Longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg has been subpoenaed to testify in the criminal probe of Michael Cohen, WSJ reports. https://t.co/R6nLkeR5C8
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2018
From The Wall Street Journal:
Allen Weisselberg, a longtime financial gatekeeper for President Donald Trump, has been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in the criminal probe of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Mr. Weisselberg is considered a witness in the investigation, the people said. It isn’t known whether he has already appeared before the grand jury or what questions prosecutors of New York’s Southern District have had for him.
Tim O’Brien, one of the President’s biographers, wrote about Weisselberg yesterday.
Weisselberg isn’t a bit player in Trumplandia and his emergence on the Cohen-Trump recording – as someone possibly facilitating a scheme apparently meant to disguise a payoff – should worry the president. Weisselberg has detailed information about the Trump Organization’s operations, business deals and finances. If he winds up in investigators’ crosshairs for secreting payoffs, he could potentially provide much more damaging information to prosecutors than Cohen ever could about the president’s dealmaking.
As I noted in a column in April, the press and others have sometimes characterized Cohen as the man who knows all of Trump’s secrets or even, errantly, as someone who ran the Trump Organization with the president’s children. Not so.
Weisselberg, on the other hand, has worked for the Trump family since the 1970s, and knows more about the Trump Organization’s history and finances than nearly anyone. Almost 71 years old, he joined the company after graduating from college and worked for the president’s father, Fred, as an accountant. He has since become the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer and one of the president’s closest business confidants (alongside Jason Greenblatt, who was Trump’s in-house legal counsel before the president named him as a special diplomatic envoy to the Middle East).
Weisselberg also served as treasurer of the president’s troubled philanthropy, The Donald J. Trump Foundation, which the New York State Attorney General has sued for allegations involving “extensive and persistent violations of state and federal law.” The suit says the foundation routinely and willfully broke the law by engaging in self-dealing that ultimately came to include illegal coordination with Trump’s political campaign. Weisselberg hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing.
(I interviewed Weisselberg extensively for a 2005 biography I wrote, “TrumpNation.” Trump unsuccessfully sued me for libel and Weisselberg testified during the case, which was dismissed in 2011.)
Over the years, Weisselberg’s professional duties also came to include handling Trump’s personal finances as well as the Trump Organization’s corporate finances. He has paid household bills, made large purchases for Trump, and has communicated with Trump’s outside investment advisers. After Trump became president his lawyers created a trust that safeguards his interest in the Trump Organization while ostensibly managing the company without his input. The trust is run by Weisselberg and the president’s two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.
O’Brien provided a brief bit of commentary after Wall Street Journal broke:
From the @WSJ, and this is true: "For years, at least through the financial crisis, Mr. Weisselberg prepared Mr. Trump’s tax returns, according to one former Trump Organization employee." https://t.co/gFzV0SfFyT
— Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) July 26, 2018
Weisselberg knows where every dime that every came in came from and where it went. Perhaps more than any other development in the various investigations into the President, his campaign, his business, his and his children’s charities, and the Russian active measures and cyberwarfare campaign; this one investigative action by the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York is the most significant so far.
Open thread!
Timurid
Happy Infrastructure Week, everybody!
Jeffro
Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up Turkish prisons! No wait…that’s not the right metaphor…
In any case: RUH ROH!!! Hey Freedumb Caucus, you absolutely, positively sure you wanna go to the mat (sorry Jim Jordan, my bad! – ANOTHER bad metaphor right there!) for this guy?
Steve in the ATL
Prepare for a lot of “I don’t recall”
kindness
Oh boy. We are going to be treated to a weekend of All Caps tweets by Trump. Good weekend to go camping in the Sierras out of cell phone range.
Tom Levenson
Here’s hoping that omerta works as well for the Trump cartel as it did for the New England mob
Fair Economist
Treasurer of Trump’s foundation? On top of all the other pressure he can expect a state, unpardonable, indictment as well. Also, he must be one crooked guy to run that thing.
Chyron HR
Never heard of him, he was just a legal secretary for a few days.
Waynski
IIRC Mueller’s had forensic accountants all up in Trumpkin’s business. Talking to the accountant may mean the end is near.
Major Major Major Major
Oh, wonderful! And this is not affiliated with Mueller?
Adam L Silverman
@Fair Economist: I fully expect that a lot of the business related stuff will be handed off to NY state.
Humdog
@kindness: unless, of course, there are fires in your part of the Sierras. Smokey days up north, odd orange skies.
Adam L Silverman
@Waynski: Correct, the Special Counsel’s Office has a full team borrowed from Treasury’s FINCEN division and the FBI’s financial crimes division. Everything they’ve discovered that’s pertinent has, I’m sure, been shared with the Southern District folks to keep Weisselberg honest.
rikyrah
If he doesn’t know, he should..
Weisselberg needs Witness Protection immediately.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: For now. This is currently part of the Cohen probe that Mueller handed off to the Southern District of New York. While our legal fleegles will know better, I would expect that if anything comes up during the Grand Jury session that is pertinent to the Special Counsel’s investigation, then the Southern District folks will push it across.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: I was just noticing that. This is southern district of NY, not Mueller.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
how long before Cynthia Nixon adds “a thorough vetting of Donald Trump’s company and a review of all political contributions and interactions with NYS officials by the Beast, his spawn and his executives” to her platform?
Corner Stone
Everybody’s gotta eat and all, but can you imagine what kind of soulless sleaze of a person you’d have to be to (work for) run Trump Org for forty years?
rikyrah
Michigan GOP boasted about stuffing ‘Dem garbage’ into gerrymandered districts
07/26/18 11:21 AM—UPDATED 07/26/18 11:32 AM
By Steve Benen
When partisans go through the process of creating gerrymandered district lines, it’s easy to imagine them describing their efforts in crude and raw terms. But it’s one thing to imagine the language; it’s something else to see the emails documenting it. The New York Times reported:
Corner Stone
Man, accountants amirite? Get you every time.
LAO
Trump senior’s not the only one sweating bullets over this one. I’m sure the children are freaking out as well. Wow, I’m freaking out a little bit too. For different reasons though. This news has made me pretty happy. I hope he invokes the 5th Amendment. And then gets a grant of immunity. Good times are coming.
Mary G
Just ordered a pallet of popcorn to sustain me as I watch the net closing tighter and tighter.
dmsilev
Hey, if it worked for bringing down Al Capone….
Corner Stone
Who’s going to give him immunity from Boris? He has to know where every ruble came and went.
WereBear
Keep it coming, people. I’m not tired of it yet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: so if Deniro is playing Mueller, will SNL bring Charles Grodin out of retirement to play the trump accountant?
JPL
Can Weisselberg take the fifth?
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
Well, that is how they got Capone…the money…
Corner Stone
Prosecutors have the Trump Campaign chairman, Trump’s personal shitty fixer, and now the Trump Org (crime family) head finance guy. Is the next fashionable shoe to drop going to be Trump’s daughter?
Steve in the ATL
@rikyrah: Clarence Thomas is on the record as saying that’s ok
Fucker.
LAO
@JPL: Yes.
Manyakitty
@LAO: Hmm…wonder if this is why Ivanka closed up shop?
Mike J
@JPL:
Only if he did something that would get him prosecuted.
rikyrah
@Steve in the ATL:
Because he’s a slave catcher.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
“On the advice of my lawyer, I plead the Fifth.”
SFAW
@JPL:
One fifth? Hell, he probably just bought three cases of fifths of the cheapest Scotch he could find. Well, I guess it would be vodka, but still …
rikyrah
@Mike J:
He worked long term for Dolt45…of course, he did something that could get him prosecuted.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
The day will come when Clarence Thomas is found stuffed in the garbage with the rest of the trash.
And there will be much rejoicing.
JPL
@LAO: So in your opinion, if he takes the fifth, he’ll get immunity?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Yeah, he seems to be at high risk of committing suicide by three bullets to the back of the head.
Corner Stone
@Mike J: Others may know better, but I believe I can take the fifth even if I know I have done nothing wrong or criminal.
RedDirtGirl
Open thread? Is the NYC jackal meet-up happening this Sunday? Asking for a friend : )
TenguPhule
@Mary G:
The worst part of all of this is having to work off the calories afterwards.
SFAW
I seem to remember Lying Littledick saying that Mueller going after the Shitgibbon Organization would be a “red line,” or something like that.
I do NOT recall him saying that about the SDNY, however. Not that it matters.
Tick to the fucking tock, motherfuckers.
Corner Stone
@SFAW:
Did you just go with a three/fifths riff?
Mike J
@Corner Stone:
I didn’t address actual guilt. It’s the fact that it is incriminating.
schrodingers_cat
OT: I am on to the fourth of episode of Sacred Games, the flash backs go back to the early 90s when India’s political class let it down badly and I am including everyone in it from the then ruling party Congress to the rising menace of the current party in power. It is difficult to see.
LAO
@Corner Stone: You are correct.
TenguPhule
@kindness:
And possibly avoid the fallout.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
And then politely zipping up the sports bag around him to make collecting his remains easier.
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
Maybe, but I bet you’ll have one humongous grin while you’re working out, when you remember WHY you’re working out.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Why isn’t YouTube filled with videos of people publically telling Hannity he sucks? My minute of listening to him on the radio riles me so. He’d file this under another fake scandal that will only embolden drumph instead of taking him down. Fuckem.
LAO
@JPL: I don’t know. But the only way to “force” him to testify, would be to obtain a grant of immunity (which requires the DOJ in Washington as opposed to the SDNY to sign off on).
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
No, that would have been if I were commenting/riffing about the SCOTUS — the Slave Catcher Of The United States, as rikyrah has called him.
HeleninEire
Ya know. You all know my history. Moved to Ireland cuz I love it. Was planned forever. Quit my job and volunteered for Hillary for a year. Never occurred to me she would lose. The plan was to leave on Nov 15. After that I would leave America in good shape.
OH HOLY HELL!!!
But after this subpoena I am for the first time feeling kinda great. Why? Because it is abundantly clear that Mueller is circling in. Mr. W. is way to close. The shit is about to hit the fan.
debit
So, everyone here knows I work in an accounting firm, right?
We had a client that had his payroll for his C corp done here, plus his bookkeeping, corp taxes and personal taxes. This client had some rather insistent ideas about what he would and wouldn’t report and claim, and was kind of a bully to our bookkeeper so she let him push her around and just did what he wanted. What’s the worst that could happen, right? We were only following our client’s instructions.
Well, he was audited on his personal return. And the IRS agent had enough questions about his personal income from his company to then open that up for audit. And not only was he nailed, but our firm was penalized as well. You can’t say, “Well, I didn’t know he was doing X” when you’re handling everything from A to Z. So if anyone thinks that Weisselberg can just say he didn’t know, or he was only following Trumps orders… No. He’ll know that won’t work and if it looks like he’s going down, he’ll drag Trump with him.
VOR
@SFAW: Firing Mueller won’t stop the SDNY.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Cheap? Odds are at least even this guy’s been skimming off the trumps for decades. I’m sure he got the good stuff.
“Are all these dots in the right place, Alan?”
“Yes, Donald, everything there is just as your father wanted it, and told me he always wanted things to be”
“Okay, Daddy, I mean, Alan.”
ETA: smart people say it’s almost a certainty Mueller has trump’s tax returns. I wonder if this guy’s signature is anywhere in all that paper
trollhattan
@Steve in the ATL:
And “I’m-a take the fifth.” We lost a lovely self-writing joke when they changed booze bottles to 750ml and “take the fifth” could be followed with “But leave the bourbon!”
ETA Bla, bla, upthread, hrrmph.
SFAW
@debit:
You realize that all those movies and TV shows about zombies are fiction, right? [Right about now, you’re saying “WTF are you talking about?”]
Because Weisselberg won’t be on this side of the grass if it looks like he’s going to flip.
HeleninEire
@LAO: WUT? I asked you a q the other night about the fifth. If you missed it I will ask again. If you answered please direct me to it.
Also too NYC meetup in November! WOO HOO.
Tehanu
Would it be mean to point out that we could just call him Weaselberg?
trollhattan
@debit:
You just made my day better.
Frankensteinbeck
Weisselberg is going to lie about everything from top to bottom, lie badly, and be caught doing it. That’s the kind of people Trump hires. What happens from there, I don’t know.
John Revolta
Well, how much stuff can they legally ask him about? If it’s all just related to the Cohen investigation, can they e.g. bring his tax returns into it?
TenguPhule
@SFAW:
He has no choice but to flip at this point as that’s his only slim chance of getting out of this alive.
Jeffro
Starting to see folks noticing a GOP civil war brewing…Jim Jordan = pro impeachment of RR, while Paul Ryan = against impeachment. Let’s be sure, National Media, to ask each of them repeatedly how he feels about the other.
@HeleninEire:
Yup. This is the ‘red line’ Trumpov talked about way back when. Mueller no doubt already has everything he needs to indict Don Jr and Jared and Stone and Page and Parscale for conspiracy against the US, receiving stolen goods, etc. This – the complete financial unveiling of the Trump Org – is something entirely different.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think he was probably smart enough to record Trump as insurance and keep the receipts.
That’s the kind of people Trump has around him. They’re only out for number one and Trump isn’t number one.
debit
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If he prepared and filed the returns, your answer is “Yes.”
JPL
The NY state laws prevents state charges in cases when the person is pardoned on the federal level for the same crime. What stops Trump from pulling a Ford, and issuing a blanket pardon for Cohen now. With his base and the house republicans, there is no downside.
LAO
@HeleninEire: I missed it. I’m sorry. And it’s too complicated for me to explain using my phone. But, basically without getting technical, it’s about whether your answer could subject you to criminal charges, not whether you’d be found guilty. Also, whether you answer would, in context, provide prosecutors with a link to other questionable conduct.
TenguPhule
@debit:
Many a doomed soul runs afoul of the Infernal Revenue Service that way.
TenguPhule
@JPL:
Fortunately, the NY AG has a wide venue of charges they can bring.
rikyrah
@debit:
You just made my day :)
Yutsano
@John Revolta: There are any number of reasons why an investigator would want to look at tax returns, especially his complicated monstrosities. There could be all kinds of hidden shenanigans that might not be obvious on initial processing or even to an auditor.
debit
@TenguPhule: Oh, tell me about it. Our head tax practitioner reamed out the bookkeeper and installed a whole new series of protocols to follow.
HeleninEire
@rikyrah: Of course he is.
SFAW
. @VOR:
Yes, I know. Hence the second line of my comment.
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
I REALLY hope you are correct.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
Cohen is a great example there. Like an absolute dumbass, he recorded Trump and then told lies that the recordings could be used to refute. They don’t lie for Trump because they’re taking a bullet for him. They lie because they’re liars, and it’s instinctive. If anything, they’re not smart enough to know when to come clean. Trump senses this, and because he assumes the entire world is about him, thinks it’s to protect him.
piratedan
@Frankensteinbeck: and after he’s caught, he’ll roll over because Trump doesn’t hire anyone who appears to have anything resembling the trait of loyalty. Which means the books get to be opened and we may get a glimpse of who actually owns DJT, with receipts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nicole Wallace talking about the reporter who has been banned– BANNED! I say!– for asking trump about Cohen. If Cohen had trump freaked out, Weisselberg must have him screaming with rage. I bet even Kellyanne is hiding in a broom closet– they’ll never spot her– and Melania’s giggling as she runs around the residence putting all the TVs on CNN.
Corner Stone
@Frankensteinbeck:
IMO, W is not going to lie about squat. He’s going to sing like he was part of the Rat Pack or the fifth Beatle. Papa Trump hired and groomed him, and although he’s worked for DJT for a while now I bet he probably hates his fucking guts, deep inside.
JPL
@TenguPhule: Wouldn’t a blanket pardon like Nixon was granted, cover that?
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No doubt. But the point of my comment was the (perceived) desire for him to get good and drunk — what some low-class persons might call “shit-faced” — and why would you do that using the good stuff? Perhaps I shoulda wrote “rotgut”?
eric
@schrodingers_cat: i flew through the series in two days. interested on your take when finished.
Frankensteinbeck
@JPL:
I’m guessing he can’t do that because there’s no federal crime to pardon. IANAL, but from that description there has to be direct overlap.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Bless you, child, for that one.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@JPL: There is no personal gain for Trump in it, remember, “Transnational Donny”
I think there is also Trump’s base is loyal to Trump in a funny kind of way – they love Trump because they can live out their a-hole bully fantasies threw Trump. Anything that weakens Trump image of a Privileged Untouchable Douchnozzel like having to pardon someone to protect himself is going to turn his base off.
TenguPhule
@debit: I had to threaten to quit my job at one of my former workplaces when they tried to get me to understate a 1099 for a contractor. Fortunately the corporate officers backed down once I pointed out that the alternative to me refusing to do it was for them to do it. : }
Never fuck with the IRS.
debit
@JPL: IANAL, but isn’t part of getting a pardon admitting your guilt to the crime/s? And even if he can’t be prosecuted, he could still be compelled to testify, and couldn’t plead the 5th AND could be prosecuted if he lied to investigators or under oath. Right?
HeleninEire
@LAO: Sorry hun. It was a general Q. So I work for a bank. $1,000,000 goes missing. I am asked to testify not because the US attorney thinks I did anything wrong but because I wrote the software that makes sure no one can steal. They need information. Ms. US Attorney says “tell me about your software.” I say “I plead the 5th” Can they use that against me?
TenguPhule
@JPL:
Nope. There are state classified crimes that don’t have federal direct equivalents.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
LMAO!!!
daverave
@Humdog:
For those wondering what a smoky Yosemite looks like, here’s a page that links to a few webcams. The one of El Capitan is particularly ominous (compare to the banner at the top of the page.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I tend to agree. He’s the 46% president, what hope he has for the midterms is based on the midterm electorate being weighted toward his base– older, whiter, more rural– but also, I think, more educated, and trump is hemorrhaging college-educated whites. Anything that chips away at his support hurts him. He’ll always have 27% (to maybe 35%), I think, but he can’t afford to lose outside of that group.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think at her level of intrinsic evil she probably glows in the dark. One of many reasons her husband sleeps on the couch these days.
Steve in the ATL
Apropos of nothing, there are enough English people in the Orlando airport to steal another six counties in Ireland.
TenguPhule
@HeleninEire:
Depends on whether you can convince the judge making the determination whether you have a valid fear of incrimination.
They may decide that you have to describe how the program works in general as an expert witness.
Dave
@Adam L Silverman:
p.a.
@piratedan: the trait of loyalty.
Well, as trump sows, so he reaps.
TenguPhule
Wow, Brexit has now brought up the possibility of rationing back to Great Britain.
The last time that rationing ended was in 1953. And that was due to WW II.
LAO
@HeleninEire: Taking the Fifth can never be used against a person in a criminal sense. I’m speaking technically, of course. What would happen, though, if you invoked the Fifth, is that they would immediately begin investigating you as there primary suspect.
But, I think the scenario is unlikely. Federal grand juries aren’t empaneled to investigate crimes But to confirm the government theory of prosecution.
p.a.
@Steve in the ATL: Visiting the US before we become a banana republic perhaps. Or studying the process: well, the Yanks had a good run…
JPL
@TenguPhule: Thanks. I wonder how limited the questioning will be. Even if it is limited to pay off affairs, it could be damaging.
Dorothy A. Winsor
For the good of all involved, I just had to leave a meeting that had devolved into complaints about how kids these days were spoiled and didn’t want to work. I could have quoted Horace to them, but Mr DAW was already flinching.
I am proud that my field of Rhetoric and Professional Communication discouraged that kind of talk about our students.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: I like to look at English people after they’ve spent a few days in the Florida summer sun. I’m a bad person that way.
satby
@RedDirtGirl: still on as far as I know. I’ll end up there even if no one else is ?. Sounds like a good place.
Yarrow
@LAO:
As well they should. Traitors, all.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Fixed to reflect reality
chopper
@trollhattan:
“i plead da fif“
Gemina13
@debit: Too true. And it’s not just business accounting. I used to work for a trust investment firm in the last decade, in Phoenix. One of our clients had her personal trust account with us. However, she bitched constantly about taxes, especially what her heirs – 7 children and her husband would have to pay when she died (she had terminal brain cancer). When she died, the estate settlement department discovered she’d set up several illegal blind trusts with a woman who was later busted in a real estate scam in 2007. The IRS swooped in, and we had to help find all those blind trusts and submit everything to them. Suddenly, what was an 8-figure estate turned into a low 7-figure one, after taxes, back taxes, interest, and penalties were all assessed.
Needless to say, the woman’s heirs were pissed. Her husband, who was serving in Afghanistan at the time, came back to the States thinking he’d shout for a bit and clear things up – he ended up staying for half a year. His last meeting with the VP of estate settlement was epic. He and all the kids (all adults) stormed in, marched into the VP’s office, and proceeded to harangue him about hurrying up and processing the dead woman’s estate. The VP kept saying, “We can’t do that, the IRS hasn’t finished their audit yet.” Finally, the widower shouted, “It’s our money, dammit! When are you going to stop giving it to the IRS?” The VP made his reputation in our office by answering, as he opened the office door, “First of all, it’s not your money. It’s the IRS’s money until they say it’s yours. And second, because none of you are worth ten years in a federal prison.”
Words to live by if you work in the financial field. There is NO client, no matter how powerful or charismatic or wealthy, that is worth losing your liberty, reputation, and ability to make a living. None. And Donald J. Trump in particular.
TenguPhule
@JPL:
For possible financial crimes and money laundering? Sky’s the limit. if the DA is smart.
satby
@daverave: you can’t see any of them! Horrible.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
You are on a roll :)
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Do they look anything like Swedes after a morning in the tropical KL sun? Now that was an alarming sight.
JPL
@TenguPhule: There’s a big smile on my face. Thanks.
Calouste
@p.a.: Probably the last time they can afford it before Brexit wrecks the UK economy.
TenguPhule
@Gemina13:
This would be the equivalent of ALL CAPS emailing John Cole. If John Cole had an army of hungry lawyers.
satby
@Gemina13: the people who bitterly complain about taxes on money that they never worked one single second for always amaze me. It was never their money, it was someone else’s, and whatever they get is more than they had or earned. So much better to be grateful than greedy!
debit
@Gemina13: What a great story and I’m totally using that line.
Baud
@satby: When I win the lottery, I plan to rant about the taxes I’ll have to pay.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
The secret to not losing over half of the winnings is to take the multi-year payout. Too many idiots take the lump sum and blow through it in less then five years almost always find themselves worse off then before.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: I refuse to play the lottery because I might win and have a giant tax bill
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: I refuse to play the lottery because I might win and have a giant tax bill
Baud
@Steve in the ATL: It’s horrible how the government punishes success.
SFAW
@chopper:
Shit, that was funny. Except for the poor doggie, of course.
Debbie(Aussie)
Does anybody have anymore information about this http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-27/donald-trump-may-be-prepared-to-strike-iran-sources-say/10037728? (sorry don’t know how to link). Sounds frightening,
Steeplejack (phone)
Called as a witness? The foundation was so blatantly corrupt that it’s hard to see how Weisselberg doesn’t end up as a defendant. Maybe they will use charges against him as leverage to get him to flip on Trump.
Humdog
So when do Dems start trolling Rs that one of their qualifications for becoming R speaker is to have inappropriate showers with young men?
F’n creeps need to be made to own their disgusting perverts and perversions.
Raven
@Yarrow: on the city bus to the art car museum!
TenguPhule
@Humdog:
Technically that was only Hastart.
This one is accused of ignoring the problems associated with his superior, the sex-offender.
Jeffro
@Baud: Sadly and painfully true. “Democrats in Disarray!”, it’s a helluva drug.
Jeffro
@Steve in the ATL:
How about if you play but mail me the tickets, and if I win, I’ll pay that bill? You’ll get to feel even more bigly smart than by simply ‘not playing’ ;)
Yarrow
@Raven: Have fun!
Retr2327
@Jeffro: @Frankensteinbeck: that doesn’t sound quite right. NY does bar double jeopardy, which is, roughly speaking, trying someone twice for the same crime. But the question of what constitutes trying, I.e. at what point jeopardy attaches, gets pretty complex and arcane.
But if someone is pardoned pre-trial, then it’s doubtful that jeopardy ever attaches so as to bar the NY trial.
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
Team doctor/trainer, not his superior, wasn’t it?. The head coach apparently knew about the problems, despite Jordan claiming he (Jordan) didn’t.
JPL
@Debbie(Aussie): I thought that naked links were now allowed. hmmm A friend did ask what Trump is going to do if Weisselberg testifies, and I said bomb Iran. Fortunately, I’m always wrong.
Frankensteinbeck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Trump’s base has no loyalty to him whatsoever. They are fanatically loyal to their right to be bigots and assholes. Hell, they see it as an existential war. Trump right now is the champion of being a bigot and an asshole, so they will not give an inch to his opponents. But it’s not about Trump. If he stops being the champion for any reason, they’ll forget his name.
schrodingers_cat
@eric: How did you like it?
hitchhiker
Right now I’m imagining Trump checking the cable networks and headlines … and realizing that no-effing-body gives a rip about his latest campaign rally. Two years ago he could count on reporters to cover him and his squealing fans on the front pages while they reported relentlessly about Hillary Clinton’s failure to answer yet more questions about her private server.
He could make people laugh when he imitated her walk. He could get roars of approval when he said she was too weak to be president. He could count on his friends at the Kremlin to make sure there was a daily drip of stolen private communication. He could watch Bernie Sanders and his admirers use the word, “corrupt,” to describe HER. And all of it would be on television, all day and all night.
Now? Every headline is about something he screwed up, and if he tries to attack his “enemy” he’s obstructing justice.
I hope he cracks into a million tiny little pieces, right in front of us.
Just One More Canuck
@Mnemosyne: Leave the gun, take the borscht
Miss Bianca
@Gemina13: Heh. Indeed. Makes me wonder if at any point W ever said to Donny, “You know, I’ve done a *lot* of shitty things for you over the years, but going to prison isn’t going to be one of them.”
patrick II
I have been waiting for the Weisselberg shoe to drop for awhile now. I have been amazed its taken this long, really. Nobody knows more about the Trump businesses. it will be interesting to see how brave he is about lying to trump while he is under oath.
Kay
I want more on the congressional election interference. I feel as if it changes the whole narrative if we’re talking about Trump and the GOP Congress.
And if that’s TRUE that’s what the narrative needs to be because that’s essential information for voters. They deserve to know this BEFORE election day. It doesn’t matter if they don’t do anything with it! They should know.
Why is this so important to Putin? That he not just have the Trump Administration- he wants a GOP majority too.
That’s not “creating chaos”. That’s a plan.
Raven
@Yarrow: it’s really small but really cool! Whack peeps running it, old school hippies from the look and feel. No charge but I bought a shirt.
TenguPhule
@SFAW: I could be wrong, some of the news articles on this scandal are fucking terrible.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
We know what they damn well should do about it. And if the voters don’t, well we’ve got bigger problems then.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Creating Chaos is the plan.
I’m just surprised the Kremlin hasn’t tried a false flag yet in the whole elections tampering to make Trump look good.
debit
OT but worthy of a Nelson Muntz “Hah hah!”
From the article:
Platonailedit
@hitchhiker:
Public humiliation in orange suit and cuffed hands is my feverish dream.
Raven
@Yarrow: Hit a cute lil bbq right across the street, stepped out an there came the bus back downtown!!
Yarrow
@Raven: If you really want to see the weird art cars, the parade in the spring is where it’s at. People come in from all over the country with their weird art cars. There’s even a “secret” night parade.
If you head north from there a short distance you’ll be in the Heights, Houston’s first “suburb.” They had to build a streetcar route to get people to live there. Lots of places to eat and drink there. If you still want to catch some music, check out the Heights Theater.
Edit: Just saw your update. Oh well. Next time.
MomSense
@Debbie(Aussie):
Fuck. This is what worries me. As he feels more threatened by the Mueller investigation and the other criminal cases, he will be more likely to do something desperate like start a war with Iran.
Raven
@Yarrow: yea, these folks were all over that parade. I tried to rassle some chow tips but everything but the Q seemed like a hump and my dogs are killing me. This was a great find and I’ve about had it so back to the crib it is.
Calouste
@Kay: If you put a bunch of incompetents that reject science and logic and instead believe in fairy tales* in charge, chaos will automatically result.
* This may or may not resemble a certain political party.
Yarrow
@Raven: Sounds like a plan. Hope you have enjoyed your visit. How much longer do you have?
bluehill
From someone who isn’t familiar with the law and how investigations work, the accountant seems like someone Mueller would have started with, so I’m wondering why he wants to talk to him now.
debit
@bluehill: Because he wanted actual evidence first, and then see how the accountant answers his questions about that evidence. I guess, anyway. Also, he wasn’t a part of anything relevant to the Russia investigation, but the tape opened the door when he was mentioned as setting up a shell company to avoid campaign finance laws. So suddenly he becomes a person of interest.
ETA: I assume, anyway.
Yarrow
@bluehill: It’s like a mob case. Start from the outside and work their way in to the key people at the center. The peripheral people will turn and offer info that leads to people closer to the action until the investigators are at the center. The Trump Org CFO is pretty close to the very heart of the whole organization.
chopper
@MomSense:
that’s an incredibly stupid thing to do, which means there’s a good chance trump’ll do it. oy gevult.
geg6
@hitchhiker:
I read that they had to move it to a smaller venue and then were only able to fill that half way. Also read some major bitching about his being so political at the VFW. Attendees were pissed that it was all about him and was a campaign speech and nothing about veterans and what his administration was doing for them. This is his base and if they can’t be bothered to show up and if those that do are bitching, well…
hitchhiker
@bluehill:
It’s not Mueller’s subpoena.
Raven
@Yarrow: 0 dark hundred in the mewnin! Man it’s nit that far at all, I’m back at the hotel. The
The Pale Scot
@Corner Stone:
Yea, I haven’t figured out how to say this without sounding bigoty. I’ve worked in NYC in construction and services the majority of my years, and to me the creature known as DT sounds exactly like the old wealthy Jews I did business with. This is a small slice of the population. But loud bigotry and dismissive attitudes of the people who worked them, check. Heart doctors from Overlook and Mt Sinai, RE owners of properties in the outer boroughs, mostly complete assholes.
But, I would never have thought that these guys would commit treason against the USA, never. We’re really fucked that the Depression and WW2 era population is gone. They had a very realistic view on how fucked up things can get really quickly
Jay
@Baud:
In Canada, the capital winnings and interest earned until claimed, are tax free. Only interest earned, after is subject to taxes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes, and the second Trump can’t sustain that hate his base will drop him like an old shoe. I think Trump is just a flop sweat or a rant away from political oblivion.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: If there are 5 T supporters left in the entire United States, NYT will find them and interview them for the nth time. If there are none left, they will invent them. So invested are they constructing the myth of the T voter who never leaves his dear leader, no matter what.
WaterGirl
@debit: Not that I want your firm to go under or experience anything that would affect your employment, but every people and firm that knowingly participates in bad behavior should have real consequences.
I am curious as to whether the punishment for your firm was a slap on the wrist or something really serious.
Also, did their bookkeeper at your firm lose their job or have any serious consequences personally?
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck:
They are all shady AND stupid. And arrogant. And think they are above the law.
I hope a whole lot of people who are involved in the kind of white collar crime that the FBI has apparently been watching – but have done nothing about – are really uncomfortable right about now. We need some serious house cleaning in this country. (And not just at my house.)
Gravenstone
@Amir Khalid: One of my favorite college memories was when a good friend of mine – an extremely pale Michigander of Nordic stock went and got himself very nicely sunburned in the late Spring sun. After accomplishing this feat, he proceeded to shave his beard, leaving a reverse Abe Lincoln strip of pasty white against the angry red that was the rest of his face. It was quite an image to behold.
The Pale Scot
@TenguPhule:
For now
WaterGirl
@Gemina13:
What a great story!
Somehow it reminded me of a dean I knew at the University who had a stamp that said:
Somehow I think your guy would have liked my guy.
Platonailedit
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yup. The traitorous thug and his minion thugs have all gotten so far so well by constant lying. Don’t see them stopping now given the cowardly cravenness from their corrupt complicit party.
Yarrow
@Raven: That’s early! Yeah, you can see why now it’s funny that that area was considered way, way out from Houston when they built it. It’s so close!
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Someone needs to look into the NYT funding and the publishers’ connections to US enemies. They are consistently in the wrong about obvious things.
LAO
@The Pale Scot: just curious, but was it necessary to describe the people you used to work for/with as Jews? Asking for myself. A Jewish person.
The Pale Scot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
This era has always reminded me of “A Face in the crowd”
Shana
@Gemina13: Great story! Thanks for sharing.
TenguPhule
@bluehill: Its not Mueller, its the NY State.
feebog
If this guy was running the Trump Foundation then he is as crooked as a three dollar bill. He will be taking the 5th multiple times..
Yarrow
California folks! Looks like Traitor Dana is having a bad day.
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: That makes me smile.
Edit: Tick tock motherfucker?
Yarrow
@WaterGirl: Yes, indeed! I feel like every day is filled with tick tock, motherfucker revelations or events. Things are happening so fast now.
evodevo
@TenguPhule: Yes …this … I personally am aware of two people who won in the Ohio and the Ky lottery in the millions, and were dead broke less than 5 years later. Always amazes me how fast some people can spend it.
Corner Stone
@evodevo: I am sure there are exhaustive studies on this but to toss a guess out there – most winners have never had any money and most of the people they know don’t have any money. They buy shit they always wanted and fall for hard luck/guilt trip stories from “friends/family” and *POOF*. After taxes and a couple houses, plus fishing boats plus vacations in the Bahamas for 17 people…*POOF*.
The Pale Scot
@LAO:
@LAO: Like I said it’s fretful territory. I don’t know if you have lived and worked in NYC, and I said it is a small slice of the population. There are always assholes. But the guys I’m talking about have a schtick that’s recognizable, and I’m not pulling a Kurt Waldheim. I’m not saying that these guys are assholes because they’re Jewish. I’m saying that for some reason these particular guys kept to a schtick that apparently works for them in dominating a scene. And it only works on other recent immigrant people. A wealthy WASP would have left the table or just broke out laughing if it if was tried to be used to dominate.
I fabricated and installed cabinets for a mostly Jewish clientele on the upper East Side in the 80’s (I went HS with some women who aspired to be interior decorators). I worked in 4 star restaurants in NYC after that. I can say sometimes you run into stereotypes right out of MAD magazine.
For every Trump there were five old guys who were Sid Caesar, and some mom asking if I wanted something to eat.
Here’s a story. I was bartending at a 4 star NJ restaurant on Sunday when 4 heart surgeons came in to wait until the awful restaurant they had reservations opened. They started right off telling Nigclang jokes one after another. which if they were just saying it among themselves that I can ignore. But they were telling me these jokes to illicit a reaction, it was a dominance play to make me complicit in their bigotry. I walked into the kitchen and said I can’t do this. The Sous Chef says “I’ll go out there, It’s my break time” he comes back into the kitchen astonished. So we talk and decide to send my back waiter, who’s from Central America and speaks good english to go behind the bar, and act like he doesn’t understand anything other than what kind of alcohol to pour. Ten minutes later they were gone, they didn’t have an audience.
All I’m saying is that different ethnicities of assholes had different schticks, they are all equally assholes. I think if you haven’t grown up with a variety of different ethnicities living and working together it might seem trite, but it’s a thing, at least in the 70’s and 80’s.
Add: About the 4 star mentions. It isn’t bragging, it’s just that we didn’t get a lot of outright assholes. Pretentious asses? Lots of. But in that time you didn’t expect to run into this, those kind of people (generic assholes, there are very few high roller assholes) would see the prices on the menu and walk out. I here it’s different in the business now and days.
LAO
@The Pale Scot: I don’t know how to respond but to state that I was born in NYC, raised in the suburbs and have lived in NYC for over 25 years. If you think there’s a substantial difference in the level of or type of assholeness based on ethnicity, then ok. In my experience, a rich asshole is a rich asshole.
debit
@WaterGirl: I actually agree, and take pains to let my payroll clients know that I if I seem like a hard case, it’s because I want to protect both them and me.
We were dinged for two specific things and each had a $2500.00 fine.
As I said, there were new rules and procedures put in place. I don’t know if she was reprimanded above and beyond what we all heard (it’s a small office) as it wasn’t really my business (not her boss or in her department).
afanasia
@SFAW: The quality of the liquor can affect the qualities of the hangover.
TenguPhule
@debit:
The “stupid, not intentional” punishment then. IRS can be very very brutal against preparers they think intentionally tried to deny Uncle Sam his rightful due.
debit
@TenguPhule: Ouch, but yeah.
J R in WV
The single largest stockholder in the New York Times is a silent partner named Carlos Slim. A Mexican billionaire, and not based upon pesos, either. I forget if he owns 49.9% or 50% or what, but the rest is split up among the managing family of Sultzbergers, etc.
I doubt if Don Slim would have anything to do with Russians, politically, but you never know.
J R in WV
@satby:
My dad’s neighbor was a hard working cardiac surgeon who bought my grandparents house next door. One year we went to a New Year’s Eve party at Doc Andy’s house. He had a wife who stuttered badly, and 4 or 5 really cute daughters, and he spent money like water for his girls.
He was pretty drunk, and told me how bitter he was that he had to borrow $25,000 to make his quarterly estimated income tax payment! This was probably in the mid to late 1970s. I was dumfounded… how do you do that?
Their marriage broke up not long after, and Shirley’s stutter went away very soon after that, so happy ending, kinda. I hope the daughters got over him too.
Kenneth Fair
It looks like Mueller is doing what every good prosecutor does: follow the money.