeline of events: Mazars, an international firm, acquired Weiser, an accounting firm in northeast U.S., in early 2010. It may be something, it may be nothing, but the acquisition happened ahead of the stagnation in Weisselberg’s income. Of course the acquisition didn’t change a history of sketchy financial reporting by Trump Org’s previous accountants, Weiser, and Spahr, Lacher & Berk before Weiser.

The term “executives” — plural — appears throughout the indictment nine times, hence my ask for the D&B profile. D&B’s freebie profile indicates the current executives are:

Eric Trump, Chief Executive Officer
Donald J. Trump Junior, Director
Ivanka Trump, Executive Vice President
A Aamiyahh, Accountant

I wonder if Aamiyahh also qualifies as controller, which may be relevant if more decision making power comes with that title. We don’t know the history of Trump Org’s executives that I’m aware of prior to Trump’s election. Were there any other persons who may also be under scrutiny as one of the “executives,” plural?

As I understand it, the indictment’s first count of grand larceny is based on theft of tax dollars owed not one victim but two — New York State and the IRS. The charge is not in lieu of a federal charge of tax fraud, though.

The multiple counts of falsifying business records have likely set any legitimate financing entities holding Trump Org debt scurrying to check documents on which they predicated lending decisions. One might imagine a liquidity crisis at Trump Org if loans are called in.

Last bit which has been niggling at me which the New York State investigation likely couldn’t encompass: what the hell was the ~$50 million “springing loan” related to Trump’s Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC? How does it fit into the Trump Org’s financial ecosystem?

I’m sure there will be plenty more to come, it’s just a matter of time.

UPDATE-2 — 11:30 AM ET 02-JUL-2021 —

Just had two three thoughts:

— Trump’s revocable trust which was last modified on February 10, 2017 after he assumed office as president doesn’t specify how the trust is revoked. The simplicity and spareness of the document is a massive loophole of sorts; at any given time Trump could give a verbal order and the trust could have been revoked and/or restored; the inclusion of an “ethics advisor” (ha!) is a mere gesture without any real brake on transactions. The two named trustees, Donnie Jr. and Weisselberg, also provide zero checks on this trust given their weaknesses. Ditto Eric Trump’s role as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Trust; we don’t even know who that board is (could be just Eric).

In short, the trust is like the $50 million “springing loan,” the exact terms of which are unknown to the public. Is it possible the revocable trust and the springing loan are mirror images of each other, an asset in the trust and a debt in the loan, canceling each other out to avoid/evade taxes?

— The word “employees” plural appears 19 times in the indictment of Weisselberg, of which only one use is “executives and employees.” There are some employees who are not executives who must be very itchy right now, besides Weisselberg’s son Barry, the manager of the all-cash operation Wollman Rink.

— If I were a naïve and legitimate paid member of Trump Golf Courses, I’d be panicking. What happens to the tens of thousands of dollars, even hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to become a member (not to be confused with dues or fees related to monthly/annual consumption of services) should the entire Trump holding company structure go bankrupt?

UPDATE-3 — 10:50 PM ET 02-JUL-2021 —

Community member Justlp provided a link to the full transcript for last night’s Maddow show. It contains the snippet I heard which I couldn’t pick apart at the time.

Looking at the transcript I didn’t hear exactly what I thought I heard, but it does raise questions:

The prosecutor says to the judge: While these charges are eligible for bail, we believe there is a flight risk associated with this defendant. So surrender of the passport is necessary to reasonably assure his return to court. This defendant has been and apparently will remain the CFO of a company with international tentacles, and the evidence on this would demonstrate an ample record of travel by private jet and defendant has significant means and connections to support himself outside the jurisdiction, including in places beyond our powers of extradition.

The surrender of the passport is the least restrictive alternative condition that would reasonably assure defendant`s return to court. It`s our understanding that defendant Weisselberg consents to this condition and is prepared to surrender the passport to our investigators.

Emphasis mine — it was this bit in the transcript from the indictment hearing which caught my attention. It wasn’t that he had other income streams but assets and a network outside New York State and the U.S. such that prosecutors think he’s a flight risk.

Was Weisselberg paid enough during his tenure in spite of what reported expenses he had residing in New York, or are we supposed to believe he’s a talented asset manager after hours?

Steve Bannon and His Competent Lawyers Part Ways

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It has been hard to understand Steve Bannon’s desperate efforts to sell a Hunter Biden conspiracy in recent weeks outside the context of a pardon audition. He is already charged with fraud for diverting funds donated to build a wall to his own pocketbook. And there’s a lot about the Hunter Biden story that reeks of fraud, if not serving as an Agent of a Foreign Power.

Then, last night, he said that Anthony Fauci and Chris Wray should be beheaded and have their heads put on pikes outside the White House as a warning. He got banned permanently from Twitter as a result.

If you consider the fact that the investigation — led by the FBI — into Bannon’s charged fraud is ongoing, that comes off as a threat to someone involved in his case (though is probably not why he made the comment). Roger Stone did far less and got a gag placed on him while he was out on bail.

Today, William Burck, the very competent lawyer who shepherded Bannon through a whole lot of evolving testimony in the Mueller investigation sent a letter saying they’re going to withdraw from the case.

On behalf of Defendant Stephen Bannon, we write respectfully to request an adjournment of the status conference currently scheduled for Monday, November 9 at 1:00 p.m. Mr. Bannon is in the process of retaining new counsel, and Quinn Emanuel intends to move to withdraw. As a result, Mr. Bannon respectfully requests that the status conference in this matter be adjourned for three weeks so that he may formally retain new counsel.

We have conferred with counsel for the government and for Defendants Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea, all of whom consent to an adjournment. This is the second request Mr. Bannon has made for an adjournment of this status conference.

This could be nothing more than Quinn Emanuel’s unwillingness to represent someone who engages in such action. Or, there may be a larger underlying strategic dispute, one that might extend to how Bannon might audition for a pardon.

But when Mike Flynn took a similar step over a year ago, it didn’t work out the way he hoped.