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Back in 2015, when Donald Trump was merely a candidate for office, he made a bold claim, telling The Washington Post, Im going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people. Its a claim that would have held up if best and most serious people were actually code for a collection of fuck-ups, racists, and criminals,though of course Trump meant best in the actual sense. Instead, in the years since, more than half a dozen of the 45th presidents associates have been arrested or convicted of a crime, and apparently, the number continues to grow!

On Tuesday morning, billionaire Thomas Barrack, one of Trumps closest friends, was arrested in the Los Angeles area and charged with violating foreign-lobbying laws, making false statements, and obstructing justice. According to the Post, the financier was indicted on charges related to his dealings in the United Arab Emirates. He and two other defendants have reportedly been accused of acting and conspiring to act as agents of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018. Officials also claimed that Barrack lied to FBI agents in 2019 while being questioned about his dealings with the UAE.

The 45-page indictment charges Matthew Grimes, an employee of Barracks investment firm, with helping in the lobbying effort. Grimes was also arrested, officials said. A third man charged in the scheme, Rashid Alshahhi, is a citizen of the UAE who lived for a time in California. Attorneys for Barrack and Grimes did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Officials said Alshahhi remains at large; an attorney for him could not immediately be identified.

Officials said that the lobbying effort began as Trump was sewing up the GOP primary nomination in the spring of 2016 and that Barrack took steps to establish himself as the key communications channel for the United Arab Emirates to the Campaign. A real estate titan who became wealthy buying out-of-favor assets, Barrack was one of Trumps closest associates during the campaign and in office, regularly speaking to the former president, visiting him, and channeling him to others, including business officials and leaders in foreign countries.... Federal prosecutors say Barrack capitalized on his access to Trump and other high-ranking government officials, and his relationships with U.S. journalists, to advance the policy goals of a foreign government without disclosing their true alliances. On a number of occasions, the Justice Department alleged, Barrack pushed the interests of the UAE to the Trump administration without disclosing that he was working on the countrys behalf.

On a seemingly unrelated but crucial note, Barrack chaired Trumps 2016 inaugural committee, which is currently under criminal investigation by D.C. attorney general Karl Racine. Racinesuedthe Trump Organization, the Trump International Hotel, and the inaugural committee in January 2020,allegingthe groups funneled large amounts of inauguration cash into the first familys pockets via the hotel. Both Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump have sat for depositions related to the probe, seeming to have misled investigators about their involvement in the planning of the inaugural events. After the lawsuit was filed, the Trump Organizationsaidin a statement that it was a clear P.R. stunt and that the rates charged by the hotel were completely in line with what anyone else would have been charged for an unprecedented event of this enormous magnitude and were reflective of the fact that [the]hotel had just recently opened, possessed superior facilities, and was centrally located on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Barrack joins a long, ignoble list of Trump associates, advisers, and friends whove found themselves on the wrong side of the law. In April, Rudy Giuliani had his home and office raided as part of criminal investigation into his Ukraine dealings. Giuliani is also reportedly the subject of a DOJ investigation into alleged foreign lobbying for Turkey. (Giuliani has denied lobbying on behalf of both Ukraine and Turkey.)

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Donald Trumps Best Friend and Inauguration Chair, Thomas Barrack, Arrested on Federal Charges - Vanity Fair

Nobodys ever gone through what I have, Trump added. They got me on all phony stuff.

Trump found fault with most of his fellow Republican leaders, past and present. Still clearly vexed by the ghost of the late Arizona senator John McCain, Trump without prompting brought up the partys 2008 presidential nominee, whom he had attacked for years.

John McCain was a bad guy, he said of the decorated prisoner of war. He was a bully and a nasty guy, bad guy. A lot of people disliked him. Last in his class in Annapolis. All that stuff, but he was a bad guy. I say it to you. I dont care. Does it affect me? I won Arizona, okay? By a lot. Didnt turn out that way in terms of the vote, but I won Arizona. Everyone knows it. He didnt affect me. I won the first time. I won it the second time.

Trump, who in fact lost Arizona to Biden, continued with this fix. You know, I did three rallies in Arizona, he said. I never had an empty seat. Governor Doug Ducey, who withstood Trumps pressure to overturn the result, was not a loyal party member, according to the former president. I think Ducey is a terrible Republican, he said. Ducey did everything he could to block voter integrity, to block people from making sure the vote was accurate.

Trump also complained about former House Speaker Paul Ryan, whom he labeled a super-RINORepublican in name only. And he said Mitch McConnell has no personality nor a killer political instinct. He faulted McConnell for refusing to eliminate the filibuster to ram through Republican legislation and for not persuading Senator Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia, to switch parties.

Hes a stupid person, Trump said of McConnell. I dont think hes smart enough.

I tried to convince Mitch McConnell to get rid of the filibuster, to terminate it, so that we would get everything, and he was a knucklehead and he didnt do it, Trump said.

Trump said he wished he had had partners in Congress like Meade Esposito, who was the head of the Democratic Party machine in Brooklyn from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Esposito, who was close to Trump and his late father, Fred Trump, was known for his patronage and commanded respect.

Nobody would ever talk back to Meade Esposito. Meade Esposito didnt have a RINO like a Mitt Romney, you know, or as I said, Ben Sasse, whos a lightweight, Trump said, invoking two Republican senators who sometimes criticized him. He added, Mitch McConnell compared to Meade Esposito, its like a baby compared to a grownup football player with brains on top of everything else.

Esposito had run a citywide patronage system that doled out important jobs to loyalists and people providing gifts and favors. The party boss gained a fearsome reputation for his intimidation tactics and connections to organized crime. Amid an investigation of his work, Esposito retired in 1983; he was convicted of offering a gratuity and interstate travel charges in 1987.

Other presidents attend to philanthropic interests, write memoirs, and curate presidential libraries after leaving office. But not Trump. Many of his Palm Beach days have followed the tempo and style he set back in Washington, a reflection of his addiction to the twenty-four-hour news cycle and appetite to maintain political relevance. In the morning hours, he spends time alone in his private quarters watching television and making phone calls to allies and friends. Many days he plays a round of golf at one of his nearby clubs. And in the afternoons, he puts on his suit, applies his makeup, and emerges for meetings with whichever politicians or acolytes have made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. By early 2021, Trump had turned his club into a political base camp for his potential comeback.

Trump made no secret of his interest in perhaps running for president in 2024. Would he choose Pence again as his running mate?

Well, I was disappointed in Mike, Trump said. But, you know, Ill be making a decision at some point. I will say this: Based on the polls, those polls are great, the Republican Party loves Trump. Ninety-seven percent!

When we pointed out that Pence is said to be interested in running for president, too, Trump seemed to welcome the competition. Its a free country, right? he said. Its a free country.

But Trump all but ruled out running with Chris Christie, who had been runner-up to Pence in his 2016 veepstakes, and Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, who had criticized Trumps attempts to subvert the vote in repeated interviews with Tim Alberta of Politico.

Chris has been very disloyal, but thats okay, Trump said. I helped Chris Christie a lot. He knows that more than anybody, but I helped him a lot. But hes been disloyal.

As for his former ambassador, Trump said he was rebuffing her outreach. Nikki Haley wants to come here so badly, he said. She did a little nasty couple of statements...She has been killed by the party. When they speak badly about me, the party is not happy about it. Its pretty amazing. Theres not been anything like this.

Over the years, Trump rarely has expressed misgivings. But he regrets his response to protests last summer in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and other cities. I think if I had it to do again, I would have brought in the military immediately, he said.

Trump had no such second thoughts about his handling of the pandemic. He said he had been very tough in protecting the country by restricting travel, first from China and then from Europe. He said he did so against the wishes of his top medical advisers; in fact, most of them agreed with the restrictions before he made his decision, according to participants in the discussions and their contemporaneous notes. But he correctly said he pushed scientists at the FDA at a level that they have never been pushed before to get vaccines approved in record time.

I think we did a great job on COVID and it hasnt been recognized, Trump said, noting that other countries saw spikes in COVID-19 infections in the months after he left office. The cupboards were bare. We didnt have gowns. We didnt have masks. We didnt have ventilators. We didnt have anything...We brought in plane loads. We did a great job.

When we asked Trump why he encouraged people to believe things that werent true or to distrust science and the media, he delighted in talking about the scientific smarts in his familys genes.

First of all, Im a big person, he said. Do you know this? My uncle, Dr. John Trump, I think he was at [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] longer than any other professor. Totally brilliant man. He had numerous degrees. So thats in the genes. I always go with that stuff. But its a little bit in the genes and Dr. John Trump, he was a great guy. My fathers brother. No, Im a big believer in science. If I wasnt, you wouldnt have a vaccine. It depends. Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.

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Im Getting the Word Out: Inside the Feverish Mind of Donald Trump Two Months After Leaving the White House - Vanity Fair

After literal decades of avoiding any and all consequences for a life of corruption that has included everything from incitingan attack on the U.S. Capitol to attempting toextort Ukraine, to allegedlydirecting his lawyer to violatecampaign finance laws,to lying to the public about COVID-19, to allegedlystiffinghundreds of contractors,is Donald Trump actually going to be held accountable for running a company accused of, among other things, conspiracy, grand larceny, and multiple counts of tax fraud and falsifying records? On the one hand, he never has, so why would anyone expect it to happen now? On the other, thanks to the work of Manhattan prosecutors and helpful witnesses, he appears to be closer than ever to a situation in which he spends numerous years in prison!

Weeks after the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, were hit with a slew of criminal charges, for which the latter faces more than a decade in prison and to which they both pleaded not guilty, the Daily Beast reports that Weisselbergs ex-daughter-in-law, whos been extremely helpful to Cyrus Vance Jr.s office thus far, provided the Manhattan D.A.s office with explosive information concerning Donald Trumps involvement in the crimes his company and longtime employee have been accused of committing.

According to reporter Jose Pagliery, during a Zoom call with investigators on June 25, Jennifer Weisselberg, who was previously married to Allens son Barry Weisselberg, told investigators that she was in Trumps office at Trump Tower during a January 2012 meeting in which the real estate developer discussed compensation with Allen and Barry, explaining that while the latter would not be getting a raise, his childrens private school tuition, which clocked in at more than $50,000 a year per child, would be paid for. According to Jennifer Weisselberg, Trump turned to her and allegedly said, Dont worry, Ive got it covered. While that might sound like an instance of the ex-president being an uncharacteristically generous guy, prosecutors have claimed that Allen Weisselberg was awarded numerous fringe benefits over the yearslike a free apartment, cars, and, yes, private school tuitionfor the express purpose of avoiding paying taxes. Which, according to the indictment against him, he did, to the tune of $900,000.

According to two sources, among the prosecutors on the call were Carey Dunne, the Manhattan DAs general counsel; Mark F. Pomerantz, a white collar crime specialist brought on for this investigation; and Gary Fishman, an assistant attorney general deputized to work on this joint investigation. If true, Jennifer Weisselbergs claims would directly tie Trump to what a New York criminal indictment described as a corporate scheme to pay executives in a matter that was off the books.

The scheme allowed the Trump Organization to evade the payment of payroll taxes that [it] was required to pay, an indictment for the Trump Organization claims. On the flip side, it also alleges that executives avoided having to pay income taxes on a huge chunk of their pay. The indictment, filed the very next week on June 30, does not criminally charge Trump as an individual, but it does describe how he signed checks that paid for the Weisselberg children to attend an expensive private school in Manhattans Upper West Side. While longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg could be crucial to a criminal case against Trump, its Jennifer Weisselberghis former daughter-in-lawwhos thus far been more helpful. Prosecutors have already useddocuments in Jennifer Weisselbergs divorce caseto explore how Trump paid more than $50,000 a year, starting in 2012, for the kids to attend the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School.

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Report: Prosecutors Have Obtained Damning Information Allegedly Implicating Trump in His Companys Crimes - Vanity Fair

Jamel Toppin for Forbes

In April 2017, Press Secretary Sean Spicer took the podium in the White House briefing room and announced that the president was donating his first-quarter salary to the National Park Service. With a serious look on his face, Spicer pulled out an oversize check with an oversize signature. It was the first of several checks that Donald Trump signed while in office, handing over his $400,000 salary in exchange for good publicity.

That was pocket change for Trump. His real money came from the business he refused to divest, not from his government salary. An analysis of documents, some of which only became public in recent weeks, shows just how much Trumps businesses raked in while he was in office. Dig through everythingincluding property records, ethics disclosures, debt documents and securities filingsand youll find about $2.4 billion of revenue from January 2017 to December 2020.

If not for the pandemic, there would have been even more. Trumps business was hauling in about $650 million annually during the first three years of his presidency. But in 2020, revenues plunged to an estimated $450 million as Covid infected the business. Its hurting me, and its hurting Hilton, and its hurting all of the great hotel chains all over the world, Trump said in a March 2020 press conference at the White House. Its hurting everybody. I mean, there are very few businesses that are doing well now.

The biggest portion of Trumps revenue flowed through his clubs and golf properties, which generated approximately $940 million over four years. Trump National Doral, the golf resort in Miami, contributed roughly $270 million to that total. Mar-a-Lago, Trumps club in Palm Beach, brought in about $90 million. A New Jersey golf club, where the former president has been spending time this summer, took in $60 million or so. Those top-line figures didnt all end up in Trumps pocket, however. Golf clubs and resorts are expensive to manage, with operating profit margins running at 20% in good times.During the pandemic, Trumps traditional courses fared reasonably well, but his golf resorts had to contend with long shutdowns, causing his overall golf and club revenues to drop 27% to an estimated $190 million in 2020.

Donald Trump owns a 30% interest in 555 California Street, a San Francisco office building.

Fortunately for Trump, he also had high-margin commercial real estate holdings to bolster his bottom line. That proved especially critical in 2020, as commercial tenantsmany locked into long-term leasescontinued to pay rent. At 555 California Street, a San Francisco office building in which Trump holds a 30% stake, his rent actually inched up last year, from $42 million to $43 million, according to an analysis of filings. The same thing happened at New York Citys 1290 Avenue of the Americas, where Trumps haul increased from roughly $55 million to $58 million.

The hotel, licensing and management businesses, on the other hand, didnt fare so well. Estimated revenues stayed well above $100 million from 2017 to 2019 but dropped closer to $50 million in 2020.No part of Trumps portfolio was more poorly positioned to withstand such a blow, given the debt load against his hotels. Inside his Washington, D.C., hotel, revenues flatlined at about $52 million from 2017 to 2019. With the top line stalled out, the hotel didnt seem to be producing enough profit before the pandemic to cover the interest on its $170 million loan from Deutsche Bank. Things only got worse when Covid-19 hit, and revenues plunged to less $20 million. Its no wonder the Trump Organization tried to sell the place.

Just down the street from the White House stands the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

But the former president didnt have much luck offloading that hotel or other assets last year. Trump ditched $32 million of real estate in 2017, an estimated $53 million in 2018, then $32 million in 2019. In 2020, however, he pocketed just $435,000, by selling condos in Vegas. The lack of deals was one reason revenues dropped about 25% to an estimated $450 million. A smaller sum, to be sure, but still more than 1,000 times the annual salary he gave away.

Originally posted here:
Trumps Business Hauled In $2.4 Billion During Four Years He Served As President - Forbes

Former President TrumpDonald TrumpOn The Money: Schumer pressured from all sides on spending strategy | GOP hammers HUD chief over sluggish rental aid | Democrat proposes taxes on commercial space flights Overnight Health Care: Fauci clashes with Paul - again | New York reaches .1B settlement with opioid distributors | Delta variant accounts for 83 percent of US COVID-19 cases Overnight Defense: Military justice overhaul included in defense bill | Pentagon watchdog to review security of 'nuclear football' | Pentagon carries out first air strike in Somalia under Biden MORE will meet with Rep. Liz CheneyElizabeth (Liz) Lynn CheneyTrump says he'll meet with Cheney challengers ahead of endorsement Pelosi weighing GOP picks for Jan. 6 probe Jim Jordan among McCarthy picks for Jan. 6 panel MOREs (R-Wyo.) primary challengers at his New Jersey golf club next week as he looks to make an endorsement in the race to oust one of his most prominent Republican critics.

Trump announced the upcoming meetings in a statement issued through his political action committee (PAC) Save America, underscoring the need for Republicans to coalesce behind a single candidate in the primary against Cheney.

This is a hot race with some very interesting candidates running against her. Remember though, in the end we just want ONE CANDIDATE running against Cheney, Trump said. I'll be meeting with some of her opponents in Bedminster next week and will be making my decision on who to endorse in the next few months. JUST ONE CANDIDATE. Thank you!

Trump has been hellbent on ousting Cheney since January, when she broke party lines in a vote to impeach him for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. While Trump was ultimately acquitted in a Senate vote, he has vowed to campaign against Republicans who backed his impeachment.

Since the January impeachment vote, Cheney has continued to criticize the former president, especially over his repeated and baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him. That criticism prompted House Republicans to oust her in May as their conference chairwoman.

Cheney was picked by Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiEthics panel upholds 0 mask fines against Greene, other GOP lawmakers Trump says he'll meet with Cheney challengers ahead of endorsement Pelosi weighing GOP picks for Jan. 6 probe MORE (D-Calif.) to serve on a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

So far, half-a-dozen Republicans have lined up to challenge Cheney in her 2022 primary, including state Sen. Anthony Bouchard and state Rep. Chuck Gray.

In his statement on Tuesday, Trump said that some highly respected pollsters have told him that Cheney is toast, though it wasnt clear whom he was referring to.

Public polling in the race remains scarce, but Cheney has continued to rake in large sums of money despite her status as persona non grata in Trump World. She raised nearly $1.9 million in the second quarter of the year, far outpacing any of her primary challengers.

Bouchard, by comparison, raised about $213,000 between April 1 and June 30, according to his filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), while Grays campaign pulled in about $221,000. Another challenger, former Laramie County GOP Chair Darin Smith, raised $171,000.

Still, a Trump endorsement is expected to go a long way in the race to replace Cheney, given Wyomings strong Republican tilt and the former presidents 43-point margin of victory there in the 2020 election.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday, Cheney cast her primary race as a choice between the U.S. Constitution and the former president.

The people of Wyoming are gonna have a very clear choice between somebody who is loyal to the Constitution and somebody whose claim is loyalty to Donald Trump, and I'm confident that people will make the right decision, Cheney said.

--Scott Wong contributed.

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Trump says he'll meet with Cheney challengers ahead of endorsement | TheHill - The Hill