Anarchy in the U.K.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

President Bill Clinton impeached; General George Washington opens camp at Valley Forge; Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol” is first published; Apollo 17 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean; ‘The Music Man’ opens on Broadway.

I’m a big believer in, no matter what you go through in life, as long as you can laugh your way through it, you’re going to be okay.

Alyssa Milano

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That’s what Quid Pro Quo means in Latin and while it’s always nice to do a favor for a friend, doing so Coercively (Extortion, nice little democracy you’ve got here, shame if something happened to it) or Corruptly (Bribery, here’s a Benjamin for ‘expedited action’) in the expectation of reward (something of value, doesn’t have to be money, “Mr. Bonasera, I want you to make my Sonny look good, you know, for his Mom.”).

As someone wrote today (can’t remember who, sorry) the thing about money is that it leaves a trail wherever it goes and Robert Mueller has been dutifully following it. Most of his Pleas and Convictions so far have been related to financial crimes.

It’s important to remember when looking at it from that angle Unidicted Co-conspirator Donald J. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, have been laundering money for Russian Oligarchs and the House of Saud for decades both in Casinos (a good place to do it since there’s a lot of cash floating around, like a Convenience Store or a Gas Station only bigger) and through Real Estate Transactions (where the real money is).

When we talk about easing sanctions on Russia what we mean is lifting controls on Billions of dollars of financial transactions for Putin and his cronies. I don’t think Putin much minds that he can’t vacation in Yellowstone, Russia has plenty of beautiful places. It bugs him a lot that he can’t take his Ruble stash of questionable value and turn it into nice, safe, liquid U.S.Treasury Notes. A $50 Million Penthouse Suite is merely a gratuity, a ‘valued customer’ discount.

Not that Rubles are entirely valueless. You can use them to buy Facebook Ads for instance.

The House of Saud is a little different. They’re not under any particular restrictions (though they should be) but they use their money to promote Wahabist Terrorism and exercise political control of Western Governments, both applications benefiting from a fair amount of anonymity (or at least plausible deniability).

Money Laundering is really the primary Business Model of the Trump Family (Ok, the Family has a side business in Fraud) and Trump Organization and it is not only illegal in and of itself but Unidicted Co-conspirator Trump stands accused of shaping Policy to benefit his personal finances.

In addition to being compromised by the threat of Blackmail because of his complicity in these crimes.

The Daily Beast has a piece about developments on this front today.

Mueller Ready to Pounce on Trumpworld Concessions to Moscow
by Erin Banco, Daily Beast
12.18.18

For more than a year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has questioned witnesses broadly about their interactions with well-connected Russians. But three sources familiar with Mueller’s probe told The Daily Beast that his team is now zeroing in on Trumpworld figures who may have attempted to shape the administration’s foreign policy by offering to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia.

The Special Counsel’s Office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail Trump associates’ conversations about sanctions relief—and spell out how those offers and counter-proposals were characterized to top figures on the campaign and in the administration, those same sources said.

The new details would not only bookend a multi-year investigation by federal prosecutors into whether and how Trump associates seriously considered requests by Moscow to ease the financial measures. The new court filings could also answer a central question of the Russia investigation: What specific policy changes, if any, did the Kremlin hope to get in return from its political machinations?

“During his investigation, Mueller has shown little proclivity for chasing dead ends,” said Paul Pelletier, a former senior Department of Justice official. “His continued focus on the evidence that members of the Trump campaign discussed sanction relief with Russians shows that his evidence of a criminal violation continues to sharpen. This has to come as especially bad news for the president.”

Mueller’s interest in sanctions arose, at least in part, out of his team’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The Special Counsel’s Office noted in a court filing last week that Flynn had lied to the FBI about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak concerning U.S. sanctions. But other portions of this court filing were left redacted.

Mueller’s team is looking closely at evidence—some of it provided by witnesses—from the transition period, two individuals with knowledge of the probe said.

“Sanctions conversations that happened after November are more serious,” said Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer for Russia under President George W. Bush. “At that point Flynn, for example, would have already known he was going to be part of the administration and those conversations would have included plans for what might happen [next].”

And Flynn wasn’t the only figure talking sanctions during that transition period, three sources with knowledge of the probe said. Several individuals in Trump’s inner circle were developing their own plans to put pressure on other parts of the government to roll back the sanctions, which have cost the Russian economy more than $100 billion, according to Kremlin estimates.

It’s still unclear if Trump adviser Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds, spoke about sanctions in their now-infamous meeting in the Seychelles held during the last days of the transition. But The Daily Beast previously reported that the two spoke broadly about Russian investment opportunities in the U.S. and the potential for peace in Ukraine.

Just a week after Trump took office, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii V. Artemenko handed Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal lawyer, a “peace plan” that would lift sanctions. Accounts differ on how seriously the proposal was considered by the administration.

Around the same time, Trump reportedly asked staffers in the State Department to come up with a plan to roll back sanctions. But the department’s transition team was disorganized and understaffed, according to one person on the team. The request never made its way to people tasked with advising the White House on sanctions, according to two former national-security officials.

“The Russians were definitely looking to ease sanctions, or the relaxation of sanctions,” said one former Treasury official. “There was clearly a person they supported in the election and Trump clearly had a favorable view of Russia. But the transition was a mess and it took more time to get their feet under them. By the time they got their stuff together, Congress was increasing sanctions.”

The U.S. implemented sanctions on Russia in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea. Those sanctions were broadly supposed to make it more difficult for Russia to make money and to conduct business with the U.S. and its European allies. Several of Russia’s financial entities, including the Russian Direct Investment Fund, one of Moscow’s sovereign wealth funds, and VTB, one of the leading banks in the country, were put under sanctions but still allowed to transact with Americans under certain circumstances. Others, though, including top government officials like Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, the formerly state-owned Russian oil enterprise, were blacklisted.
…
With the careful maneuvering of business deals, Russia continued to conduct business with the U.S. and its European allies, two former Obama officials involved in drafting the sanctions said.

But compliance lawyers said investors and U.S. businesses were wary of the legal risks of doing business with Moscow. The lifting of sanctions, lawyers told The Daily Beast, would have allowed for Russia to conduct business with American and European investors with more ease. It would have allowed international businesses and individuals to lend money to Russia as well as borrow, which the sanctions currently broadly restrict.

The topic kept coming up during the campaign. In the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, for example, Donald Trump Jr. reportedly suggested a review of sanctions law.

Today, after virtually calling Flynn a traitor, Judge Emmet Sullivan postponed his sentencing for 90 day and suggested it could be delayed further pending “completion of his co-operation” in the Russian Treason Investigation.

You could take that as an indicator the Judge will depart from the sentencing recommendations of both the Special Counsel’s Office and Flynn’s defense lawyers, I think it’s disappointing we didn’t get some resolution or new information.

On the other hand Barbara Underwood, New York State Attorney General, entered into an agreement with Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump’s “charitable” Foundation.

Trump Foundation to Close Amid Lawsuit Accusing It of ‘Willful Self-Dealing’
By Shane Goldmacher, The New York Times
Dec. 18, 2018

The Donald J. Trump Foundation will close and give away all its remaining funds under judicial supervision amid a lawsuit accusing the charity and the Trump family of using it illegally for self-dealing and political gain, the New York attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.

The attorney general, Barbara Underwood, accused the foundation of “a shocking pattern of illegality” that was “willful and repeated” and included unlawfully coordinating with Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” Ms. Underwood said.

The closure of the foundation is a milestone in the investigation. But the broader lawsuit, which also seeks millions in restitution and penalties and a bar on President Trump and his three oldest children from serving on the boards of other New York charities, is proceeding.

Ms. Underwood and a lawyer for the foundation signed the stipulation agreeing to the dissolution. The foundation’s remaining assets are to be redistributed under judicial supervision.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” Ms. Underwood said. “We’ll continue to move our suit forward to ensure that the Trump Foundation and its directors are held to account for their clear and repeated violations of state and federal law.”

Mr. Trump had said after the 2016 election that he would dissolve the foundation to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. But the attorney general’s office said that such a move would require its approval, given the continuing investigation.
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Nonprofit foundations are supposed to be devoted to charitable activities, but the attorney general’s office, following a two-year investigation, accused the Trump Foundation of being used to win political favor and even purchase a $10,000 portrait of Mr. Trump that was displayed at one of his golf clubs. The existence of the portrait was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lawsuit accused the foundation of virtually becoming an arm of the Trump campaign, with its campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, directing the foundation to make disbursements in Iowa only days before the state held its presidential nominating caucuses.

“Is there any way we can make some disbursements [from the proceeds of the fund-raiser] this week while in Iowa? Specifically on Saturday,” Mr. Lewandowski wrote to the foundation’s treasurer in an email disclosed in the lawsuit.

The attorney general’s office is seeking for the Trump Foundation to pay $2.8 million in restitution, which is the amount raised for the foundation at an Iowa fund-raiser in 2016 that Mr. Trump held on the day that he avoided attending a debate with his Republican rivals. The foundation reported $1.7 million in assets in 2017 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations that he used it for personal and political benefit
By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post
December 18, 2018

President Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and to give away its remaining money amid allegations that he used the foundation for his personal and political benefit, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced Tuesday.

Underwood said that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump and his three eldest children.

The suit, filed in June, alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the foundation and sought to have it shut down. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofit organizations.

Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.”

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” she added in a statement.
…
In a court filing in New York, Underwood said that the foundation’s remaining $1.75 million would be distributed to other charities approved by her office and a state judge.

The attorney general’s suit alleges that Trump used his charity’s money as his own piggy bank — including to help his presidential campaign by paying for giveaways at Iowa rallies.

“The Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments to not-for-profits from Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization,” Underwood wrote in the initial suit.

The Trump Foundation was never the most impressive part of Trump’s portfolio: At its peak, in 2009, it had only about $3.2 million in the bank, a small sum for a billionaire’s charity.

The real estate mogul used other people’s donations to build up the foundation’s assets. In recent years, the largest gifts came from pro-wrestling moguls Vince and Linda McMahon, not Trump.

Trump gave away the money in his name and also used the foundation to pay his business’s legal settlements. Federal law prohibits using charity money for personal gain.

The Post’s reporting showed that, for years, Trump appeared to treat the foundation — which was, by law, an independent entity — as a checkbook for gifts that bolstered his interests.

The largest donation in the foundation’s history — a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 — appeared to benefit Trump’s business: It paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. The smallest, a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year, appeared to benefit Trump’s family. It matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year that his son Donald Trump Jr. was 11.

The attorney general’s investigation turned up evidence that Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — all listed as officers of the charity — had never held a board meeting. The board hadn’t met since 1999. The charity’s official treasurer, Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, told investigators that he wasn’t aware that he was on the board.
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At one point, Trump used the charity’s money to make a $25,000 political donation to Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi (R). The charity didn’t tell the IRS about that, as required — and instead listed that donation as a gift to an unrelated charity in Kansas with a similar name. Trump’s team blamed accounting mistakes.

During the 2016 campaign, state investigators allege, Trump effectively “ceded control” of his charity to his political campaign. He raised more than $2 million at a fundraiser in Iowa that flowed into the foundation. Then, the state said, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski determined when and where it would be given away.

“Is there any way we can make some disbursements . . . this week while in Iowa?” Lewandowski wrote in an email cited in Underwood’s lawsuit.

Trump gave away oversize checks from the foundation at campaign events in the key early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, pausing his campaign rallies to donate to local veterans’ groups.

Federal law prohibits charities from participating in political campaigns. As president, Trump has called repeatedly for that law to be repealed.

My worry is that Weisselberg, who is testifying under immunity, and the Trump Organization will use this agreement to short circuit investigation of the Trump Foundation and prevent charges from being brought against Donny Boy Jr., Eric “Don’t Call Me Stupid”, and Ivanka.

Ho, Ho, Ho

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

U.S. Supreme Court upholds the relocation and detention of Japanese-Americans during World War Two; U.S. begins 12 days of heavy bombing of North Vietnamese targets; Steven Spielberg is born; Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’ – publicly premieres in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Struggle is strengthening. Battling with evil gives us the power to battle evil even more.

Ossie Davis

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Today we find out that Theresa May won’t put the Brexit deal on the table again until January 14th which will give you 2 weeks to critique the Dr. Who New Year’s special episode.

Having survived an intra-Party challenge and thus gaining a year’s worth of immunity in that forum May is playing the rope-a-dope deadline game so familiar to those of us here in the United States (Lame Duck? Government shutdown?).

She has been thoroughly rebuffed in her attempt to extract more concessions from the EU.

Jeremy Corbyn is, wisely I think, putting a motion of No Confidence before the full Parliament based on the delay, contending that it reduces the ability of Parliament to debate and modify the deal which is true enough but the kind of “process” argument I find lame and feckless. It might find some resonance among MPs however since they have a highly inflated estimation of their own self importance.

Votes need to happen and unfortunately for the Tories and May they look poised to lose them all and even a single loss spells doom.

There is this No Confidence Vote.

If May wins there will be a vote in Parliament on Brexit. She didn’t have the votes last week and nothing has changed. When she does there will be another No Confidence vote.

There will be a motion to call a second referendum which even hard core Brexiteers now favor. Hard to see how that doesn’t pass and, set before the people again, equally hard to see Remain not winning the rematch.

In any event May personally is cooked. She gave binding assurances to her own caucus that after Brexit she is done.

Now you might conceive a parallel between May and Pelosi who, foolishly in my estimation, term limited herself to 2 more Congresses. She didn’t need to do that to win this Leadership challenge, her opposition has no candidate (and they’re Republicans anyway).

On the other hand she’ll be 82 which is pretty old, it’s likely term limits will not survive a Democratic Caucus vote (Steny Hoyer and the Congressional Black Caucus hate them and they have their own constituency which amounts to a thumping majority among Democrats), and rules adopted by one Congress are not at all binding on the next body which will be elected in 2020.

So all bets are off. A nothingburger of nothing. Pretty, empty, mouth noises and posturing.

The situations are in no way comparable. May is a dead woman walking, Pelosi hardly dented despite the mileage. My Great Grandmother had 2 Buick Skylarks parked in her garage, a Pink one and a Blue one, both barely driven. Kind of disappointed I didn’t inherit at least one.

Single Payer

2 Years In The Resistance

Hippety Hoppety

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Wright brothers conduct the first successful manned, powered flight of the airplane. U.S. test-fires the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile; Simon Bolivar dies in Colombia; television’s Tiny Tim marries his fiancee, Miss Vicky.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Thomas Jefferson

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