Trump Corruption

Law & Crime reports: It seems “Ricky” has some explaining to do. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday granted Donald Trump’s request for an extension to respond to a lawsuit filed by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the NAACP after an “unknown individual identified only as ‘Ricky’” signed for the summons and complaint sent via certified mail. U.S. …

Vanity Fair reports: The quest to get on the White House list—which was closely guarded by Meadows’s office and a small cadre of NSC officials—attracted an array of supplicants. They ranged from the representatives of cabinet secretaries to young White House desk jockeys to those prepared to leverage their connections to President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. …

West Palm Beach’s NBC News affiliate reports: Lauree Simmons, president and founder of Big Dog Ranch Rescue, told WPTV NewsChannel 5’s T.A. Walker this week her goal at the Wine, Women & Shoes event, a fundraiser for the rescue held at Mar-a-Lago, was to raise $500,000. Simmons, jarred by images of the China dog meat market trade, is trying to …

The Huffington Post reports: A dog rescue charity with links to Lara Trump has spent as much as $1.9 million at former President Donald Trump’s properties over the last seven years and will drop an additional quarter-million at his Mar-a-Lago country club this weekend. According to a permit filed with the town of Palm Beach, Florida, Big Dog Ranch Rescue …

Apparently pardons don’t get you out of everything: The Defense Department’s internal watchdog has concluded a long-delayed investigation into Michael Flynn, defense officials said Friday, sending its findings to the Army in a case that could bring tens of thousands of dollars in financial penalties for former president Donald Trump’s first national security adviser. The investigation focuses on Flynn’s acceptance …

NBC News reports: Senior officials in the Manhattan district attorney’s office this week asked ex-President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to return for what would be his eighth interview with the office, which is conducting a wide-ranging criminal probe related to the Trump Organization. A person familiar with the case said that Cohen, while being questioned for the …

From the lengthy New Yorker piece cited earlier today: Trump has already demonstrated a willingness to engage in almost unthinkable tactics to protect himself. Among his social circle in Palm Beach, speculation abounds that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, an ally, might not honor an extradition request from New York if a bench warrant were issued for Trump’s arrest. Dave …

From a lengthy New Yorker piece on the Manhattan’s DA’s Trump probe, which includes an interview with the CFO of the Trump Organization’s former daughter-in-law: Jennifer told me that she first met Trump before she was married, at Allen Weisselberg’s modest house, in Wantagh, on Long Island. That day, the Weisselberg family was sitting shivah, for Allen’s mother. Trump showed …

The Hill reports: John Dean, the former White House counsel to former President Nixon, on Thursday, predicted that former President Trump would soon be indicted after reports that his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen has met with the Manhattan district attorney’s office for a number of interviews. On Wednesday, it was reported that Cohen had met with the Manhattan DA’s office for …

“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!” – Donald Trump, in a pathetic statement issued tonight. this is the saddest thing …

Reuters reports: Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, said he would go in for a seventh interview on Wednesday with the Manhattan district attorney’s office pursuing a criminal investigation into the former U.S. president. In a brief interview with Reuters, he likened a March 1 U.S. Supreme Court decision denying Trump’s last-ditch effort to keep his tax records …

Reuters reports: Jared Kushner, who was a senior adviser to then-President Donald Trump, plans to write a book about his White House experiences, including his role in negotiating normalization deals between Israel and Arab states, a source familiar with his plans said on Wednesday. The book will focus heavily on the Middle East and the Israeli deals he helped to …

Law & Crime reports: The New York Times won the dismissal of the lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump’s campaign over the op-ed “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo” on Tuesday, with a Manhattan judge finding the column was “nonactionable opinion” and the complaint failed to show actual malice. Published just before the release of the Mueller report—but after …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Manhattan prosecutors are intensifying their investigation into Donald Trump’s businesses, taking aim at a Westchester County, N.Y., estate that the former president unsuccessfully tried to develop, according to people familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, according to the people, the Manhattan district attorney’s office has issued new subpoenas and requested recordings of local government …

CNN reports: The Manhattan district attorney’s office subpoenaed documents from an investment company that loaned the Trump Organization millions of dollars for its Chicago skyscraper in a sign that the investigation into the former president’s finances continues to expand. Prosecutors issued the grand jury subpoena to Fortress Investment Management late last year, the people said, as part of their wide-ranging …

The Palm Beach Post reports: Former President Donald Trump is set to fulfill his civic duty as a private citizen and vote in the town of Palm Beach’s municipal election. Despite his false claims about mail voting during the 2020 election cycle, Trump requested a mail ballot on Friday for the third time in his Palm Beach County voter history. …

The New York Daily News reports: Donald Trump is in New York City this week to get up to speed about the ins-and-outs of his embattled namesake company, a person close to him said Monday, as the former president and his business associates remain in the cross-hairs of multiple state prosecutors. The Queens-born ex-president, who was spotted arriving at his …

Bloomberg News reports: The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider former President Donald Trump’s challenge to the presidential election results in Wisconsin, rejecting the last remaining appeal that sought to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. The rebuff came without comment or published dissent. It follows the court’s Feb. 22 rejection of a group of appeals that sought to reverse Biden’s win …

Reuters reports: The district attorney investigating whether former U.S. President Donald Trump illegally interfered with Georgia’s 2020 election has hired an outside lawyer who is a national authority on racketeering, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has enlisted the help of Atlanta lawyer John Floyd, who wrote a national guide on prosecuting …

NPR reports: Last summer, an appointee of former President Donald Trump was irate because he could not simply fire top executives who had warned him that some of his plans might be illegal. Michael Pack, who was CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media that oversees Voice of America, in August suspended those top executives. He also immediately ordered …