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How about building a luxury hotel in an industrial district contracting with front companies known to launder money for the Iranian Republican Guard?
Ivanka Trump
✔@IvankaTrump
I am proud to support my LGBTQ friends and the LGBTQ Americans who have made immense contributions to our society and economy.
8:22 PM - Jun 1, 2017
How about building a luxury hotel in an industrial district contracting with front companies known to launder money for the Iranian Republican Guard?
Because people always go to jail before the investigations.
Well played.
Poor Mikey!
Seriously are you not from the US?
That Pipeline
The Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, was the subject of continual controversy during the presidential campaign, drawing months of protests because of the perceived environmental impact it would create by crossing the Missouri River in close proximity to a Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Shortly before the election, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would be halting progress on the pipeline for further environmental review and to study potential routes that might avoid crossing both the river and Native American territory. On January 24, however, only four days after President Trump took office, he decided to move forward with both DAPL and the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration likewise blocked because of environmental and tribal-sovereignty concerns; the Army Corps of Engineers finalized the easement on the project on February 7. Trump has been vocally supportive of the pipelines for months, claiming that they would create new jobs in construction and the oil industry.
Trump’s FEC filings, which remain the only public record of his finances, suggest that he may have had an additional incentive to greenlight the projects: According to financial-disclosure forms he filed in June 2015 and May 2016, Trump has owned stock in Energy Transfer Partners, the company seeking to build DAPL. The stock was worth between $500,001 and $1,000,000 in 2015 and between $15,001 and $50,000 in 2016.
The president and one of his spokesmen, Jason Miller, have both stated, without offering evidence, that Trump’s stock-related conflicts of interest have been resolved. According to Trump and Miller, the president sold off his stocks in June of last year specifically to head off concerns that they may influence his decision-making in office. However, they have offered no meaningful evidence to back up their claims—evidence which, in this case, would likely be fairly easy to provide. They could, for example, offer more details on when exactly the stocks were sold beyond simply “back in June,” or explain why they did not mention the sale until December, just after the election, if the intention was to proactively address conflict-of-interest questions.
Given Trump’s penchant for dissembling about his personal finances and the lack of evidence that he has sold off his stocks, Trump’s decision to push ahead on DAPL and Keystone XL simply underscores the need for him to take larger, and more public, steps to distance himself from his financial interests. Moving forward with the pipelines is not the first instance of Trump making a significant decision that benefits a company whose stock is listed in his financial disclosures. For example, when Trump announced his intention to intervene at the factory of the air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Star noted that Trump’s filings list stock in Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies.
Those HUD Grants
As has been noted on several previous occasions, one of the overarching questions about America’s first businessman presidency is just how President Trump’s vast empire will interact with federal agencies that answer to him. One of these potentially sticky situations became something of a flashpoint at the hearing for Dr. Ben Carson, Trump’s appointee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. At the hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed Carson over the fact that, as the head of the department, he would be in charge of numerous programs that the president could manipulate to profit his real estate empire, asking Carson, “Can you assure me that not a single taxpayer dollar that you give out will financially benefit the president-elect or his family?” Though Carson did not respond to the question with regard to Trump specifically, he responded that he “will absolutely not play favorites for anyone” or act with an “intention to do anything to benefit any American, particularly.” (Warren went on to expound on how Trump’s lack of financial transparency makes it borderline impossible to know if a policy will benefit him.)
Warrens’s line of questioning was not entirely hypothetical: Trump does, in fact, own properties the maintenance of which falls under HUD’s purview. Thanks to an inheritance from his father, the president holds an ownership stake in—and has made millions from—Starrett City, a 153-acre, 5,881-unit low-income housing development in Brooklyn. The development, according to ABC News, receives substantial federal funding via HUD’s many programs designed to support low-income renters and homeowners. Trump could easily press for policies that would increase his profits from Starrett, most notably allowing for the sale of the complex, an action HUD blocked in 2007—and, potentially, to other properties from which he may profit in ways that, without more complete financial information, the American public may not even know.
The potential for a profitable relationship with HUD underscores a central problem with Trump’s refusal to fully divest from his holdings before entering office. It’s not just high-ranking officials who will possess the ability to act in a manner that benefits the president’s pocketbook—it’s ordinary civil servants as well. Shortly before his inauguration, The Washington Post noted several additional ways employees in Trump’s executive branch could do so: Trademark disputes, for instance, will be adjudicated by judges appointed by his Commerce secretary, while the EPA could roll back environmental regulations that reduce profits at his golf courses.
Meanwhile, lower-level officials tasked with the day-to-day work of regulating Trump’s properties are likely to face pressure as well—if not explicit from superiors, then from the implicit, inescapable knowledge that enforcement decisions will impact the president personally. Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, for instance, are in charge of on-the-spot, random inspections of aircraft, including Trump’s, and at one point during the campaign grounded one of his planes after its registration expired; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration oversees construction sites, and has fined the Trump Organization on multiple occasions for workplace-safety violations. Only 10 years ago, politically motivated firings within the Justice Department became one of the many enduring scandals of George W. Bush’s administration; with so many executive-branch employees interacting with the president’s properties in so many different ways, some will inevitably face difficult decisions between proper enforcement at his expense or looking the other way to stay in the boss’s good graces.
That Golf Course in Aberdeen
Though his golf course at Turnberry is the more famous of his two properties in Scotland, it is Trump’s resort in Aberdeen that has attracted attention for the conflicts of interest it created when Trump spoke with the British politician and Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage about blocking a proposed wind turbine that Trump believed would have blocked views from the resort. Now, attention has once again turned to Scotland after The Guardian reported that the Trump Organization will soon be moving forward with a multi-million dollar plan to expand its Aberdeen resort, including a new 450-room, five-star hotel and a second 18-hole golf course.
The announced expansion drew criticism almost immediately, especially coming as it did only three days after the press conference at which Trump unveiled his (woefully insufficient) plan to resolve his conflicts of interest. At the conference, the president and one of his lawyers, Sheri Dillon, announced that the Trump Organization would cease pursuing new foreign investments. Additionally, though neither Trump nor Dillon articulated the promise at the event, a press release detailing the steps Trump would be taking also states that he has “directed the Trump Organization to terminate all pending deals—over 30 in number.”
A representative soon clarified the grounds on which the Trump Organization deemed the expansion permissible in light of these statements. She argued that “implementing future phasing of existing properties does not cons ute a new transaction, so we intend to proceed.” In other words, plans for the expansion had been drawn up and agreed upon before Trump made his pledge; simply moving forward with the project does not, in their view, breach their commitments to avoid pursuing new foreign investments or moving forward on pending deals.
As with so many of the defenses of Trump’s behavior when it comes to conflicts of interest, the representative’s justification overlooks the actual concerns regarding conflicts of interest: that Trump’s relationship with the British government and other foreign-policy questions may be colored by his expectations of what a policy will do to his property values, for instance, or whether wealthy guests will pay for a stay in the interest of currying favor with him. Instead, the argument relies on a tactic Trump and his many surrogates have used with alarming frequency. On several occasions, Trump has come out with what appears to be a clear policy statement, which then becomes increasingly vague as he and his surrogates attempt to justify an action or position. One famous example is his proposal to ban Muslims from immigrating to the United States: As critics started to question its cons utionality, and as support for the measure declined, he revised it to a vaguer policy of “extreme vetting,” which itself varied significantly depending on who was describing it to whom and what part of the plan they were defending. Here, the Trump Organization has done something similar: In the face of allegations that the Aberdeen development violated the company’s pledges regarding conflicts of interest, the pledges have been revised to create a more vague, and therefore more permissive, stance. As Richard Painter, who served at the chief ethics adviser for President George W. Bush, put it, the new, more ambiguous policy “clearly illustrates that around the world, he will just simply expand around the various holdings and as they continue to expand, the conflicts of interest expand.”
If, as they argue, the expansion of the Aberdeen golf course cons utes neither a “new foreign deal” nor a “pending deal,” that only further complicates the picture regarding the Trump Organization’s future behavior during Trump’s presidency. The organization currently has several nascent development projects, several of which, including those in Georgia, Argentina, Indonesia, and Taiwan, have already prompted concerns over conflicts of interest. Trump and Dillon’s statements at his press conference appeared to rule out continued development of these properties, but the ongoing development in Scotland calls into question whether other development plans have truly been canceled or whether Trump will find a similarly legalistic framework under which they claim they can proceed. By moving forward in Aberdeen, Trump has demonstrated just how easily he can—and, in all likelihood, will—continue to flout concerns regarding his conflicts of interest by simply redefining the terms of his promises in order to allow for his latest move.
Why poor? you judge but as usual bring nothing to the table.
Poor Mikey!
I will simply say the sheer amount of money laundered through Trump's casino is enough to justify the current investigations of Trump and his minions by federal and state authorities. I am perfectly fine to let them run their full courses.
Now how about your examples of Democratic Party horrendous corruption you're so concerned with?
That Other Billionaire New York Real-Estate Developer
President Trump’s promise to erect a big, beautiful wall between himself and his business lasted slightly more than 48 hours.
Almost exactly two days after the January 11 press conference at which Trump announced plans purported to disentangle himself from his namesake business, the Huffington Post reported that the president had scheduled a meeting with Steven Roth. Roth, a fellow New York-based billionaire real-estate developer, is in charge of Vornado Realty Trust, an investment firm that co-owns two of Trump’s most valuable properties, one in Manhattan and one in San Francisco, and served as an economic adviser during the campaign. What Trump and Roth discussed at their meeting remains unknown, nor is it clear when exactly the meeting was scheduled. Regardless, that the meeting came directly on the heels of the press conference at which Trump and his lawyer laid out a plan supposedly meant to resolve conflicts of interest, throws the reality of the problems that come from having a businessman as president—and one who seems completely uninterested in taking steps that would actually distance him from his business—into sharp relief.
Shortly thereafter, The Wall Street Journal reported that Roth may soon become involved with the Trump administration beyond just his pre-existing friendship and partnership with the president. Trump, it seems, will soon be naming Roth and Richard LeFrak, yet another New York-based billionaire real-estate developer, to oversee a council of 15 to 20 builders and engineers who will be carrying out the president’s $1 trillion infrastructure proposal, a situation which itself provides ripe opportunities for the pair to direct federal dollars toward projects from which they will financially benefit. This news comes on top of a December report in The Washington Post that Roth’s firm had put in a bid to rebuild the FBI’s headquarters, a deal that could be worth as much as $2 billion. In other words, Trump, mere days after promising to remove himself from his businesses, is instead ushering a longtime partner into his administration.
The move could also end up providing yet another avenue by which Trump could enrich himself in office and by which others could attempt to curry favor. Whether or not he intended to do so, the president’s decision to place Roth at the head of such a large pool of money sends a signal to other companies about the continued intermingling of his business and his presidency: that working with the Trump Organization can be a path to increased influence or even appointment. And though Trump claims that he will no longer be in involved in day-to-day operations, he will be actively profiting off from the company, meaning that he will be personally making money off of the attempts of others to gain influence over American public policy.
Last edited by RandomGuy; 07-28-2017 at 02:33 PM.
Where are your examples of Democratic Party horrendous corruption, Mikey?
Bring them to the table.
God Damn.
Outlining Trumps corruption is hard work. Good thing I'm not lazy. 2/3 of the way through.
Half true according to politifact.
Lol trump parrots declaring victory
You can have the Cinton family. I'm with Trump.
Those Indonesian Politicians
Despite President Trump’s assurance that he has stopped pursuing deals since the election, his namesake organization apparently moved forward with a pair of projects in Indonesia. According to The New York Times, the two properties that will bear the Trump name, one overlooking a Hindu temple in Bali and the other abutting a theme park in West Java, presented ethical problems even before the election.
To begin with, through his Indonesian partner on the projects, the billionaire media mogul Hary Tanoesoedibjo (known in Indonesia as Hary Tanoe), Trump has forged relationships with several top Indonesian politicians. One such leader is Setya Novanto, the speaker of the country’s House of Representatives who temporarily lost his post for trying to extort $4 billion from the American mining company Freeport-McMoRan (a company which counts Carl Icahn, who will be serving as a special adviser in Trump’s administration, among its largest shareholders, and which has been frequently criticized by labor advocates and environmentalists). Trump had lunch with Novanto and several other Indonesian politicians during the campaign in September 2015 to discuss the Trump Organization’s planned expansion into Indonesia. At a post-luncheon press conference, Trump pulled Novanto in front of the cameras, calling him “an amazing man” and “one of the most powerful men” and asserting, “we will do great things for the United States.” (It is unclear exactly whom Trump meant when he used the word “we.”) Trump then asked Novanto to confirm that “they like me in Indonesia,” which Novanto did.
Another of the politicians who attended the lunch with Trump is Fadli Zon, the vice chairman of Indonesia’s House of Representatives, whose district includes one of the cities in which one of the Trump-branded properties will be built. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Zon is associated with a political movement seeking to unseat and jail the current governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known by his nickname, Ahok, and has spoken at rallies against Ahok. The anti-Ahok movement is rooted partly in centuries of ethnic tension within the country: Ahok is both Christian, which has made him the target of attacks by hardline clerics claiming to represent Indonesia’s Muslim majority, and a member of the country’s historically oppressed Chinese minority, which was the target of a massacre in 1998. Aside from an interim governor appointed half a century ago, Ahok is the first governor of Jakarta to fall into either category, and is currently on trial for blasphemy for allegedly insulting the Koran, although Ahok’s supporters claim that it is Ahok’s accusers who are guilty of blasphemy for denigrating Ahok’s Christianity.
Both Trump’s question to Novanto and Zon’s presence at the meeting underscore another difficulty the president introduces into the United States’ relations with Indonesia. Indonesia is both the largest predominantly Muslim country in the world and the nation with the largest population of Muslims. Novanto received significant blowback for his statement that, yes, Indonesians do like Trump, because it turns out that, no, many Indonesians don’t like Trump, in large part because of his on-again, off-again proposal to ban Muslims from immigrating to the U.S.; in fact, faced with mounting criticism, Novanto’s party apologized not only for Novanto’s statement but also for his mere attendance at the luncheon. Since Trump’s victory, both Novanto and Zon have stood up for the president, arguing that Trump’s hardline stance toward Muslim immigration was merely campaign rhetoric and not actually reflective of the president’s own beliefs, something Novanto claimed Trump personally assured him was the case. Regardless, it is clear that the Trump Organization’s planned expansion into Indonesia—which, again, is the reason Trump met with Novanto and Zon in the first place—could introduce major complications into the relationship between the president and the political leaders of the world’s largest Muslim country, not to mention a significant trade partner and an important ally in the South China Sea region.
As if that weren’t enough, Tanoe himself has shown increasing interest in becoming involved in Indonesian politics. In 2014, Tanoe publicly supported the retired general Prabowo Subianto in the nation’s presidential election; Subianto lost to the country’s current leader, Joko Widodo. Then, in 2015, he helped found a new political party, the United Indonesia Party, or Partai Perindo, which intends to field candidates for national office in the near future, including Tanoe himself: Shortly after The New York Times reported on the project, Tanoe told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that, “If there is no one I can believe who can fix the problems of the country, I may try to run for president.”
If Tanoe does so, it will create the possibility that Trump will be dealing with a head of state with whom he has shared business interests, which, as the ethics lawyer Richard Painter told The New York Times, “makes it impossible to conduct diplomacy in an evenhanded manner”—especially considering that, after Trump’s election, stock in Tanoe’s company rose significantly. Moreover, Tanoe, like Ahok, is both Christian and ethnically Chinese, which some insiders consider an obstacle to his electoral chances, although Tanoe argues that it is not Ahok’s religion but his lack of firm leadership that has led to the large-scale protests against the governor. Nevertheless, if Tanoe does choose to run for office, it is difficult to see how his race, religion, and business partnership with a president many see as blatantly Islamophobic could do anything other than create further difficulties both within Indonesia and in the country’s relationship with the U.S..
Tanoe remains close to Trump. He attended the inauguration as a guest of the Trump Organization; he and his wife posted several photos commemorating the occasion on their Instagram accounts, including pictures with Donald Jr. and Eric Trump and a video taken out the window of a car driving along the inaugural parade route. Then, in a February 7 interview with the Indonesian news magazine Tempo, Tanoe bragged about his access to the president. In the interview, he claimed to have seen Trump as recently as January 4 in New York, though he demurred when asked what they discussed, saying, “It wouldn’t be ethical, especially now that he is the president.” Tanoe also confirmed that “nothing has changed” regarding the branding deals in Indonesia, which he says will be moving forward with Trump’s sons in charge, a statement that would seem to contradict Trump and his lawyer’s January 11 announcement that the company would be suspending unfinished development projects.
I don't want either. We are very well aware of how latched on to Trumps nuts you are.
That Emirati Businessman
Though the biggest controversy over the New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, was apparently whether or not Joe Scarborough could accurately be described as having “partied” there, video footage taken by a guest and obtained by CNN the next day brought renewed scrutiny to President Trump’s own presence at the event. During a 10-minute speech given in front of the party’s 800-odd attendees, Trump praised his Emirati business partner Hussain Sajwani and Sajwani’s family, saying, “The most beautiful people from Dubai are here tonight, and they’re seeing it and they love it.” CNN identifies Sajwani as a “billionaire developer in Dubai” who has “paid Trump millions of dollars to license the Trump name for golf courses in Dubai.” Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, defended the remarks by clarifying that the president and Sajwani “had no formal meetings of professional discussions. Their interactions were social.”
Whether or not Hicks’s statement was true, Trump’s commendation of Sajwani is part of a pattern in which the president praises his business partners in ways that suggest he has little interest in extricating himself from his company’s interests. Previously, he has name-dropped business partners in Turkey and Argentina while on official calls with the countries’ leaders; he also met, and took photos, with associates from India shortly after the election. Moreover, as with several of the countries in which Trump-branded buildings are located, the United Arab Emirates has a questionable record on human rights; Human Rights Watch specifically states that the nation “uses its affluence to mask the government’s human-rights problems.”
By singling out Sajwani, Trump also runs headlong into accusations that he and his family are selling access to his administration through their organization and family foundations. According to Politico, tickets to celebrate with the president at Mar-a-Lago, went for upwards of $500; the stated attendance of at least 800 people means that the Trump Organization made at least $400,000 off of ticket sales for the event. (There is no indication that the party was a fundraiser for any outside organization, such as a charity or campaign fund, as is often the case when politicians attend such an event.) Whether or not the president sees it as such, the event offered attendees the opportunity to be in the same room as Trump and bend his ear for a price. This follows consternation regarding an auction for a face-to-face meeting with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and a charity event that offered a reception with the president and a hunting trip with his two sons, both of which have since been cancelled, as well as ongoing speculation that foreign en ies will attempt to curry favor with Trump by booking rooms and events at his hotel in Washington, D.C. That Trump singled out Sajwani at the New Year’s Eve party lends credence to these concerns—it’s an instance of someone receiving the president’s attention simply by buying a ticket to one of his events.
Since footage of Trump’s shout-out emerged in early January, Sajwani has continued to feature in coverage of the president’s business entanglements. At the January press conference where Trump and his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, laid out the president’s plan to ostensibly avoid conflicts of interest, Trump said that after the election, Sajwani offered him a $2 billion deal, which Trump turned down. Rather than acknowledge that being offered billions of dollars from a foreign businessman cons utes a conflict of interest, Trump presented his decision not to accept as an example of his magnanimity, saying, “I didn’t have to turn it down, because as you know, I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president. It’s a nice thing to have, but I don’t want to take advantage of something.” Later, Sajwani attended Trump’s inauguration, although it’s unclear if he interacted with the president while there.
Then, on Tuesday, Sajwani posted a picture of himself eating with Donald Trump Jr. in Dubai on Instagram with a caption reading, “It was great having my dear friend and business partner Donald Trump Jr. over for lunch. Discussing new ideas and innovation always make [sic] our meetings even more interesting.”
Donald Jr.’s meeting with Sajwani prompts concerns about the president’s conflicts of interest, for two main reasons. First, the meeting offers a reminder of the insufficiency of the steps Trump has taken to distance himself from his businesses. Though Trump and Dillon claimed that their plan resolved questions about conflicts of interest, ethics experts disagree: Because Trump still knows what his assets are and the iden ies of those with whom he does business, they say, Trump still knows more than enough to favor his company. Moreover, in an actual blind trust, Trump would have turned his assets over to a trustee with whom he would have no contact. Instead, he turned it over to a long-time executive within the Trump Organization and his sons, who he has long counted as among his closest advisers and with whom he has remained in contact during his presidency so far. Donald Jr.’s meeting with Sajwani is a reminder of these inadequacies, especially because Sajwani posted the picture to Instagram, thus increasing the lunch’s visibility and, along with it, the likelihood that the president will know about the ongoing interactions between his company and Sajwani’s (that is, if Donald Jr. hasn’t already made his father aware of them).
Second, Sajwani’s caption further undermines one of the few parts of the arrangement that actually would have meaningfully reduced the president’s conflicts of interest. In January, Dillon said that the Trump Organization would be canceling all of its pending deals and would stop pursuing foreign deals during Trump’s presidency. Since then, numerous developments have called those intentions into question: Projects appear to be moving forward in both Scotland and the Dominican Republic, with the Trump Organization offering narrow, legalistic explanations as to why the progress didn’t violate the terms of the trust. Though a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization has said that Donald Jr. was not seeking new deals while in Dubai, the previous stories, coupled with Sajwani’s Instagram caption, undermine that account.
Corrupt and competent, or Super-corrupt and utterly-incompetent. I guess Chris knows his peeps when he sees 'em.
Is this the quintessential "we" or did you catch some MPD from comrade Pav?
Chris, what is your definition of quintessential?
That Virginia Vineyard
Among the dozens of properties President Trump owns is Trump Vineyard Estates and Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, the source of his namesake wine. On December 23, the property requested temporary H-2A visas for six foreign workers, according to The Washington Post; on February 17, BuzzFeed reported an additional request that upped the total to 29. The visas, which are administered by the Citizenship and Immigration Services wing of the Department of Homeland Security, allow businesses to temporarily hire foreign, unskilled workers provided that the employer proves that there are not enough domestic candidates to fulfill a one-time or seasonal shortage and that the hiring will not depress wages for U.S.-born employees. Trump, of course, appointed the current Secretary of Homeland Security, which gives Trump authority over the very department responsible for deciding whether to grant the visas that the vineyard has requested. His choice for the position, the retired general John Kelly has a relatively scant track record when it comes to immigration, leaving open the question of how much influence Trump himself will have over the DHS’s policy on the matter.
On top of the fact that Trump will soon be able to influence the outcome of the request, that his organization has continued to request visas after his election underscores a tension in the president’s stance on immigration. From the moment that he announced that he would be running for president, Trump made antagonism toward immigration the central aspect of his campaign, arguing that both legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs that should be filled by native-born Americans and depressing wages for others. Though he did not specifically single out the H-2B visa, the president has on multiple occasions spoken critically about the H-1B program, which enables employers to temporarily hire foreign workers for skilled jobs like those in the tech industry.
But the Trump Organization has long been a beneficiary of immigrant labor. For example, according to a Reuters report from August 2015, nine companies of which Trump is the majority owner have requested at least 1,100 foreign visas since 2000. The majority of these requests were from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, which has requested at least 787 foreign visas since 2006, including 70 applications in 2015. (Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that, since 2010, only 17 of the nearly 300 domestic applicants for positions at the Mar-a-Lago have been hired.) The Trump Organization also famously may have benefited from illegal immigration: There is significant evidence that many of the Polish construction workers at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980 were in the country illegally. In other words, Trump’s track record includes not just taking advantage of the very visa process he claims to abhor but also actually subverting existing law for his own profit. Now, by applying for visas for his vineyard, Trump is signaling that he expects that his business will continue to be able to profit from one of the very immigration programs he continually denounces.
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