The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Now Judge Kaplan has denied Trump's motion to continue the trial because of the publicity over his indictment. From his 10 page order denying the motion:

[N.E. Brigand]

I have been a bit out of it the past few days for obvious reasons, but i wanted to mention that we can add Steve Bannon to the list of indicted Trump associates for his role in allegedly defrauding donors to a crowdfunding campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But some breaking news: the New York Times just repoted that Trump has pardoned his former campaign chair and White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is facing federal charges for fraud. I wonder if in the course of engaging in that activity, Bannon happened to violate any state laws. Some people are surprised by this, because Bannon trashed Trump to some reporters. On the other hand, Bannon appears to have destroyed text messages that might have incriminated Trump in the Russia scandal. (Bannon was arrested at sea by U.S. Postal Police, on a Chinese billionaire's yacht off the coast of Connecticut.) Justin Amash: "It went from 'Mexico will pay for it!' to 'You will pay for it!' to 'You will pay Steve Bannon, and I will pardon him for defrauding you!'"

As Voronwë noted at the time, in August 2020, the Department of Justice indicted four people on fraud charges for allegedly having stolen millions of dollars raised for the "We Build the Wall" organization, supposedly a volunteer effort that was meant to crowd-fund Donald Trump's pet project of a U.S.-Mexican border wall. As you may recall, Trump had claimed during the 2016 presidential campaign that, if elected, he would build this wall and force Mexico to pay for it. He failed in those efforts, and he was only able to convince the U.S. Congress to appropriate funds for some short sections of border wall. Naturally, most of the contributors to this crowd-funded project were Trump's supporters.

The four men charged with defrauding Trump's supporters were Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, Timothy Shea, and longtime Trump associate, Steve Bannon. Bannon, the conservative media publisher who co-founded Breitbart News in 2007, was little known outside of far-right circles prior to the summer of 2016, when he was named as the Trump campaign's CEO. He then was a top advisor in the White House for the first year of Trump's presidency.

Today Kolfage and Badolato pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and falsifying tax returns in connection with this scheme. Shea still faces trial.

Bannon will never go on trial for his part in the plot: one of President Trump's last acts, on January 20, 2021, was to pardon Bannon. I think it's likely that the pardon was partly motivated by Bannon's role in Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Bannon is now fighting a charge of obstruction of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the January 6th Committee. (Supposedly the Manhattan District Attorney's office is investigating whether Bannon's "We Build the Wall" acts violated New York state law, but (1) we have seen that the Manhattan D.A. seems to be wary of bringing charges in cases connected to Donald Trump and (2) there are some tricky legal issues in charging someone at the state level for conduct they were also charged at the federal level.)

Kolfage and Badolato admitted in court that they lied when they claimed all the funds -- some $25 million was raised -- would go to fund the wall project. Kolfage kept at least $350,000 for himself. Prosecutors said in 2020 that $1 million of the funds went into Bannon's pockets. If the government have gotten Kolfage and Badolato to admit to this scheme, can prosecutors now at least force Bannon to return the money he stole? If I steal your car, even if I'm pardoned for my crime, I don't get to keep it, right? Also: will the Trump supporters who gave to this project ever know that these men have admitted stealing form them? And if they were told, would they even care?

Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato were sentenced today for their role in the fraudulent "We Build the Wall" scam. In 2021, Donald Trump pardoned his associate Steve Bannon for federal charges related to his part in that scheme, which was supposedly a non-profit endeavor to privately fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Contra my statement above, Bannon has since been charged by New York state for the same crimes.

Both Kolfage and Badolato pled guilty last year. Both received prison sentences today: 51 months for Kolfage and 36 months for Badolato.

A number of other prominent Republicans, including David Clarke, Kris Kobach, Erik Prince, and Tom Tancredo, were on the organization's board.

[N.E. Brigand]

As an aside: the RNC's three deputy finance chairs at the time were Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen (who later pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes), venture capitalist Elliott Broidy (who pleaded guilty to being a foreign agent of China and Malaysia, for which he later was pardoned by Trump, and who also allegedly paid more than $1 million to his Playboy-model girlfiend to have an abortion, in a deal arranged by Cohen using the same alias for Broidy that Cohen used for Trump in the deal with Stormy Daniels), and shipping magnate Louis DeJoy (who was later named as the director of the U.S. Postal Service, which he seems to have undermined both to help his personal interests and Trump's 2020 election chances; this week, after a long delay, Joe Biden's nominees to the USPS board of directors were finally confirmed, so DeJoy's time may be up).

"U.S. Entertainer Convicted of Engaging in Foreign Influence Campaign."

The story is from NBC, but the headline I used is how the Dept. of Justice announced the result in a press release. The entertainer, Pras Michel, is as Wikipedia says, "best known as a member of the hip hop group the Fugees, alongside Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill. After the Fugees, he earned two Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, the Grammy-nominated song 'Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)' featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mýa from the film Bulworth, and 'Avenues' with Refugee Camp All-Stars and Ky-Mani Marley. He also collaborated with Jean and rock band Queen on the 1998 remix of 'Another One Bites the Dust', which reached the top five on the UK Singles Chart. In 2017, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Digital Daytime Drama Series, as a producer on the web series The Bay."

A jury found Michel today of "orchestrating an unregistered, back-channel campaign beginning in or about 2017 to influence the then-administration of the President of the United States and the Department of Justice to drop the investigation of Jho Low and others for embezzlement and other offenses in connection with the international strategic and development company known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), and to send a Chinese national back to China, as well as conspiring to make and conceal foreign and conduit campaign contributions during the 2012 U.S. presidential election."

As the press release notes, this is the same scheme for which Elliott Broidy pleaded guilty. Broidy was pardoned by Donald Trump. Michel is unlikely to be pardoned by anyone.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here's another one for N.E.B.

Garland says has not yet received Durham report on origins of Trump investigation

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The hits keeping hitting.



ETA: To clarify, it was only the claims against the Times that have been adjudicated, not the claims against Mary Trump.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I guess I'll put this here, even though it is Giuliani-related rather than Trump-related.

A former employee has sued alleging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct by Rudolph W. Giuliani and his Companies.

[Sunsilver]

No wonder he was Trump's lawyer. They are definitely birds of a feather!

It's hard to believe Dunphy stayed in that position as long as she did, but if you read the document, he had so much control over her that she couldn't even afford to rent an apartment without his help. He made it nearly impossible for her to free herself from the situation.

[N.E. Brigand]

Special Counsel John Durham's report on his investigation into the Trump-Russia investigation has been released.

[N.E. Brigand]

I guess I'll put this here, even though it is Giuliani-related rather than Trump-related.

A former employee has sued alleging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct by Rudolph W. Giuliani and his Companies.

Paragraph 132 of Noelle Dunphy's filing is pretty Trump-related:

He [Rudy Giuliani] also asked Ms. Dunphy if she knew anyone in need of a pardon, telling her that he was selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split. He told Ms. Dunphy that she could refer individuals seeking pardons to him, so long as they did not go through “the normal channels” of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence going to that office would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Special Counsel John Durham's report on his investigation into the Trump-Russia investigation has been released.

Here, let me fix this for you:

Special Counsel John Durham's report on his investigation into the Trump-Russia investigation has been released, and claims to find that the FBI should never have investigated the twice-impeached ex-president who has been found liable for sexual assault and defamation, indicted in a cover-up of hush money payments to a porn star,, found by a select committee of the House of Representatives to have incited an insurrection, being investigated for that by Department of Justice special counsel and for conspiring to defraud the voters of Georgia by the Fulton County D.A., and by the DoJ special counsel for espionage and gross obstruction of justice, despite the fact that the evidence clearly shows that he did conspire with a foreign power to influence the 2016 election, and that there was no actual wrongdoing in starting the investigation of him.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I guess I'll put this here, even though it is Giuliani-related rather than Trump-related.

A former employee has sued alleging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct by Rudolph W. Giuliani and his Companies.

Paragraph 132 of Noelle Dunphy's filing is pretty Trump-related:

He [Rudy Giuliani] also asked Ms. Dunphy if she knew anyone in need of a pardon, telling her that he was selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split. He told Ms. Dunphy that she could refer individuals seeking pardons to him, so long as they did not go through “the normal channels” of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence going to that office would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

And more Trump-related stuff:

[N.E. Brigand]

There's so much stuff in the Dunphy filing that it almost seems too "good" to be true (scare quotes because it's all horrible); for example, on p. 131 it says:

"Around February 16, 2019, they reviewed Giuliani’s emails with Ukrainian government officials, and again discussed the advisability of registering under FARA. Ms. Dunphy offered to complete the registration for him. Giuliani told her that he was able to break the laws because, he said: 'I have immunity.'"

[RoseMorninStar]

That is so much to take in. How can people still back these horrible clowns?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I would say that it *is* too "good" to be true, for a few reasons. First of all, when asked whether they had shared any of this information with prosecutors, since Giuliani has been a subject of multiple criminal investigations, they wouldn't say. Second, they claim to have tapes, but none have been released. Thirdly, a picture that is actually inserted in the text of the Complaint is a screencap from the Borat sequel. That is not serious lawyering.

[Sunsilver]

I thought it was rather odd to include that picture, especially since it wasn't of Guiliani.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

So far as I know, the screenshot is of Guiliani. From this scene:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This 20 tweet thread from Barb McQuade gives an excellent summary of the Durham report

[Sunsilver]

Voronwë, not my type of movie, so wasn't aware he was in it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Nor mine, Sunny.

[N.E. Brigand]

Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, who was in the news a few days ago for confusingly conflating Trump supporters with white supremacists (after saying the latter shouldn't be expelled from the military), today says in light of Special Counsel John Durham having failed to successfully prosecute (almost) anyone for the supposed crime of investigating Donald Trump's connections with Russia, "the American people should just stand up and say, "Listen, enough's enough. Let's don't have elections anymore.'"

(My emphasis.)