The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[N.E. Brigand]

I've been enjoying the saga of Durham's supposed star witness apparently refusing to return to the U.S. for a trial that's supposed to start this fall.

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In other news, this is a minor twist in another Trump case, but so typical of his endless lies:

Donald Trump Lied About Secret Service Concerns to Throw off New York Attorney General (The Daily Beast)

Donald Trump's legal team told A.G. Letitia James's staff that his deposition had to happen at Trump Tower rather than her offices because of Secret Service concerns. James's people apparently asked Trump to back that up with an official request from the Secret Service, and when he didn't, the deposition (in which he took the Fifth hundreds of times) went on as scheduled -- and The Daily Beast has confirmed with the Secret Service that they have no concerns with that location.

[N.E. Brigand]

As noted here by former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, that witness, Sergei Milian, has been out of the country for years and refused to be interviewed in Robert Mueller's investigation, but he was interviewed remotely by John Durham's investigation of the origins of Mueller's investigation. Durham wants to be able to use what Milian said in his interview at trial, even though Milian himself won't testify and thus can't be cross-examined by the defendant.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Good luck with that!

[N.E. Brigand]

This is not a case as such, but according to a new book, President Trump shocked King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2018 by telling him that he would give the West Bank, the Palestinian territories that have been occupied by Israel since 1967, back to Jordan, which controlled the area until that time.

[RoseMorninStar]

This is not a case as such, but according to a new book, President Trump shocked King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2018 by telling him that he would give the West Bank, the Palestinian territories that have been occupied by Israel since 1967, back to Jordan, which controlled the area until that time.

But first, would you do me a favor though.

[River]

This is not a case as such, but according to a new book, President Trump shocked King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2018 by telling him that he would give the West Bank, the Palestinian territories that have been occupied by Israel since 1967, back to Jordan, which controlled the area until that time.

And how, exactly, was he planning to manage that?

[Dave_LF]

By trading for Greenland?

[RoseMorninStar]

By trading for Greenland?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

This is not a case as such, but according to a new book, President Trump shocked King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2018 by telling him that he would give the West Bank, the Palestinian territories that have been occupied by Israel since 1967, back to Jordan, which controlled the area until that time.

In the same book, Dan Coats, who was President Trump's first Director of National Intelligence, is quoted as having said to associates (apparently after his tenure as DNI) about Trump's weird interactions with Russia: "I never could come to a conclusion. It raised the question in everybody's mind: What does Putin have on him that causes him to do something that undermines his credibility?"

Also in this book, we learn that Trump's White House Chief of Staff John Kelly "came to consider [Trump to be] a pathological liar whose inflated ego was in fact the sign of a deeply insecure person." Kelly even bought a book in which mental health professionals had attempted to diagnose Trump so that he could use it as a guide to better manage his boss.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is not a case as such, but according to a new book, President Trump shocked King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2018 by telling him that he would give the West Bank, the Palestinian territories that have been occupied by Israel since 1967, back to Jordan, which controlled the area until that time.

In the same book, Dan Coats, who was President Trump's first Director of National Intelligence, is quoted as having said to associates (apparently after his tenure as DNI) about Trump's weird interactions with Russia: "I never could come to a conclusion. It raised the question in everybody's mind: What does Putin have on him that causes him to do something that undermines his credibility?"

Also in this book, we learn that Trump's White House Chief of Staff John Kelly "came to consider [Trump to be] a pathological liar whose inflated ego was in fact the sign of a deeply insecure person." Kelly even bought a book in which mental health professionals had attempted to diagnose Trump so that he could use it as a guide to better manage his boss.

More from the new book, this time directly related to the Russia scandal: the authors report that following the resignation of Donald Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018, Trump offered the job of A.G. to his EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, and to his Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, but in both cases with the provision that upon being confirmed in that role, they would fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating Trump's ties to Russia.

[N.E. Brigand]

Again, this pertains to no case or investigation, but it's yet another insight into the Trump presidency from the new book:

Trump's ex-chief of staff told him that "the public will come to your grave and piss on it" if he didn't lower the flag in honor of McCain's death

[N.E. Brigand]

Glasser and Baker report in their book that: "The first tentative cabinet discussions about how and whether to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to temporarily remove an incapacitated president from power occurred within months of Trump taking office."

Some of Donald Trump's own top appointees thought, even before he'd been in office for a year, that was so mentally unstable that it might be necessary to remove him.

They also write that "top officials who served during the Trump administration came to believe that Trump was mentally ill, unable or unwilling to process basic information necessary to do his job, and dangerously uninformed."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And here it is: New York AG sues Trump, his children and their company on charges of large-scale business fraud

Plus this:

[N.E. Brigand]

And here it is: New York AG sues Trump, his children and their company on charges of large-scale business fraud.

Plus this:

Ken "Kenny Raincloud" White says the footnote in which that federal criminal referral is mentioned "strikes me as optimistic and/or performative."

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The suit James has filed says that "Mar-a-Lago was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around $75 million" and that a "statement valued rent-stabilized apartments in the Trump Park Avenue, collectively worth $750,000, as valued at nearly $50 million." In other words, Donald Trump allegedly was inflating the value his assets by anywhere from 900% to 6,000%. Trump signed the statements attesting to those vastly inflated values, and when asked about that during a recent deposition, he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights not to testify -- and taking the Fifth can be used against a person in New York civil cases.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

With regard to the question of why this is a civil suit rather than a criminal prosecution, the L.A. Times' Harry Litman has this to say:

[N.E. Brigand]

It would be "satisfying" to me for Donald Trump to be jailed only inasmuch as he appears to have committed many crimes, and despite my many complaints about how the U.S. justice system operates, I still believe in the rule of law and the eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not get away with it." That said, I'm not out to get Trump and thus am not looking for substitute punishments like his financial ruin (but if the forfeiture of $250 million is an appropriate way to respond to his fraud, so be it). I have on a few previous occasions proposed that Trump be offered some off ramps by which he could avoid the most serious consequences for his wrongdoing. And I'm not the only one: there was a story last week indicating that Attorney General James had proposed a settlement in Trump's case, which he rejected. What I most want is a full accounting of his misdeeds which if at all possible would include him admitting to what he had done.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Actually, it was Trump that proposed a settlement, and Attorney General James who rejected it.

New York attorney general rejects Trump's settlement offer, perhaps clearing the way for a long-expected lawsuit, report says

[Dave_LF]

I bet being sued for not having money stings a lot more than being investigated for conspiracy, sedition, espionage, or sexual assault.