For almost two years an important question has gone unanswered: what happened to all that money that was raised for the President’s inauguration? The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York is now officially seeking answers. (emphasis mine)
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations, people familiar with the matter said.
The criminal probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which is in its early stages, also is examining whether some of the committee’s top donors gave money in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions, some of the people said.
Giving money in exchange for political favors could run afoul of federal corruption laws. Diverting funds from the organization, which was registered as a nonprofit, could also violate federal law.
The investigation partly arises out of materials seized in the federal probe of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s business dealings, according to people familiar with the matter.
In April raids of Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents obtained a recorded conversation between Mr. Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events. In the recording, Ms. Wolkoff expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending money, according to a person familiar with the Cohen investigation.
The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine when the conversation between Mr. Cohen and Ms. Wolkoff took place, or why it was recorded. The recording is now in the hands of federal prosecutors in Manhattan, a person familiar with the matter said.
The inaugural committee has publicly identified vendors accounting for $61 million of the $103 million it spent, and it hasn’t provided details on those expenses, according to tax filings. As a nonprofit organization, the fund is only required to make public its top five vendors.
The committee raised more than double what former President Barack Obama’s first inaugural fund reported raising in 2009, the previous record.
Federal prosecutors have asked Richard Gates, a former campaign aide who served as the inaugural committee’s deputy chairman, about the fund’s spending and its donors, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Gates has met with prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.
Mr. Gates, who served as deputy in the inaugural fund, in February pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the U.S. involving foreign political consulting work unrelated to the campaign. The case was brought by Mr. Mueller’s office. Mr. Gates agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department in ongoing investigations.
The committee was headed by Thomas Barrack Jr., a real-estate developer and longtime friend of Mr. Trump. There is no sign the investigation is targeting Mr. Barrack, and he hasn’t been approached by investigators since he was interviewed by the special counsel’s office last year, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Mueller’s investigators, who are probing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, asked Mr. Barrack only a handful of questions about the inaugural fund, the person said.
Mr. Mueller has also probed whether any foreign money flowed to the inaugural fund, which is prohibited from accepting foreign funds. In August, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, on a referral from Mr. Mueller, obtained a guilty plea from a Washington consultant who admitted he used a U.S. citizen to serve as a “straw purchaser” so that a “prominent Ukraine oligarch” could attend the inauguration. The names were never disclosed.
Much more at the link.
I have been thinking my way through a post on Thomas Barrack for the past week, but today’s Wall Street Journal reporting has sort of forced my hand. Not only was Barrack the chair of the President’s inaugural committee, he appears to be a key central bridging node between a number of the Gulf Arab states, like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and useless idiot Jared Kushner. Barrack advises the Emirati Crown Prince, who is himself the mentor of the Saudi Crown Prince. And Barrack is the person who recommended Paul Manafort to the President for his campaign. Barrack is a key node, if not the key node, into and out of the foreign influence campaigns – from Russia to the Emirates to Saudi – and the Trump administration and campaign. Which is why Special Counsel Mueller has expanded his investigation into these other foreign contacts and connections with the President’s 2016 campaign, his transition and inauguration, and his administration. Specifically those from the Middle East.
We are off the looking glass and through the map.
Open thread!
Jay Noble
Why am I seeing a wall in Adam’s house covered in clippings, push pins and lots of string? ;-)
Mike in NC
Guarantee that nobody in this White House has the faintest idea of what constitutes a ‘bridging node’.
Scott
I’m sure it is all Michael Cohen’s fault. Or Thomas Barrack’s fault. Trump just took their advice. How was he supposed to know. They’re the experts. He is just an innocent victim.
The Dangerman
Cloaking technology for the YUGE crowds?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
If you also remember, it was the kindly warn voice and smiling face of Barrack that was used to humanize Trump at the GOP convention – he assured us how warm, thoughtful and caring his acquaintance was.
It was all bullshit, and 52% of the population knew it was bullshit, but enough idiots accepted it as gospel.
I want the miserable prick to go down. I want him to drown in his own flop sweat as he contemplates a lengthy prison term in the harshest place that he can be dumped in.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay Noble:
It’s moved well beyond one wall.
Cheryl Rofer
Barrack has often been noted as a member of Trump’s “kitchen cabinet.” I’ve long wondered about him. Are you going to write more, Adam?
Adam L Silverman
@Jay Noble:
Every room!!!!
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Most likely. But not tonight. I wasn’t planning on writing anything about Barrack yet as I’m still trying to think through exactly what he was doing as a central and bridging node in the network.
zhena gogolia
@Jay Noble:
As long as he doesn’t have a shrine. When the detectives go to the serial killer’s house there’s always a shrine with lots of pictures of the victim(s).
Mike J
South District of NY
Souther District of NY
Southest District of NY
A Ghost To Most
It’s presidential harassment!
/insert douchbag here
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: This is what I get for taking a work call while trying to write a post! I fixed it, thanks for catching it.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: He is hard to figure out, and there is not a lot of reporting on him.
You guys with the push pins – Back in the early 1990s, we had a whole wall covered with brown paper on which we were trying to sketch all components of the Soviet nuclear complex, so we’d know the critical places if things came apart. I keep being reminded of that, but yes, I think it needs several walls. I hope somebody can publish a series of charts when this is all over.
kindness
Stupid Watergate. There’s a difference now though. During Watergate, Republicans were upset and angry when it became known the extent of Dick Nixon’s underhandedness. Today though, not so much. Republicans seem to think they can wait out the storm. I think it’s media now vs then. Now we have Fox & Sinclair and 10 newspapers to parrot the brilliancy of Trump. Congressional Republicans really only care about holding power and show it. During Watergate they acted horrified. Who knows, maybe it was a show then and if they had had Fox News they would have tried to string it out. Doubt it. Walter Cronkite owned Ma & Pa American back then.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: There’s some poor person at AmEx who is trying to figure out why I buy colored push pin and colored yarn in bulk from Amazon.//
Ruviana
@Scott: I think they maybe got him coffee once.
A Ghost To Most
@kindness: Most incompetent traitors ever.
piratedan
@Adam L Silverman: maybe he was acting as a central and bridging node for people who wanted to play “how to spend money and buy gifts to influence the US President elect” … just spitballing here…. :-)
kindness
@A Ghost To Most: The media helping them or the politicians? I’m going with column C: both.
Adam L Silverman
@piratedan: That might be a possibility…
A Ghost To Most
@kindness: I see the last generation horse-race touts (Toad, Chinchillas, et al) getting elbowed aside by young guns trying to make their bones.
Or do I owe somebody an apology?
Dorothy A. Winsor
I thought all this legal stuff was supposed to happen on Fridays! What flood of stuff.
Eric S.
@Jay Noble: you say that as of it is wrong.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@kindness: Congressional Republicans were with Nixon, until they weren’t. There was a breaking point.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And some, like Cheney, never broke from him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Or the fella with the full sized Nixon tat, what’s his name, Stoned or something?
ETA: But the GOP leadership did break, Rhodes and Goldwater paid Nixon a visit and he soon resigned.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this has been one of my hobby-horses for a while: This was how they bribed Melania to keep quiet and not file the divorce papers she had ready.
I am snarking. Mostly. About half. We’ll see.
sukabi
Adam, you’re going to have to come up with another metaphor for our current situation as we’ve been “through the map” for the better part of 2 years. May I suggest adding ” and have been sucked into a black hole of treasonous greed.” Or something similar.
JaySinWA
@sukabi: That makes too much sense.
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness: My nym. Over and over again.
The media must be dealt with; they’re a major part of the problem.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Villago Delenda Est
@sukabi: The “Spock With A Beard” universe.
sukabi
@Jay Noble: all good investigators have a “murder board”, its when the eyes on the photos get scratched out there’s a problem.
Villago Delenda Est
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Smocking Gun ’74. Every HJC GOP rep who had voted against sending Articles of Impeachment to the floor of the House changed their vote.
Then Goldwater, Scott, and others went to Dick and told him he was fucked.
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: What is it today, first Steve in ATL in the previous thread and now you hyping your AmEx cards. Is there some sort of product placement payoff?
FelonyGovt
The investigations seem to be multiplying geometrically. Good! I’m sure there’s plenty of dirt for them to find.
Chip Daniels
Well all I know is, if they question Barrack, they should make sure to warn him that lying is a crime, otherwise it will be a perjury trap.
I mean, really, how’s a guy to know otherwise?
scott (the other one)
@kindness: back during Watergate, the majority of the GOP leadership wasn’t also implicated.
Steve in the ATL
@JaySinWA: it’s the best way to handle your holiday shopping! Click my name for the affiliate link. I may receive a small commission…
JaySinWA
@Steve in the ATL: My Costco VIsa never lets me have any fun.
Adam L Silverman
@JaySinWA: I wish.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JaySinWA: Hey, you get a rebate on gas.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: You’re faceless?
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: You could have at least put an Amazon link to bulk push pins and yarn in to generate some BJ revenue.
JaySinWA
@?BillinGlendaleCA: As well as the foods that make it.
rikyrah
@Jay Noble:
Tee hee ? ??
rikyrah
Props to USA Today and Maddow. They really were the only ones who kept on the story of the Inaugural slush fund.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Dude I’ve got a yuuge stash. I can hook you up.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman: They know why, Adam. They know.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@MomSense: Hi there! I’m (unhappily) not this joint around much lately(long boring story). I sent you an email the other day.
MomSense
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Ooh, I’ll check. I hate the holiday emails. It’s all shopping shopping shopping and I’m feeling more bah humbug
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@MomSense: I feel you. I HATE this season beyond all measure, but try to be kind and offer cheer (to the extent I’m capable) to those who enjoy it.
To the extent that include any jackals here, I sincerely wish you a wonderful holiday season.
cs
@kindness:
I think it’s important to remember that in the early to mid parts of Watergate, Republicans ran interference for Nixon just as they’re doing for Trump. Even the supposedly “good” ones like Gerald Ford interfered with the process and did what they could to slow it down. Only after the Massacre and after the evidence became overwhelming, did enough of them switch to make impeachment inevitable. Even then, it wasn’t all of them. Many of the Republicans supported him till the bitter end.
And all of that was in an era when Republicans still had the possibility of shame. They’re almost immune to shame now. Not sure what would get them to do the right thing these days.
geg6
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Come sit by me. I, too, heartily dislike this time of year.
geg6
@cs:
Pitchforks and torches.
MomSense
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Same to you. There is too much pressure and stress to buy and do and make.
geg6
Mother fuckers. A 7-year-old child has died in border control custody. Mother fuckers.
zhena gogolia
@geg6:
I can’t even read this story.
lamh36
Why would anyone want to take the job?
What’s in it for Christie?
lamh36
@geg6: was just reading the story
A Ghost To Most
@MomSense: Your version of a stash is quite different than mine. Different strokes.
sukabi
@cs: I think over the Christmas break there will be a number of repubs that decide to “spend time with their families”. And a few more after the next Congressional session gets rolling and the actual house investigations start moving….also think there will be at least a couple who will be “asked to resign” for “the good of the country” or spend some time in the graybar hotel.
sukabi
@lamh36: what’s in it for Christie? Payback for drumpf humiliating him during the transition. He’d be quite the “hero” if he took the job and used it to feed info to various investigators.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: Monsters. This was honorable Marine General Kelly’s idea
A Ghost To Most
@Villago Delenda Est: We have a roadmap, but that was back when we were still on the map.
Here there be dragons.
MomSense
@geg6:
Rage. They should hang for what they are doing to children. Hang.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yep.
And a little more of one of my walls:
JaySinWA
@MomSense: We need to set up an Etsy Conspiracy Theory supply store.
JoeyJoeJoe
@cs: There were even some Democrats doing that; conservative southern Democrats anyway. Robert Stephens from Augusta was a Nixon supporter and was on a House committee looking at watergate in 71/72
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: OMG! Christ Christie is going to eat John Kelly…
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: I’d wager Christie gets the Romney treatment in the end.
ETA Although he might eat Kelly as part of the audition.
Adam L Silverman
@JaySinWA: It won’t be Christie. Jared won’t sign off. I know Christie wants the job so he can push Jared out, but it won’t happen. Also, you have the same problem with Christie that you have with Newt: huge egos, huge personalities, the inability to subordinate their own ambitions to anyone else’s. The only difference is that Christie has some ability to be organized and Newt doesn’t.
Jay
Y’all need to realize you don’t need that many push pins and different coloured yarn these days,
Linked In, Twitter Followers and Facebook Fiends keeps the connections live, current and Googleable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36: I’ve had Christie pegged as not-that-dumb, soulless, corrupt, nasty, bloated ego… but not-that-dumb. I am prepared to acknowledge I overestimated him.
Maybe he’s going to coax trump to offer him the job, provisionally accept pending his family’s approval and on the condition that Jared provide a hand-written letter of welcome, then turn it down. That’s what I would do.
The Dangerman
@lamh36:
Two scoops?
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: I hear that Giuliani is looking for a paying gig. //
Steve in the ATL
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: here’s some uplifting seasonal music that will turn that frown upside down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l14aDp-4NKk&list=PLR7sPawuzFmKc1Q0dFwbawJASpUo8Kggp&index=8
MomSense
@JaySinWA:
Ha!
lamh36
I’ve never liked Clint Eastwood. Good to know my instict was correct…he’s always been a POS…
JaySinWA
@Jay: You lose operational security that way. Old school or go home. //
zhena gogolia
@Jay:
That’s no fun.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: All those mean guys he played in movies, guess that wasn’t acting.
lamh36
BWAHAHAHAHAH Jeffery Toobin has NMFTG!!!
raven
@Steve in the ATL: We’re headed for the Sugar Bowl.
Gin & Tonic
@lamh36: Huh. I guess CNN won’t have them sitting next to each other in the studio.
Jay
@JaySinWA:
Nope, just use a masking program,
@zhena gogolia:
Push pin fatalities are way up in the US these days, now that they can be e coli coated,
There’s lovely algore isms and software programs that can make connections beyond what the eye picks up.
If you make comments on blogs under your real name, it can get interesting to see “whom” did a Linked In search on you.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Toobin can take him.
Aleta
The Forbes article from last summer seemed kind of glib (to put it mildly) at the time: “Barrack introduced Trump to his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort,” etc. Even the NYT claim that Barrack recommended Manafort for campaign manager could be questioned.
NotMax
Breaking: 7-year-old immigrant girl in U.S. custody dies of dehydration and shock.
Anne Laurie
J R in WV
Looks like the Southern District of NY AG leaks like a sieve, compared to Mueller’s SCO. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but it might not be terrible. News of impending doom sometimes causes unsuspected felons to move in the low brush, drawing the attention of prosecutors and their investigators.
I always wondered if Melenia’s stash of money from the Inaugural fundraising would turn out to have been illegally moved around, laundered, and passed on to foreign accounts where she would have it available if needed, ever.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: hunker down!
Lapassionara
So a seven year old girl died at our border today from dehydration and shock. Sorry if someone pointed this out upstairs,but I am outraged. Our government are monsters.
Lapassionara
@NotMax: thanks.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: I dunno. They both look pretty soft to me.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Sure, but of the two of them, I think Toobin would prevail.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Christie’s not as fond of popping off to the press; give the job to Newt and he’ll be bragging about the Space Force was his idea to Bret Baier or Hannity on Fox News 20 seconds after the announcement, but I agree Jared will let Twitler hire him over one of their dead bodies.
Jay
@Lapassionara:
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, refugee’s die on the US Border, every year, since the late 1950’s.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global/2018/jan/26/scott-warren-no-more-death-arrested-migrants-water
Wag
@Adam L Silverman:
I think that “Please. I go through everyone’s trash.” needs to be a rotating tag line.
Adam L Silverman
@Wag: It’s on my business cards.
Lapassionara
@Jay: this was different. She was in custody for several hours. In the custody of people whose salary we pay and who work for us.
Sister Golden Bear
Interesting op-ed: “Did Putin buy Donald Trump?” going into how Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million — almost double what Trump paid for it — to Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russian oligarch and billionaire, who’s apparently never lived in it. Probably familiar to my fellow jackals.
But even more interesting, it was written by my local Congress critter, Rep. Jackie Speier, who serves on the House intelligence committee.
Wag
@Adam L Silverman: Awesome.
sukabi
@Jay: border patrol had the girl and her dad in custody for over 7 hours, they didn’t call for medical help for the girl until she started seizing. The father turned themselves in probably to get medical help for his daughter. At least that was info in article I read.
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Golden Bear: Yep, covered this in the Maskirovka Slips series.
Platonailedit
Lies, lies, lies and more lies – the thug’s whole con life
A Ghost To Most
Savor the moment. Everyone, including Mr. Creosote, knows he is going down. Time to stuff that fucker full, until he explodes.
I haven’t been this happy since the pigs ran off with my big brother.
Adam L Silverman
This is the look of a woman who knows she’s in trouble:
Jay
@Lapassionara:
This isn’t the first death by “those people that you pay”, “who work for” you, in custody. Won’t be the last, either.
When you employ shit bags who get their jollies trashing water and food cashes that might save lives, you know, Nazi’s, you get what you get.
https://www.thenation.com/article/ice-wants-to-destroy-its-records-of-in-custody-deaths-sexual-assault-and-other-detainee-files/
Gin & Tonic
@A Ghost To Most:
Do tell.
Adam L Silverman
@A Ghost To Most: @Gin & Tonic: That’s not kosher!
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: ha. This is where Pence gets shivved.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Boy bands?! Hmm, got to do a little reworking of my own conspiracy theory.
Jay
@A Ghost To Most:
Are you sure your big brother didn’t run off with the pigs?
You know, consentual?
Aligned interests?
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: The plastic tips on the end of shoelaces are known as aglets. Their purpose is sinister…
sdhays
@sukabi: I know Mike Dense was picked by Paul Manafort and he was leading the transition, so there’s some connection here, but he’s so good at acting like a potted plant, it’s difficult to imagine him as directly involved in any conspiracy. Maybe that’s his superpower…
chopper
@Adam L Silverman:
WHEN THE POLYMERS IN THE AGLETS DISSOLVE IN STOMACH ACID WITH RED PHOSPHORUS AN AGENT FORMS WHICH IF FILTERED AND DRIED BECOMES A POWDER KNOWN AS “FOOL’S METH”. IT CAUSES MADNESS AND A PAINFUL CONDITION KNOWN AS “SINGING BOWEL”
Gin & Tonic
@chopper: Ideas, newsletter, &c.
Ruckus
@lamh36:
What better place and job could one get to let their asshole flag fly, without actually being individual 1 and having to run for office?
sukabi
@sdhays: no, I meant that trump is going to dump his body in front of the bus, blame any money irregularities on him. Pence was the head of the transition team.
Mainmata
The Inauguration Party was the most ridiculous event of that hideous election. It was filled with Russians and the usual group of corrupt fat cats. And, yes, it was intended to be a classic Trump grift. Like everything else he does.
rikyrah
This video and the replies gave me a stomach cramp, I have been laughing so hard.
https://twitter.com/jaixo__/status/1072945943480332288
Adam L Silverman
@Mainmata: And they even plagiarized the cake from Obama’s 2nd inaugural ball.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ultimately, Chris Christie is just another high-profile name that won’t take the White House CoS gig either. The job simply cannot be done: you have to govern an administration of grifters and nincompoops, starting with a man who refuses to be governed and will sack you for trying to. (For what it’s worth, I suspect that Trump cutting work yesterday was at least partly to remind Kelly that Kelly is not the boss of him, so there.) There’s nothing in it for him but months of humiliation from Trump and then an abrupt sacking. Trump cannot even offer Christie what the last POTUS managed, a meeting with his idol Bruce Springsteen.
Ryan
Projection is confession with these guys. Maybe Trump paid all the attendees to go to the inauguration?