Donald Trump Presidency: Three Reports
1 view
Skip to first unread message
Sukla Sen
Jul 24, 2017, 9:43:41 AM7/24/17
to foil-l
I/III.
6-Month Update for Trump Voters
12 Trump promises, and what's actually become of them.
Robert Reich blog
July 19, 2017
[Screenshot:
CNN
In 6 months, Pres. Trump has tweeted 991 times, spent 40 days at Trump golf properties and passed 0 pieces of major legislation.
Savage CNN push alert]
So after six months, has he delivered what he promised you?
1. He told you he’d repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “beautiful.” You bought it. But he didn’t repeal and he didn’t replace. (Just as well: His plan would have knocked at least 22 million off health insurance, including many of you.)
2. He told you he’d cut your taxes. You bought it. But tax “reform” is stalled. And if it ever moves, the only ones whose taxes will be cut are the wealthy.
3. He told you he’d invest $1 billion in our nation’ crumbling infrastructure. You bought it. But his infrastructure plan, which was really a giveaway to rich investors, is also stalled.
4. He said he’d clean the Washington swamp. You bought it. But he’s brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history, to make laws that will enrich their businesses, along with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who are crafting new policies for the same industries they recently worked for.
5. He said he’d use his business experience to whip the White House into shape. You bought it. But he created the most chaotic, dysfunctional, back-stabbing White House in modern history, in which no one is in charge.
6. He said he’d close “special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors but unfair to American workers.“ You bought it. But he picked a Wall Street financier Stephen Schwarzman to run his strategic and policy forum, who compares closing those loopholes to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
7. He told you he’d “bring down drug prices” by making deals with drug companies. You bought it. But now the White House says that promise is “inoperative.”
8. He said that on Day One he’d label China a “currency manipulator.” You bought it. But then he met with China’s president and declared "China is not a currency manipulator.”
9. He said he wouldn’t bomb Syria. You bought it. But then he bombed Syria.
10. He called Barack Obama “the vacationer-in-Chief” and accused him of playing more rounds of golf than Tiger Woods. He promised to never be the kind of president who took cushy vacations on the taxpayer’s dime, not when there was so much important work to be done. You bought it. But in his first 6 months he has spent more taxpayer money on vacations than Obama did in the first 3 years of his presidency. Not to mention all the money taxpayers are spending protecting his family, including his two sons who travel all over the world on Trump business.
11. He said he’d force companies to keep jobs in America. You believed him. But despite their promises, Carrier, Ford, GM, and the rest are shipping jobs to Mexico and China.
12. He said he’d create coal jobs. You believe him. He hasn’t. But here’s what he has done: Since 1965 a federal program called the Appalachian Regional Commission has spent $23 billion helping communities in coal states fund job retraining, reclaim land, and provide desperately needed social services. A.R.C. helped cut poverty rates almost in half, double the percentage of high-school graduates, and reduce infant mortality by two-thirds. Trump’s first proposed budget eliminates A.R.C.
II/III.
Trump Just Resurrected the Ugly Practice Known as Civil Forfeiture for No Reason
Eric Reed Eric Reed Follow Jul 22, 2017 4:03 PM EDT
Play
Mute
Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%
Remaining Time -1:38
Fullscreen
Scaramucci Has Been Waiting For A White House Gig For A While
Civil asset forfeiture is the latest dangerous from the Trump administration. The new rule announced by the Justice Department won't just expand the practice. It's designed specifically to defeat protections passed at the state level.
It will almost certainly lead to abuse.
As reported by the Washington Post: "The Justice Department announced a new federal policy Wednesday to help state and local police take cash and property from people suspected of a crime, even without a criminal charge, reversing an Obama administration rule prompted by past abuse by police."
The practice is known as civil asset forfeiture. Under this law a police officer can seize any property he believes was involved in a crime without obtaining either a warrant or probable cause.
Originally, the government pushed forfeiture in the 1970s and 80s to fight drugs and organized crime. Law enforcement wanted to prevent criminals from disappearing the large amounts of cash that fuels their business, and so police were empowered to seize any money they believed was involved in a crime. Over the years, however, the practice has grown to the point where the government began seizing assets far beyond cash in a wide variety of situations, including cars, homes and even businesses.
Many local police departments have begun to rely on it as a revenue source, targeting out of town drivers in what are known as "cash-for-freedom" deals.
On average, only about one seizure in ten ever leads to criminal charges, but historically, defendants have struggled to get any of their money or property back. One investigation by the Washington Post found that between 2001 and 2014, state and local police departments had seized nearly $2.5 billion in collective assets without warrants. Often these seizures occur during unrelated traffic stops, during which the Post found that police "pressed [drivers] to agree to searches without warrants and seized large amounts of cash when there was no evidence of wrongdoing."
As a result of issues like these the Obama administration cracked down on the practice. In 2015 then-Attorney General Eric Holder passed new rules restricting the use of asset forfeiture and sharply limiting the federal government's support for it.
The Justice Department's announcement on Wednesday reversed that decision.
Specifically, the new policy will allow what's called "adoptive seizure." Under this law, state and local police can transfer seized property to federal officials who process it under federal laws and guidelines. Billed as a way to increase federal-state cooperation, adoptive seizure allows local police departments to circumvent state laws that might restrict asset forfeiture.
Given that over the past several years 24 states have increased the protections against asset forfeiture, with 14 going so far as to require a criminal conviction, many experts are worried about the effect that a return to adoptive seizure might have.
"What this policy means is that law enforcement officers in states with these greater protections can circumvent state protections by instead seeking forfeiture under federal law," said Robert Johnson, an attorney with the Institute for Justice. "So imagine you're driving through a state that requires a criminal conviction to forfeit property and you're carrying cash, and it's sized by a law enforcement officer. Under state law the law enforcement officers would have to go to court and convict you of a crime to seize that property."
But, he said ,"under federal law the fact that someone has a large amount of cash is itself enough to give rise to suspicion that there was a crime which gives rise to a forfeiture of property, and you have to prove your own innocence to recover the money."
III.
Jared Kushner sealed real estate deal with oligarch's firm cited in money-laundering case
Donald Trump’s son-in-law bought part of old New York Times building from Soviet-born tycoon, Guardian investigation into Russian money in NYC property market finds
Jared Kushner, seen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May.
Jared Kushner, seen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Wendy Dent and Ed Pilkington in New York and Shaun Walker in Moscow
Monday 24 July 2017 12.29 BST First published on Monday 24 July 2017 07.00 BST
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, who acts as his senior White House adviser, secured a multimillion-dollar Manhattan real estate deal with a Soviet-born oligarch whose company was cited in a major New York money laundering case now being probed by members of Congress.
Trump not convinced Russian meddling took place, communications chief says
A Guardian investigation has established a series of overlapping ties and relationships involving alleged Russian money laundering, New York real estate deals and members of Trump’s inner circle. They include a 2015 sale of part of the old New York Times building in Manhattan involving Kushner and a billionaire real estate tycoon and diamond mogul, Lev Leviev.
The ties between Trump family real estate deals and Russian money interests are attracting growing interest from the justice department’s special counsel, Robert Mueller, as he seeks to determine whether the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia to distort the outcome of the 2016 race. Mueller has reportedly expanded his inquiry to look at real estate deals involving the Trump Organization, as well as Kushner’s financing.
Kushner will go before the US Senate intelligence committee on Monday in a closed session of the panel’s inquiry into Russian interference in the election in what could be a pivotal hearing into the affair.
Leviev, a global tycoon known as the “king of diamonds”, was a business partner of the Russian-owned company Prevezon Holdings that was at the center of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit launched in New York. Under the leadership of US attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump in March, prosecutors pursued Prevezon for allegedly attempting to use Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from the Russian treasury.
The scam had been uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant who died in 2009 in a Moscow jail in suspicious circumstances. US sanctions against Russia imposed after Magnitsky’s death were a central topic of conversation at the notorious Trump Tower meeting last June between Kushner, Donald Trump Jr, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.
Donald Jr and Manafort have been called to testify before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, at which they are certain to face questions about the Trump Tower encounter.
Two days before it was due to open in court in May, the Prevezon case was settled for $6m with no admission of guilt on the part of the defendants. But since details of the Trump Tower meeting emerged, the abrupt settlement of the Prevezon case has come under renewed scrutiny from congressional investigators.
Four Russians attended the meeting, led by Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with known Kremlin connections who acted as legal counsel for Prevezon in the money laundering case and who called the $6m settlement so slight that “it seemed almost an apology from the government”. Sixteen Democratic members of the House judiciary committee have now written to the justice department in light of the Trump Tower meeting demanding to know whether there was any interference behind the decision to avoid trial.
Constitutional experts are also demanding an official inquiry. “We need a full accounting by Trump’s justice department of the unexplained and frankly outrageous settlement that is likely to be just the tip of a vast financial iceberg,” said Laurence Tribe, Harvard University professor of constitutional law.
Separately, the focus of investigators on Trump family finances stem from the vast flow of Russian wealth that has been poured into New York real estate in recent years. As Donald Trump Jr put it in 2008, referring to the Trump Organization: “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
Among the overlapping connections is the 2015 deal in which Kushner paid $295m to acquire several floors of the old New York Times building at 43rd street in Manhattan from the US branch of Leviev’s company, Africa Israel Investments (AFI), and its partner Five Mile Capital. The sale has been identified as of possible interest to the Mueller investigation as Kushner later went on to borrow $285m in refinancing from Deutsche Bank, the German financial house that itself has been embroiled in Russian money laundering scandals and whose loans to Trump are coming under intensifying scrutiny.
Court documents and company records show that AFI was cited in the Prevezon case as a business partner of the defendants. In 2008, Prevezon entered a partnership with AFI in which Prevezon bought for €3m, a 30% stake in four AFI subsidiaries in the Netherlands. Five years later, AFI tried to return the money to the Russian-owned company, but it was intercepted and frozen by Dutch authorities at the request of the US government as part of the Prevezon money-laundering probe.
In Manhattan, Leviev’s firm also sold condominiums to Prevezon Holdings from one of its landmark developments at 20 Pine Street, just a few blocks from Wall Street.
Real estate brochures describe the lavish interior decor of the condominiums, replete with bathrooms bedecked in stone and exotic woods, and boasting “the ultimate in pampering; a sybaritic recessed rain shower”. The 20 Pine Street apartments that Leviev sold to Prevezon were later frozen by US prosecutors seeking to block the flow of what they alleged to be money stolen from the Russian treasury and laundered through New York real estate.
Prevezon’s 20 Pine Street apartments and €3m in assets were all released as part of the settlement in May.
The Guardian contacted both Kushner and Leviev for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
The pursuit of Prevezon Holdings for alleged money laundering took on enormous political significance as it unfolded. For the prosecutors, it was a test case over suspicious Russian money flows designed to show the US was serious about going after money launderers. For the Russians, it was an opportunity to push back against stringent US sanctions that had long infuriated the Kremlin.
In court documents, US prosecutors accused Prevezon and its sole shareholder, Denis Katsyv, of participating in the laundering of proceeds of the vast tax fraud that stole $230m from the Russian treasury and moved it out of the country in chunks. Prevezon was alleged to have received some of the fraudulent spoils through a network of shell companies, hiding the money by investing in Manhattan real estate including the Leviev condominiums in 20 Pine Street.
Prevezon and Katsyv have consistently denied any involvement in money laundering and have dismissed the lawsuit as “ill-conceived”. In a statement released at the time of the settlement, they said they had “no involvement in or knowledge of any fraudulent activities”.
Magnitsky discovered the massive tax fraud, said to be one of the largest in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, in 2007. After he blew the whistle on the scam, he was arrested by the same officials whom he had accused of covering up the racket and imprisoned, dying in jail having been denied medical treatment.
Magnitsky’s death led to a political backlash in the US that in turn spawned tough sanctions on Russia, known as the Magnitsky Act. Russian individuals associated with the lawyer’s demise and other human rights abuses were banned entry to the US.
Russian man at Trump Jr meeting had partner with Soviet intelligence ties
Read more
Veselnitskaya not only acted as Prevezon’s Russian counsel in the money-laundering case, she also was a leading lobbyist against the Magnitsky sanctions. She raised the subject prominently at the meeting in Trump Tower with Don Jr and Kushner, though according to Veselnitskaya the president’s son-in-law left after 10 minutes.
By the time of the Trump Tower meeting, Veselnitskaya was already personally acquainted with Russia’s powerful prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, and her lobbying against the Magnitsky sanctions had drawn significant attention in government circles.
“Natalia’s main role was coordinating, including regular coordination with Chaika, whom she knew personally,” said a source acquainted with the Prevezon case.
Veselnitskaya told the Guardian: “My meeting with Trump’s son was a private meeting; nobody in the government had anything to do with it.” She declined to answer a follow-up question about whether and how she knew Chaika.
Jamison Firestone, the founder of the Russian law firm that employed Magnitsky at the time that he exposed the fraud, said that Veselnitskaya clearly intended to use the Trump Tower meeting to lobby against the Magnitsky sanctions. “They really made it a state priority to get rid of these sanctions,” he said.
Peace Is Doable
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages