Ever since the GOP took control of the House, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has doggedly pursued evidence of a foreign influence peddling scheme implicating President Biden. Team GOP has combed through bank records and tax receipts, compelled witness testimony and pawed through the digital wreckage of the president’s son’s life to find evidence that Joe Biden benefited from family members’ business dealings.
But things kept blowing up in committee members’ faces. There was the time they hyped a witness appearance as incredibly damaging, only to have the transcript reveal that their own witness contradicted their claims in the hearing. They waved around record of a payment received by Joe Biden from his brother as evidence that Biden was profiting from his brother’s business dealings, only to have it revealed that the brother was repaying a loan — without interest.
But today, finally — finally! — a committee member submitted solid evidence of presidential corruption. Unfortunately for Comer and crew, the committee member is Rep. Jamie Raskin, and the president whose corrupt as fuck activities are documented in the report is Donald J. Trump. NYT gift link:
Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China.
The transactions, detailed in a 156-page report called “White House For Sale” that was produced by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, offer concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him…
House Democrats highlighted the transactions on Thursday as a counterweight to Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden, which has sought to tie him to international business deals by his son Hunter Biden before his father became president in a bid to prove corruption or influence peddling. They have so far failed to show that President Biden was enriched in any way by any of those transactions.
”By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous commander in chief,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, wrote in a foreword to the report.
Cue the sad trombones!
Look, this isn’t in the least bit surprising. Trump was flagrantly corrupt before, during and after his single embarrassing term. The idea that the lunkhead sons were actually running the family con without Trump’s input was always absurd. Even gross hangers-on like in-laws on the Kushner side eagerly peddled influence, and Kushner enriched himself to the tune of billions-plural on the strength of his relationship with Trump and position as a White House nepotism hire.
So the Biden impeachment fishing expedition was always an elaborate “I know you are, but what am I?” taunt. But still, it’s gotta stick in Comer’s craw that a member of the committee he chairs so easily produced scads of evidence of Trump’s corruption (from incomplete records!) even as the GOP side fruitlessly beats the bushes for proof that Biden acted improperly.
Maybe it will inspire the hopping-mad GOP committee members to redouble their efforts to hold a speculative and meaningless impeachment exercise. That couldn’t possibly go wrong in an election year.
Open thread.
Old School
They should impeach Trump a third time.
Old School
The report identifies 21 foreign governments and entities who paid Trump-owned properties. China is far and away the leader with $5,572,548. Saudi Arabia is in second place with $615,422. Cyprus is last on the list having spent $590 at Trump International Hotel in D.C.
trollhattan
@Old School: Gyna? Surely not, say it ain’t so!
Betty
@Old School: How do you even spend over $5 million in a hotel over a period of four years?
Tom Levenson
My frustration: the outline of this story has been visible since 2017, when the oversight folks let Trump keep the Post Office building-turned Trump hotel, and various influence-seekers were known to book rooms there.
David Fahrenthold at Marty Baron’s Washington Post was able to do a sustained deep dive into Trump’s charity bullshit. The NYT had and has the resources to have been covering Trump’s monetization of his presidency and his de facto bribery by foreign government since inauguration.
It’s good that they have a story on this report–but it is still reactive journalism, not the kind of original work the Gray Lady is uniquely able to do.
The Times poached Fahrenthold from the Post, as it happens. Good for his career; but I haven’t seen him get into the paper anything to compare with his work in 2016. Why? The Times now has him covering non-profits.
Trivia Man
@Old School: Just $590? Was that lunch for 2?
Spanky
Seven million spread among 5 countries? Pennies of chump change stuck in the couch cushions. But it does drive home what cheap crooks the Trumps are.
Captain C
@Betty: Whole lotta room service.
dmsilev
@Old School:
One overcooked and overpriced steak?
Without ketchup of course. That costs extra.
MattF
Trump is claiming now, in his legal defense for the insurrection case, that he was going to invoke the Insurrection Act on J6. In other words, he was planning to shoot the rioters. I wonder if the ex-Proud Boys et. al. have considered that, and perhaps wondered if their pal in the White House has thrown them under the bus.
Spanky
@Tom Levenson: A cheap way of neutralizing a potential problem.
Spanky
@Betty: That’s just the bar tab.
Other MJS
I’m feeling the Bullwinkle Syndrome here — “This time for sure”, but too many people don’t have a clue.
prostratedragon
@Tom Levenson: So much more gentile than doing a bustout.
Spanky
@MattF: Uhhh, but the “rioters” he was planning to shoot were antifa, or anyone antifa-adjacent who might have countered “his” rioters.
No Antifa, no Insurrection Act.
NotMax
@
The Waldorf Griftoria.
//
RedDirtGirl
BC – Didn’t manage to comment in your earlier post, but wanted to add to the chorus of well-wishers. Hope your health issues resolve soon. Feel better!
Villago Delenda Est
I can’t see anything amiss in this scenario. Proceed, representatives!
waspuppet
@Tom Levenson: The Times has been covering Donald Trump for nearly 50 years. They know better than anyone exactly who and what he is. They want it this way.
PPCLI
There was so much corruption on display in the “perfect” phone call with Zelenskyy that one small moment tends to be overlooked: Trump’s corruption was such an open secret that Zelenskyy felt he had to mention “the last time I traveled to the United States I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower.”
Baud
@Tom Levenson:
Gotta keep a watchful eye on the Clinton Foundation.
Sure Lurkalot
@Tom Levenson:
Likely there are plenty of these instances for Fahrenthold to write for the FTFNYT that they either choose not to publish or bury on page A18. From Business Insider citing a 2023 WaPo article:
This story seems right up Fahrenhold’s alley yet it was his old rag that got the scoop. Seems fishy to me!
Brachiator
CHYY NA! I thought that Trump saw China as an enemy, not a piggy bank.
This makes the GOP look like Elmer Fudd in Bugs Bunny cartoon where the shotgun blows up in his face.
And 7 million smackaroonies is some low level grift. Typical Trump.
Can we impeach him again?
Geminid
This report reminded me of why I am glad Jaime Raskin decided to stay in the House instead of running for Ben Cardin’s Senate seat.
Bill Arnold
One can’t help but admire the in-your-face alliteration in the report’s title:
White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump (Staff Report, Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Democratic Staff, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member, U.S. House of Representatives, January 4, 2024)
Old School
@Betty:
China’s state-owned bank leases space in Trump Tower. About $200K was spent at hotels – most of which was a 14-month stay at Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
Baud
@Bill Arnold:
I can’t believe the title doesn’t include “pussy-grabbing”.
narya
Honestly, I expect there’s a lot more grift; this is the stuff that has receipts. That said, yeah, he IS a lower-level grifter; always has been, always will be. He doesn’t have the brains to pull off anything truly big, the entities that are buying him off know that he’ll take (relative) peanuts, and he prefers to nickel and dime everyone.
I wonder what happened to that missing binder with all of the stuff about Russky interference in the 2016 election, etc.? Major state secrets missing and everyone just shrugs? That seems hard to imagine, but our media betters are too busy to be bothered, I guess; it’s not an email server, so . . . [shrug].
Bill Arnold
Every GOP accusation is a confession.
No exceptions.
TBone
@Bill Arnold: pure poetry paperwork sponsored by the letter pee.
Bill Arnold
@MattF:
The Trump-led insurrectionists were absolutely counting on “antifa” showing up and causing enough trouble to be an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act.
One of the best tactical moves in (street) activist politics in recent history was the pervasive messaging, shortly before the Trump’s Insurrection Rally, to street activists to … not show up. To stay away. To not counter-protest.
It then became a pure Trump-led-insurrection shit-show.
Spanky
@Tom Levenson: Curiously, Fahrenthold’s Wikipedia page doesn’t mention anything after 2020, including any move away from the Post. That there is some Grade A disappearin’ down the memory hole.
cmorenc
@Spanky:
Trump and his conspirators were anticipating that his Jan 6 march on the Capitol would draw a large counter-protest and the clash would become violent, creating grounds to invoke the Insurrection Act other than for the actions of his own MAGAs at the Capitol grounds. Fortunately, the leaders of potential counter-protest groups recognized what game Trump was playing and refrained from showing up with any counter-protest.
Alison Rose
@Betty: minibar markup is a bitch
Spanky
@Spanky: Lost the edit window, but reloading the page shows the NYT afilliation now. Da hell?
Ruckus
@Betty:
You deposit the money as reservations and then never, ever show up and you never, ever ask for a refund….
The only hard part is having the money to waste in the first place, which isn’t difficult for the people that did. Except they very likely made a profit off of the bribes so they just considered them to be investments. I just wonder how much SFB’s cut was. Likely far below the going rate.
cain
@Spanky: Perhaps, this is to take a player off the chessboard who can investigate corruption on Trump and move him somewhere else.
You can bet that the grey lady has him looking at the Clinton Foundation or some other nonsense.
BlueGuitarist
@Geminid:
Yay Jamie!
Kirk
@Betty: room service. Lots of room service.
JaySinWA
The plan was to incite violence and blame it on the counter protesters, as was done in many of the BLM protests.
wjca
If it was Trump himself, or if he was a guest, we’d have to wonder exactly what kind of “service” was being provided. Or perhaps the answer would be obvious. (Seriously high priced “escorts” could help run up the tab, too.)
Brachiator
@waspuppet:
You could say the same thing about the NY Post, the Daily News and the whole rotten mess of New York City newspapers and magazines and NY media. I know that some like to single out the Times for special disdain, but the local media is like the Beltway. They often excused and coddled Trump because he was part of the favored social set.
Captain C
@Brachiator:
This is all true, but the FTFNYT gets singled out because they pretend they’re better than everyone else and above it all, and also the Paper of Record for at least the entire USA. No one expects, for exemple, the NY Post to have thorough and objective coverage of, well, anything.
Not really; he was perpetually trying to get into it, but the well-off Manhattan folks who are the targets for the high-end FTFNYT ads shunned TFG and generally wouldn’t invite him to their charity functions on the grounds he was an uncouth bastard who never donated, just freeloaded. If we’re only going by declared net worth though, yeah.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
Also, there was an expectation that any negative stories would invite communications from his attack lawyers.
rikyrah
not surprising, but always good to see it in black and white.
New Deal democrat
You know, it occurs to me that it might not be too late to hit Trump where it would really hurt: in his pocketbook.
I would love to see the DoJ bring a civil action to force Trump to disgorge the entire $7.8 million as illegal emoluments. It’ll never happen – but why not?
SiubhanDuinne
@TBone:
And that rhymes with T, and that stands for Trump.
Chief Oshkosh
@Tom Levenson: Notice also how the Times is reporting this: It’s another report from Democrats. So, you know, so it’s just another partisan witch-hunt.
No, you asses, it’s a report by a Congressional committee, the House Oversight Committee.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
I doubt the Republicans on the committee voted to approve this.
Subsole
@Bill Arnold:
For all the shit I give the Hard Left, they damn sure got that one right.
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: New York Judge Engeron will likely hit Trump really hard in the pocketbook, when he makes his judgement on damages in New York State Attorney Letitia James’ civil action. I’m not sure, but I think that might come soon.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: But that wouldn’t be alliterative.
louc
There’s some buzz on social media that Trump’s lawyers now claim he never took an oath to uphold the Constitution and that presidents don’t have to.
If that’s the case, he should be DQd automatically.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
People like SFB look at everything as a piggy bank.
Humans are not their friends, only acquaintances. Money is their friend, their meals, their rational of and for living. The more dollars (or rubies, pounds, lire (now euros), yen, gold, etc they have the better their lives are, the more human they think they are, the more respect they have for themselves. And the level of respect is based upon how much of said currency they have. SFB is not the only person with this disease, although he may be the least human like of the bunch, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Chief Oshkosh
@louc: From Wikipedia
The oath of office of the president of the United States is the oath or affirmation that the president of the United States takes upon assuming office. The wording of the oath is specified in Article II, Section One, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution, and a new president must take it before exercising or carrying out any official powers or duties.
This clause is one of three oath or affirmation clauses in the Constitution, but it is the only one that actually specifies the words that must be spoken. Article I, Section 3 requires Senators, when sitting to try impeachments, to be “on Oath or Affirmation.” Article VI, Clause 3, similarly requires the persons specified therein to “be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.” The presidential oath requires much more than that general oath of allegiance and fidelity. This clause enjoins the new president to swear or affirm: “I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”[1]
Text
Bill Arnold
@Subsole:
Yeah. That move (no counter-protests) was eye-catching; at least one competent (maybe expert) political tactician was involved.
wjca
Gotta cut the man some slack if it rhymes.
Chief Oshkosh
@wjca: Excellent point!
Paul in KY
@Old School: Unrelated, but the KIng of Thailand rented out a whole floor (over 100 rooms) of some ultra exclusive 6 star hotel in Germany for a year. Probably cost over $5 mil.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: Plus he was always good for an easy story. Just write up the latest bozo shit he did/said.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: I followed some debate about January 6 among “Antifa” people on Molly Conger’s twitter account. The takes ranged from “but we have a duty to oppose fascists wherever possible” to “don’t get sucked into this scheme.” The latter group seems to have prevailed. I think it helped that DC Mayor Bowser very emphatically discouraged counterprotests.
Geminid
@Geminid: Conger and Richmond sidekick “Goad Gatsby” actually showed up that day and did some live-tweet reporting a couple blocks away from the Capitol. They left around 5pm.
topclimber
I suggest zeroing in on two countries:
China, which gave Trump almost $6 million when TFG was banging the drum for a trade war (not to mention green lighting trademarks for Daddy and Ivanka), and Saudi Arabia, close to a million. (Notice that I round up any numbers that make it look worse for this ass hat, because who has not received the word yet that you can’t give him ANY break, excepting corporate media of course)?
China, hated by many independents; Saudi Arabia, hated by damn near everyone. Pick on Trump for catering to people who manage to unite ALL Americans in disdain.
topclimber
@Geminid: Good thing the Deep State got the word out through its agents provocateur in antifa.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: Thank God the fake Antifa agitators stayed away, as they were probably scared about being torn limb from limb.
Tom Levenson
@Chief Oshkosh: I don’t agree with this one critique (though I’ll take second place to no one in my disdain for NYT’s thumbing the scale).
As a matter of basic fact, the report is not a committe report. It’s one written by the committee minority, as the Times piece says. This happens pretty regularly. (See last year’s Senate Republican minority report in support of the lab leak theory of COVID origins for an egregious use of this mechanism.)
It would be inaccurate to say that it was a committee report: it wasn’t prepared by the full staff, and it was not voted on and passed by a majority of the committees membership.
So give the Gray Lady this, and contemn them for their failure to cover the story on their own.
lowtechcyclist
I keep hearing people say this, but are you sure?
My understanding is that the Saudis gave him a $2B fund to manage for them. Now I’m sure he gets to pay himself a healthy fee each year for taking on all that responsibility, and I’m sure he’s free to invest some of it in Trump and Kushner family businesses when the opportunity presents itself. But AIUI, the Saudis still own the corpus of that $2B fund. He just gets to decide how it’s invested, and pay himself for doing so. He’s still getting a shitload of money, but not billions.
Am I wrong about this?
catclub
You have to be very particular about which email server you go after.
The GWBush admin hid vast numbers of emails on a GOP server. Not interested.
catclub
I think the greenlighting the trademarks was the larger gift.
If Kushner is getting the usual rate on the Saudi ‘investment’ it is a 2%/ year management fee
plus 20% of any profits. 2% of $2B is $40M
lowtechcyclist
@catclub:
That’s in the range that I would have guessed, being pretty ignorant about such things: that he’d get mid to upper 8 figures per year, so a total that’s easily into the >100M range by now. Nothing to sneeze at! ETA: I’ve just retired, but I’d cheerfully keep working another year or two for that sort of money.
But still an order of magnitude less than being given ownership of $2B.
MattM
What’s stopping a Senate committee from holding public hearings on the topic on the back of this report?
Chris T.
@Chief Oshkosh:
Well, right there you have his escape clause: to the best of his ability! He’s such a loser that he was entirely unable! So he did nothing wrong!
The Lodger
@Betty: When it’s Motel 45, they can come up with ways to spend $5 mill.
The Lodger
@lowtechcyclist: So you’re saying the Saudis didn’t actually give Jared the $2 billion, they just let him spend it as he wished. I’d take a deal like that.