The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[Inanna]

Ah, thank you, V!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Admitted as in assumed to be confessed as true?

Having the same legal effect as that, yes.

But from looking at what they filed, it looks like it is mostly small things, like admitting that Trump was the "inactive president" of the Trump Organization during the time that he was U.S. president.

[N.E. Brigand]

Tell me more about the evidence of financial crimes that Donald Trump may have committed which Italian authorities provided to Attorney General Bill Barr and Special Counsel John Durham when they visited that nation as part of their efforts to undermine the Trump-Russia investigation.

As noted here, former Attorney General Bill Barr has confirmed the New York Times reporting that Special Counsel John Durham did launch a criminal investigation, based on evidence provided to Durham and Barr by Italian authorities, into possible financial wrongdoing related to Donald Trump. Barr says the information was related to the Trump-Russia investigation, and thus it was appropriate to assign the matter to Durham. Barr says the matter "turned out to be a complete non-issue."

Barr says nothing about why, after news of this investigation leaked to the press in such a way that led to multiple stories misleadingly suggesting that Durham had opened a criminal investigation into someone in the U.S. law enforcement or intelligence community, the Dept. of Justice said nothing that would correct the record.

[N.E. Brigand]

Edited further to add: Rampell notes that Trump reported no charitable giving in 2020, despite having said publicly that he would be donating his presidential salary each year. Also, V was not among the "some folks" I referenced above as regards Trump's Chinese bank account; I hadn't seen V's post at that point.

Following up on the first item, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times notes how the tax filings appear to undermine a March 2020 claim by White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Surely Trump would have declared that check as a donation in his taxes if he actually paid it. I don't think it would violate any tax laws for each of the relevant government departments to whom Trump claimed to have made donations each quarter (in this case, Health & Human Services) to confirm whether or not they actually received them.

Two different fact-check articles I've read point out that from Donald Trump's tax records alone, it's not possible to tell whether or not he donated his presidential salary to federal agencies, as he promised he would do. The returns do show that his charitable donations in 2017, 2018, and 2019 were more than sufficient to cover his salary, but the returns don't say where the money went. For that, the reporters turned to various federal agencies that indeed do report having received checks from Trump in those years (although I haven't seen a full accounting that shows where all the money went in each of those three years). So really that just leaves 2020, when Trump's returns show no charitable contributions. But even that's not dispositive, since he wouldn't be legally required to report them.

Mind you, all of the above assumes the returns are truthful and accurate. The House Ways & Means Committee did say that they were requesting supporting documents from the IRS for Trump's donations (among other things).

[N.E. Brigand]

Manhattan Prosecutors Will Begin Presenting Trump Case to Grand Jury

For some reason I am able to read this NY Times article, but in case it is behind a paywall for others, here is the text.

The Manhattan district attorney’s decision represents a dramatic escalation of the inquiry, and sets the case on a path toward criminal charges against the former president.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday will begin presenting evidence to a grand jury about Donald J. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, laying the groundwork for potential criminal charges against the former president in the coming months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The grand jury was recently impaneled, and witness testimony will soon begin, a clear signal that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is nearing a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump.

. . . .

Mr. Bragg’s decision to impanel a grand jury focused on the hush money — supercharging the longest-running criminal investigation into Mr. Trump — represents a dramatic escalation of an inquiry that once appeared to have reached a dead end.

Under Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney’s office had begun presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury about a case focused not just on the hush money but on Mr. Trump’s broader business practices, including whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate to secure favorable loans and other financial benefits. Yet in the early weeks of his tenure last year, Mr. Bragg developed concerns about the strength of that case and decided to abandon the grand jury presentation, prompting the resignations of the two senior prosecutors leading the investigation.

One of them, Mark F. Pomerantz, was highly critical of Mr. Bragg’s decision and has written a book that is scheduled to be published next week, “People vs. Donald Trump,” detailing his account of the inquiry. Mr. Bragg’s office recently wrote to Mr. Pomerantz’ publisher, Simon & Schuster, expressing concern that the book might disclose grand jury information or interfere with the investigation. . . .

Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor who was a top deputy in Robert Mueller's investigation of Donald Trump's ties to Russia, has reviewed Pomerantz's new book, People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account, in the Washington Post. Weissmann feels that Pomerantz, apparently without realizing it, presents a case that Cyrus Vance set up Alvin Bragg for early failure, and Weissmann argues that it was rather brave of Bragg not to bring charges soon after he took office a year ago. Weissmann also fears that if Bragg's grand jury approves charges against Donald Trump, then details in Pomerantz's book will be used by Trump's lawyers to argue a defense based on selective prosecution.

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Edited to add: that said, "Former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz is adamant on 60 Minutesthat another businessman with the same conduct and financials, but not named Donald Trump, would have been indicted 'in a flat second.'" (source)

[N.E. Brigand]

Uh, what?

"A new memoir by Christopher C. Miller, former acting secretary of Defense, reveals that Melania Trump inexplicably dropped into the Situation Room in October 2019 to watch the U.S. raid that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria."

And apparently it was Mrs. Trump's idea for President Trump to emphasize the role of a military dog in pursuing al-Baghdadi (who when cornered blew himself up along two of his wives and two of their children; the dog, Conan, was wounded in the blast but survived) when he addressed the nation with news of the successful operation.

[N.E. Brigand]

We knew much of what's in this long new article already: "After helping prince’s rise, Trump and Kushner benefit from Saudi funds" (Washington Post).

But it helps to have the different strands pulled together. Fortunately for Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, the Supreme Court has made it very, very difficult to convict politicians of taking bribes, even from foreign governments, and they're protected further by the fact that the billions of dollars in pay-offs, which sure look like a reward for what Trump and Kushner did while in power, mostly didn't happen until after they were out of office. And as is well-known, this is part of what Trump and Kushner did:

One of the starkest tests of the Trump administration’s relationship with [Saudi crown prince] Mohammed [bin Salman] came as a result of the prince’s ire with Khashoggi, a prominent journalist with ties to the royal family who had called for changes in the kingdom. Shortly after Trump’s election, Mohammed’s aides had ordered him to stop writing critically about the U.S.-Saudi relationship, but he refused and later relocated to the Washington area and became a columnist for The Post.

In October 2018, an assassination team that had flown from Riyadh to Istanbul aboard two planes owned by the Public Investment Fund killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate there. After Turkey said Saudi Arabia was responsible, Kushner talked with Mohammed about how to respond.

The next month, the CIA concluded that Mohammed had “approved an operation” to kill or capture Khashoggi, which the prince denied. Mohammed’s years-long effort to rise to power was in grave danger.

But, as Trump later put it in a recorded interview, “I saved his ass,” according to “The Trump Tapes” by Post associate editor Bob Woodward. Trump refused to endorse the CIA’s conclusion, equivocated about Mohammed’s involvement, opposed releasing of the report and vetoed a congressional bill to block arms sales to the kingdom. The president sent Mike Pompeo, who had replaced Tillerson as secretary of state, to meet with the prince and remind him of his debt.

“My Mike, go and have a good time. Tell him he owes us,” Pompeo recalled in his 2023 memoir, “Never Give An Inch.” Pompeo did not respond to a request for comment.

It was a pivotal moment that halted efforts to isolate Mohammed, who is known as MBS, in Congress and around the world. “Without the absolute protection of Trump and Kushner, MBS would definitely have fallen,” said Abdullah Alaoudh, the director for the Gulf at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a group founded by Khashoggi. Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, said in a statement to The Post that Trump and Kushner “covered for the Crown Prince.”

I would like to know if there's been an investigation into whether Trump and Kushner knew about the assassination in advance.

[N.E. Brigand]

Sam Patten was charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2018 with failing to register as a foreign agent for his lobbying work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. He pleaded guilty to that, and as part of his plea he admitted that he also lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee and that he laundered a $50,000 donation from Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik -- best known as the recipient of secret 2016 campaign data from Donald Trump's campaign chair Paul Manafort -- to Trump's inauguration. In 2019, Patten received a sentence of three years' probation, community service, and a small fine.

A few days ago, the Guardian, Observer, and other outlets collaboratively published a story about Tal "Jorge" Hanan, a former Israeli intelligence operative who claims to have made a second career of secret influence campaigns around the world. Some of that work was done in cooperation with the now-defunct British company Cambridge Analytica, including an effort to influence the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria, and a key figure in that project apparently was none other than Sam Patten.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is interesting.

[N.E. Brigand]

Twice-confessed criminal Michael Flynn is suing the U.S. government for $50 million. He's falsely claiming that he was wrongly prosecuted. Unfortunately, Flynn can point to the Dept. of Justice under Attorney General William Barr, as part of Barr's efforts to undermine the credibility of the Trump-Russia investigation, having made untrue claims in federal court filings about the investigation into Flynn having been improperly predicated.

It was not. Flynn is guilty as sin, guilty of much more than the crime to which he pled, and even before Barr scuttled his case, he was already a very lucky man, because much more serious charges could have been brought. There are good reasons that the judge in the case used the word "treason" (rhetorically) when contemplating Flynn's actions.

For starters, I'll note that nowhere in Flynn's filing does the word "Turkey" appear.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Of course, what Flynn was not charged with is irrelevant to the question of whether what he was charged with could lead to valid claims of malicious prosecution or abuse of process. But it is equally true that the claims that he makes are nonsense.

I wonder if the Shawn Flynn who is one of the listed attorneys is a relative of Gen. Flynn's?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here we go.

[N.E. Brigand]

Today the U.S. Department of Justice announced that as part of U.S. sanctions on Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, DOJ has obtained a warrant to seize a $25 million jet owned by the Russian oil company Rosneft. That company is run by one Igor Sechin. Responding to this news, political commentator Allison Gill wrote that "Igor Sechin met with Carter Page in Moscow and promised him 19% of the Rosneft sale if he could get trump to end Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia" -- these are claims made in the Steele dossier. Responding to Gill, Marcy Wheeler noted that it's never been proved that Page and Sechin met and that "there's zero evidence Page was promised % of Roseneft sale." Wheeler believes that these assertions, like much in Steele's notes, was "near-miss disinformation" being fed to Steele by Oleg Deripaska to divert attention from what Russia was actually up to in 2016. This prompted me to dig through Page's November 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence committee, which is frustratingly not formatted for searching, so it took me a while to find on pp. 138-39 of the transcript, on what seems to be the third time Page was asked about a July 2016 trip to Moscow, that an old friend he met there, Andrey Baranov, who was at that the head of investor relations at Rosneft, "may have mentioned ... in passing" that, as the Committee member asking the question described it, a "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" was in the works -- and Page also allowed that in that meeting with Baranov, he may have indirectly expressed support "for the idea of lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia" (again those are the questioner's words).

That transcript, aside from being unsearchable, is just maddening. Page just would not give a straight answer to any question. Sometimes he seems devious. Sometimes he seems like a patsy who realizes that Russia set him up as a target for U.S. investigators. We may never know where the truth lies.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Jurors are hearing from Jennifer Weisselberg, a one-time Trump family confidant embroiled in a bitter divorce who explained how the real estate mogul ordered his top finance executive to dodge taxes and cook the books.

Asked about the investigation outside the DA’s office at 12:30 p.m., Weisselberg told The Daily Beast that “something has changed and it's up-leveled.”

“It’s bigger than any taxes, paper, insurance, banks, insurance… it's bigger than money,” she said.

I'm not sure that Jennifer Weisselberg (the former daughter-in-law of convicted Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg) is the most credible witness, but those comments are certainly interesting and could spark speculation that the charges that Trump will face are bigger than the Stormy Daniels payoff.

ETA: See post below.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No surprise here, but it does move things one step closer.



ETA:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Jurors are hearing from Jennifer Weisselberg, a one-time Trump family confidant embroiled in a bitter divorce who explained how the real estate mogul ordered his top finance executive to dodge taxes and cook the books.

Asked about the investigation outside the DA’s office at 12:30 p.m., Weisselberg told The Daily Beast that “something has changed and it's up-leveled.”

“It’s bigger than any taxes, paper, insurance, banks, insurance… it's bigger than money,” she said.

I'm not sure that Jennifer Weisselberg (the former daughter-in-law of convicted Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg) is the most credible witness, but those comments are certainly interesting and could spark speculation that the charges that Trump will face are bigger than the Stormy Daniels payoff.

I was even more right then I thought in saying that Jennifer Weisselberg was not the most credible witness; it appears she made the whole thing up and did not in fact testify before the grand jury investigating Trump!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

From Stormy Daniels new attorney (new in the sense that he is not Michael Avenatti, who himself is in jail in part from stealing from Stormy Daniels):

[N.E. Brigand]

In the Guardian: "Federal investigators examined Trump Media for possible money laundering, sources say ... Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8 million wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin". These payments were made in December 2021 and February 2022. Why are we hearing about this now: does it mean the investigation never led anywhere?

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Speaking of which: "Republicans quietly drop House investigation into Trump finances." The House of Representatives under Democratic leadership had obtained a "a court-supervised settlement agreement that demanded that Mazars USA, the former president’s accounting firm, produce his financial records to Congress," but Republicans have dropped the matter. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Ways & Means Committee, says that Rep. James Comer, the Republican now leading the committee, "may have acted in league with attorneys for former President Donald Trump to block the committee from receiving documents subpoenaed in its investigation of unauthorized, unreported and unlawful payments by foreign governments and others to then-President Trump." I hope Democrats take it up again in two years or whenever they're again in charge.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Holy conflict of interest, Batman!