Talking Walking Trump

Episode 4

Episode 5

No, this is not about how he seems like a Unindicted Co-conspirator Trump robot imitator (remember the water bottle?) who they forget to charge sometimes (Pelosi/Schumer?).

For years (well, since January 20th 2017) TMC and I have sort of been privately discussing our belief that he should be as impeachable as Unindicted Co-conspirator Trump (I should program a macro) because of his undisputed participation in the Comey firing including being present when Unindicted Co-conspirator Trump told Rob Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions to make up some excuse to fire him (you know, to disguise the fact that he wanted to Obstruct Justice in the Russia Investigation, or at least that’s what Unindicted Co-conspirator Trump told Lester Holt on camera).

So yesterday we find out that much of the $107 Million raised for the January 20th 2017 event (pathetic and dwarfed by the Women’s March the next day which was cheaper but to be fair we used the pristine Port-A-Potties and Bleachers) has simply gone missing or been siphoned into questionable expenditures.

Not only that but there is some evidence seized during the raid on Michael Cohen, including a tape recording, that the money was solicited by promising Political Favors.

Umm… that’s pretty much the definition of Bribery.

Chairman of the Committee? The Unindicted Co-conspirator Trump robot imitator who they forget to charge sometimes Mike Pence. Head of Funding? Rick Gates who flipped on Unindicted Co-conspirator Trump months ago.

How do you feel about President Pelosi?

Trump Inauguration Spending Under Criminal Investigation by Federal Prosecutors
By Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Rebecca Ballhaus, and Aruna Viswanatha, Wall Street Journal
Dec. 13, 2018

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations, people familiar with the matter said.

The criminal probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which is in its early stages, also is examining whether some of the committee’s top donors gave money in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions, some of the people said.

Giving money in exchange for political favors could run afoul of federal corruption laws. Diverting funds from the organization, which was registered as a nonprofit, could also violate federal law.

The investigation represents another potential legal threat to people who are or were in Mr. Trump’s orbit. Their business dealings and activities during and since the campaign have led to a number of indictments and guilty pleas. Many of the president’s biggest campaign backers were involved in the inaugural fund.

The investigation partly arises out of materials seized in the federal probe of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s business dealings, according to people familiar with the matter.

In April raids of Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents obtained a recorded conversation between Mr. Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events. In the recording, Ms. Wolkoff expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending money, according to a person familiar with the Cohen investigation.
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The inaugural committee has publicly identified vendors accounting for $61 million of the $103 million it spent, and it hasn’t provided details on those expenses, according to tax filings. As a nonprofit organization, the fund is only required to make public its top five vendors.

The committee raised more than double what former President Barack Obama’s first inaugural fund reported raising in 2009, the previous record. President Trump’s funds came largely from wealthy donors and corporations who gave $1 million or more—including casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, AT&T Inc. and Boeing Co. , according to Federal Election Commission filings. There is no sign that those three donors are under investigation.

Federal prosecutors have asked Richard Gates, a former campaign aide who served as the inaugural committee’s deputy chairman, about the fund’s spending and its donors, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Gates has met with prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.

Mr. Gates, who served as deputy in the inaugural fund, in February pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the U.S. involving foreign political consulting work unrelated to the campaign. The case was brought by Mr. Mueller’s office. Mr. Gates agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department in ongoing investigations.
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Mr. Mueller has also probed whether any foreign money flowed to the inaugural fund, which is prohibited from accepting foreign funds. In August, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, on a referral from Mr. Mueller, obtained a guilty plea from a Washington consultant who admitted he used a U.S. citizen to serve as a “straw purchaser” so that a “prominent Ukraine oligarch” could attend the inauguration. The names were never disclosed.

Manhattan federal prosecutors in recent months asked Tennessee developer Franklin L. Haney for documents related to a $1 million donation he made to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee in December 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Haney in early April hired Mr. Cohen, at the time serving as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, to help obtain a $5 billion loan from the Energy Department for a nuclear-power project, the Journal has previously reported. Mr. Haney was asked for documents related to his correspondence with members of the committee, meeting calendars and paperwork for the donation, the person said. A loan application by Mr. Haney’s company is still pending at the Energy Department.
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According to the inaugural fund’s tax filings, the committee’s top-paid vendor was an event-production firm led by Ms. Wolkoff called WIS Media Partners. The company, which California corporate records show was formed 45 days before the inauguration, was paid $25.8 million, the largest sum paid to a vendor.

Ms. Wolkoff is a former unpaid adviser to Mrs. Trump who also helped produce events surrounding the inauguration. Ms. Wolkoff and several partners were paid about $1.6 million of the $25.8 million, and the remainder went to subcontractors, a person familiar with Ms. Wolkoff’s work said.

It couldn’t be determined which expenses are the focus of scrutiny by federal prosecutors. The committee said in its tax documents that it spent $77 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, plus $4 million on ticketing, $9 million on travel, $4.5 million on salaries and wages, and other expenses. Mr. Barrack has said that an external audit was completed of the inaugural committee’s finances, but the organization has declined to make that audit available.
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People involved in Mr. Trump’s inaugural have attributed some of the costs to the last-minute nature of the planning. Few expected Mr. Trump to win the 2016 election, leaving his camp scrambling to arrange events for the inaugural, with little time to bid for competitive contracts, they said.

What does that mean?

Trump Inaugural Fund and Super PAC Said to Be Scrutinized for Illegal Foreign Donations
By Sharon LaFraniere, Maggie Haberman and Adam Goldman, The New York Times
Dec. 13, 2018

Federal prosecutors are examining whether foreigners illegally funneled donations to President Trump’s inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence over American policy, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds.

The line of questioning underscores the growing scope of criminal inquiries that pose a threat to Mr. Trump’s presidency. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is focusing on whether anyone in the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to tip the 2016 presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor, while prosecutors in New York are pursuing evidence he secretly authorized illegal payments of hush money to silence accusations of extramarital affairs that threatened his campaign.

The inquiry into potential foreign donations to the inaugural fund and the super PAC is yet another front being pursued by multiple teams of prosecutors. Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a billionaire financier and one of Mr. Trump’s closest friends, raised money for both funds.
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According to several of the people familiar with the investigation, Paul Manafort, who then headed the campaign, suggested that Mr. Barrack step into the void by creating and raising funds for the political action committee, which could raise unlimited amounts of money as long as it avoided coordinating closely with the candidate.

In an interview with investigators a year ago, Mr. Barrack said that Mr. Manafort seemed to view the political committee as an arm of the campaign, despite laws meant to prevent such coordination, according to a person familiar with the interview.
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According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the committee raised $23 million, making it one of the most important sources of funds for advertisements, polls and other political expenditures on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Most money came from several big donors, including from Linda McMahon, a professional wrestling executive who donated $6 million and was later appointed by Mr. Trump to head the Small Business Administration.

Prosecutors from New York and from Mr. Mueller’s team have asked witnesses whether anyone from Qatar or other Middle Eastern countries also contributed money, perhaps using American intermediaries. Among other issues, they asked about a Mediterranean cruise that Mr. Barrack and Mr. Manafort took after Mr. Manafort was fired in August 2016 from the Trump campaign because of a scandal over his previous work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Mr. Manafort was in serious financial trouble at the time, and Mr. Barrack, who has an extensive business network in the Persian Gulf, may have been attempting to help him find clients.

On the cruise, the pair met one of the world’s richest men, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar. Until 2013, Mr. Al Thani presided over the country’s $230 billion sovereign wealth fund. He remains a highly influential member of the nation’s governing royal family.

Investigators also sought information from a businessman, Rashid Al Malik, an associate of Mr. Barrack’s who heads a private investment firm in the United Arab Emirates, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Mr. Malik, whose lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has been described as close to a key figure in the U.A.E.’s government.

After Mr. Trump was elected, any troubles he had finding donors appeared to have vanished. His inaugural fund raised $107 million — four times as much as the pro-Trump political action committee and twice as much as the amount raised for President Barack Obama’s first inauguration. Mr. Barrack was its chairman, and Rick Gates, a longtime business associate of Mr. Manafort’s who served as deputy campaign chairman, ran it.

The inquiry into the inaugural fund appears to involve prosecutors from United States attorney’s offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn, people familiar with the investigation said. The fund has long been a source of infighting among White House advisers and personal friends of Mr. Trump’s, who blamed each other for news reports about questionable expenditures.
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The inaugural committee complied with all laws and “has not been contacted by any prosecutors,” said Mr. Blicksilver, who is also a spokesman for the fund. Its finances “were fully audited internally and independently,” and donors were fully vetted and disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, as required, he said.

In fact, though, the fund has already run into trouble related for both donations and expenditures. Mr. Gates, who is awaiting sentencing for crimes related to a financial fraud scheme he executed with Mr. Manafort, has testified that he may have submitted personal expenses for reimbursement from the fund. A later review of the inaugural expenses found no issue with his reimbursements, a person close to Mr. Gates said.

And this year, a well-known Republican lobbyist, Sam Patten, pleaded guilty to arranging for a Ukrainian oligarch and another foreigner to buy $50,000 worth of tickets to an inaugural event, using an American as a straw purchaser.

Investigators have also asked witnesses whether any foreigners also contributed illegally to the inaugural committee. Once Mr. Trump was elected, foreign governments were frantically trying to build connections to the incoming administration, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Although it hosts and heavily subsidizes an American military base, Qatar is constantly striving to counter the influence of its powerful neighbors, also allies of the United States.

Time to open up Mueller 2.0- The House of Saud.

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.

George Washington dies at age 67; Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his group reach South Pole; Leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia sign an internationally-brokered peace treaty; Baseball’s Roger Maris dies at age 51.

Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

Ernest Hemingway

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Oh and Full Frontal On I.C.E.!

D.W. Griffith

Back From The Future

Georgia On My Mind

Full Frontal On I.C.E.!

That would be “National Security Journalist” Marcy Wheeler to you.

Mueller Probe Could Lead to Indictment of the Trump Organization
Democracy Now
December 10, 2018

Federal prosecutors have accused President Trump of committing a federal crime by directing illegal hush money to two women during the presidential election. The accusation was revealed Friday in filings made public by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, including a damning sentencing memo for Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who has admitted to paying adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal during the campaign in order to prevent them from speaking to the media about their alleged affairs with Trump. The sentencing memo was made public along with two new sentencing memos from special counsel Robert Mueller: one for Cohen and another for Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort. “We keep talking about whether you can indict a sitting president,” says independent journalist Marcy Wheeler, editor of EmptyWheel.net. “There’s still a debate about that, but, really critically, you can indict a corporation. You can indict Trump Organization.”

And to think, I knew her when she was just a foul mouthed blogger.

It’s Not the Campaign Finance Violation or the Simple Private Transaction, It’s the Conspiracy to Commit Fraud
emptywheel
December 10, 2018

While it is true that Cohen pled guilty to campaign finance violations, that’s not what SDNY lays out in this memo. Rather, they lay out conspiracy to defraud the United States, which carries a five year prison sentence, on top of any campaign finance or money laundering prosecution to carry out that fraud. That’s the same charge that Trump appointee Dabney Friedrich just upheld for the Russian trolls that helped Trump win, the same charge that Rick Gates and Paul Manafort have pled guilty to, the same ConFraudUS that Mueller has built all his interlocking indictments around. And there, it’s not so much the intent or success of the attempt to thwart campaign finance oversight that matters, it’s the conspiracy to do it and the secrecy and sophisticated means by which you do it.

So Trump may want to claim this is a “simple private transaction,” just like all the other hush payments he has orchestrated with his buddy Pecker over the years.
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But when you carry out such “simple private transactions” in the context of an election then it becomes conspiracy to commit fraud.

And to reiterate: it’s not just Trump himself that can be charged with ConFraudUS for this, it’s also The Company and whichever spawn served as The Executive seeking to hide the payback for Cohen’s hush payments.

Heck. Even the NYT is beginning to figure this out.

What it means is that both Trump (after he’s no longer President) and his company (as soon as SDNY gets around to charging it and its executives) are on the hook for cheating to get elected.

Talking Walking Trump

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

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. forces capture Iraq’s ousted dictator Saddam Hussein; Authorities in communist Poland impose martial law; Union forces suffer defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia; Actor Dick Van Dyke is born.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Franz Kafka

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Criminal? Moi??

Happy Trails

Well, now that Ayers is out, why not?

Just about the National median, 6 Months less than the Probation Department recommended. Three additional years of Probation with Supervision (that means travel restrictions and periodic reports to a Probation Officer). Five Hundred Thousand Dollar Fine plus roughly $1.5 Million in Back Taxes and Penalties.

That works out to 1 Year per Count (Bank Fraud and Tax Evasion, 2 Counts of Campaign Fraud). Two Months on Lying to Congress (the Mueller charge) to be served concurrently.

All in all, in line with the Prosecutor’s sentencing recommendations considering that Mueller was very happy with his level of co-operation while the Southern District of New York was not at all as Cohen refused to talk about crimes other than the ones he was charged with.

Actually quite lenient considering that they didn’t bring all the charges that the could have.

Cohen will surrender on March 6th 2019.

Flynn has yet to be sentenced, Mueller has recommended no jail time in his case. There are people I know who think the Judge should depart upward from that on the basis that Flynn clearly knew what he was doing was illegal (he’s charged with 1 count of Lying to the FBI) and at least some jail time is appropriate.

That leaves Manafort. Given the actual betrayal of his co-operation agreement those same people expect him to be made an example of, with maximum sentences on all counts AND the hung charges reinstated with additional counts entered against him. He will die in jail.

Michael Cohen sentenced to three years in prison for crimes committed while working for Trump
By Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett, Washington Post
December 12, 2018

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to three years in prison for financial crimes and lying to Congress, as the disgraced former “fixer” apologized for his conduct but also said he felt it was his duty to cover up the “dirty deeds” of his former boss.

Cohen made an emotional, teary apology to U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III, taking responsibility for crimes that included tax violations, lying to a bank, and buying the silence during the 2016 campaign of women who alleged affairs with the future president.

“My weakness could be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump,” Cohen told the packed courtroom, standing at a podium where he would at times become emotional and pause to regain his composure.
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Pauley said Cohen’s sentence should reflect the competing interests of the Cohen case — punishing those who repeatedly break the law, and rewarding those who cooperate and provide truthful testimony.

“Our democratic institutions depend upon the honesty of our citizenry in dealing with the government,” Pauley said, calling his crimes serious, particularly given his profession.

“As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better. Tax evasion undercuts the government’s ability to provide essential services upon which we all depend,” the judge said. “While Mr. Cohen is taking steps to mitigate his criminal conduct by pleading guilty and volunteering useful information to prosecutors, that does not wipe the slate clean.

“Mr. Cohen selected the information he disclosed to the government. This court cannot agree with the defendant’s assertion that no jail time is warranted. In fact this court firmly believes that a significant term of imprisonment is fully justified in this highly publicized case to send a message,” the judge said.
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Cohen’s lawyers have said he was in “close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel” when he prepared his false testimony to Congress about a possible Trump Tower project in Moscow and that he acted at Trump’s direction in paying off the women.

Jeannie Rhee, part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s prosecution team, told the judge that Cohen “has endeavored to account for his criminal conduct in numerous ways,” providing “credible and reliable information about core Russia-related issues under investigation.”

Rhee said she could not go into detail about the ongoing Russia investigation, but said Cohen was “helpful” to the probe. Cohen, she said, was “careful to note what he knows and what he doesn’t know . . . Mr. Cohen has sought to tell us the truth, and that is of utmost value to us.”

Nicolas Roos, a federal prosecutor in New York, was far more critical of Cohen, saying he “quite brazenly stole millions of dollars in income from the IRS.”

Roos urged the judge to give Cohen a significant amount of time in prison, as punishment for having “eroded faith in the electoral process and the rule of law.”

The prosecutor urged the judge to send a message with his sentence of Cohen, that “even powerful and privileged individuals cannot violate these laws with impunity.”

Michael Cohen Sentenced to 3 Years After Implicating Trump in Hush-Money Scandal
By Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum, The New York Times
Dec. 12, 2018

Michael D. Cohen, the former lawyer for President Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday morning for his role in a hush-money scandal that could threaten Mr. Trump’s presidency by implicating him in a scheme to buy the silence of two women who said they had affairs with him.

The sentencing in federal court in Manhattan capped a startling fall for Mr. Cohen, 52, who had once hoped to work by Mr. Trump’s side in the White House but ended up a central figure in the inquiry into payments to a porn star and a former Playboy model before the 2016 election.

Judge William H. Pauley III said Mr. Cohen had committed a “smorgasbord” of crimes involving “deception” and motivated by “personal greed and ambition.”

“As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better,” the judge said.

Before being sentenced, Mr. Cohen grew emotional as he spoke of taking responsibility for his acts. He said that his “weakness was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump” and that he had been “living in a personal and mental incarceration” since the day he started working for Mr. Trump.

“Today is the day I am getting my freedom back,” he said.

Mr. Cohen then apologized to the public: “You deserve to know the truth and lying to you was unjust.”

Federal agents raided Mr. Cohen’s office and home in April, and he later turned on Mr. Trump, making the remarkable admission in court that Mr. Trump had directed him to arrange the payments.

Mr. Trump at first denied knowing anything about the payments, but then acknowledged that he had known about them. This week, he insisted that the payments were “a simple private transaction” — not election-related spending subject to campaign-finance laws.

He also maintained that even if the hush-money payments were campaign transactions in violation of election regulations, that should be considered only a civil offense, not a criminal one.

Michael Cohen sentenced to 3 years in prison
By LAURA NAHMIAS and DARREN SAMUELSOHN, Politico
12/12/2018

A contrite Michael Cohen on Wednesday received three years in prison for a series of tax fraud and lying charges, sending another former Donald Trump associate to jail.

Cohen’s sentence is not as large as the four-plus years that federal prosecutors in New York wanted, but it nonetheless stands out as the biggest punishment to date tied to special counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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In the courtroom Wednesday, Cohen was visibly emotional. At various points he broke down, his voice cracking while he read a prepared statement he had printed out.

“Today is the day that I am getting my freedom back,” Cohen told U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley, a Bill Clinton appointee who minutes later handed down the prison sentence. “I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen that I deeply admired.”

In addition to the prison time, Cohen will have to forfeit $500,000 in assets and pay $1.393 million in restitution.

Cohen, who has had a relationship with Trump dating back a dozen years, used his time before the court to hit back at the president’s recent declaration that his former attorney was “weak.” Cohen said he agreed with Trump’s assessment but noted his “weakness was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump.”

“Time and time again I felt it as my duty to cover up his dirty deeds,” Cohen said, standing before his whole family in the courtroom. Both his mother and father cried at points during the hearing.

Cohen earlier this summer pleaded guilty to a slate of eight charges of tax evasion, financial fraud and campaign finance violations. Trump himself was implicated in the campaign finance crimes, with prosecutors saying he directed Trump in hush money payments designed to sway the 2016 presidential election. Cohen also later pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress about work he did during the election on an aborted Trump Tower project in Russia.

The judge on Wednesday slapped Cohen with a $50,000 fine for lying to Congress, explaining that the penalty was meant “to recognize the gravity of the harm of lying to Congress in matters of national importance.” Two months of his three-year sentence are also tied to the the lying to Congress charge.
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Although Cohen’s sentence is the largest handed down to date for anyone targeted in Mueller’s probe, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is expected to receive far more time in prison. The longtime GOP lobbyist will learn his fate early next year from a pair of federal judges and is likely spending decades in prison following his conviction earlier this summer on bank and tax fraud charges in Virginia and a separate guilty plea in Washington.

Are You Ready For Some Football?