Winehole23
03-13-2025, 09:30 AM
Remember the fake story about illegal immigrants in a luxury hotel?
It was used as a pretext for El0n to steal $80 million dollars from NYC's Citibank account
On February 11, 2025, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency housed in the Department of Homeland Security, removed $80.5 million from New York City’s main bank account, which is an account with Citibank (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/NOTC-Legal-Memo-No.1.pdf). Well, that’s not exactly accurate. They “debited”, the financial way of referring to “subtracting”, New York City’s “central treasury account” for 80.5 million dollars. According to public statements by Brad Lander (https://www.mediaite.com/tv/chris-hayes-bursts-out-laughing-when-he-learns-trump-caused-nyc-bank-account-to-overdraft-by-79-5-million/?ref=crisesnotes.com), New York City’s comptroller, this could only be covered by a line of credit facility to the tune of 79.5 million dollars. In short they, in essence, sent New York City’s main bank account to negative 79.5 million dollars (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/NOTC-Legal-Memo-No.1.pdf). Citibank kindly agreed to forgive the overdraft fee. On February 18th a FEMA branded letter authored by Cameron Hamilton, a person described in the letter as a “Senior Official Performing the Duties of the [FEMA] Administrator”, was sent to the New York City Office of Management and Budget (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.637338/gov.uscourts.nysd.637338.9.20_1.pdf?ref=crisesnote s.com). The letter explained that the money was “clawed back” because of a range of claims about illegal activity which the New York Post alleged took place in the hotels the city paid to put Venezuelan refugees in. I can’t really communicate to readers what this letter reads like, so I will simply quote an important paragraph to provide the “flavor”:
The Department of Homeland Security has significant concerns that SSP funding is going to entities engaged in or facilitating illegal activities. For example, a substantial portion of your award goes to funding alien housing at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. According to media reports, the vicious Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua has taken over the hotel and is using it as a recruiting center and base of operations to plan a variety of crimes. According to these same reports, these crimes include gun and drug sales as well as sex trafficking, which can reasonably be presumed to be conducted in the hotel itself. One of the groups responsible for these activities refer to themselves as “diablos de la 42,” which means the devils of 42nd St., a street near where the Roosevelt Hotel is located. DHS/FEMA has a responsibility to ensure that it does not make payments that fund criminal activity.
This justification for denying congressionally appropriated funds is extremely legally dubious (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/notc-legal-memo-no-1). This justification for “reversing” the disbursement of already disbursed funds is far beyond legally dubious (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/NOTC-Legal-Memo-No.1.pdf). It brings up profound and basic issues about the functioning of our society which I will unpack throughout the rest of this article.https://www.crisesnotes.com/can-the-trump-administration-arbitrarily-take-money-from-anyones-bank-account/ (https://www.crisesnotes.com)
It was used as a pretext for El0n to steal $80 million dollars from NYC's Citibank account
On February 11, 2025, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency housed in the Department of Homeland Security, removed $80.5 million from New York City’s main bank account, which is an account with Citibank (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/NOTC-Legal-Memo-No.1.pdf). Well, that’s not exactly accurate. They “debited”, the financial way of referring to “subtracting”, New York City’s “central treasury account” for 80.5 million dollars. According to public statements by Brad Lander (https://www.mediaite.com/tv/chris-hayes-bursts-out-laughing-when-he-learns-trump-caused-nyc-bank-account-to-overdraft-by-79-5-million/?ref=crisesnotes.com), New York City’s comptroller, this could only be covered by a line of credit facility to the tune of 79.5 million dollars. In short they, in essence, sent New York City’s main bank account to negative 79.5 million dollars (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/NOTC-Legal-Memo-No.1.pdf). Citibank kindly agreed to forgive the overdraft fee. On February 18th a FEMA branded letter authored by Cameron Hamilton, a person described in the letter as a “Senior Official Performing the Duties of the [FEMA] Administrator”, was sent to the New York City Office of Management and Budget (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.637338/gov.uscourts.nysd.637338.9.20_1.pdf?ref=crisesnote s.com). The letter explained that the money was “clawed back” because of a range of claims about illegal activity which the New York Post alleged took place in the hotels the city paid to put Venezuelan refugees in. I can’t really communicate to readers what this letter reads like, so I will simply quote an important paragraph to provide the “flavor”:
The Department of Homeland Security has significant concerns that SSP funding is going to entities engaged in or facilitating illegal activities. For example, a substantial portion of your award goes to funding alien housing at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. According to media reports, the vicious Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua has taken over the hotel and is using it as a recruiting center and base of operations to plan a variety of crimes. According to these same reports, these crimes include gun and drug sales as well as sex trafficking, which can reasonably be presumed to be conducted in the hotel itself. One of the groups responsible for these activities refer to themselves as “diablos de la 42,” which means the devils of 42nd St., a street near where the Roosevelt Hotel is located. DHS/FEMA has a responsibility to ensure that it does not make payments that fund criminal activity.
This justification for denying congressionally appropriated funds is extremely legally dubious (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/notc-legal-memo-no-1). This justification for “reversing” the disbursement of already disbursed funds is far beyond legally dubious (https://www.crisesnotes.com/content/files/2025/03/NOTC-Legal-Memo-No.1.pdf). It brings up profound and basic issues about the functioning of our society which I will unpack throughout the rest of this article.https://www.crisesnotes.com/can-the-trump-administration-arbitrarily-take-money-from-anyones-bank-account/ (https://www.crisesnotes.com)