But the Justice Department inquiry led by Mueller now has added flavors. The Post noted that the investigation also includes "suspicious financial activity" involving "Russian operatives." The New York Times was more specific in its account [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/mueller-trump-special-counsel-investigation.html ], saying that Mueller is looking at whether Trump associates laundered financial payoffs from Russian officials by channeling them through offshore accounts.
Bayrock partnered with the future president and his two eldest children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, on a series of real-estate deals between 2002 and about 2011, the most prominent being the troubled Trump Soho hotel and condominium in Manhattan.
During the years that Bayrock and Trump did deals together, the company was also a bridge between murky European funding and a number of projects in the U.S. to which the president once leant his name in exchange for handsome fees. Icelandic banks that dealt with Bayrock, for example, were easy marks for money launderers and foreign influence, according to interviews with government investigators, legislators, and others in Reykjavik, Brussels, Paris and London. Trump testified under oath in a 2007 deposition that Bayrock brought Russian investors to his Trump Tower office to discuss deals in Moscow, and said he was pondering investing there.
"It's ridiculous that I wouldn't be investing in Russia," Trump said in that deposition. "Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment."
One of Bayrock's principals was a career criminal named Felix Sater who had ties to Russian and American organized crime groups. Before linking up with the company and with Trump, he had worked as a mob informant for the U.S. government, fled to Moscow to avoid criminal charges while boasting of his KGB and Kremlin contacts there, and had gone to prison for slashing apart another man’s face with a broken cocktail glass.
In a series of interviews and a lawsuit, a former Bayrock insider, Jody Kriss, claims that he eventually departed from the firm because he became convinced that Bayrock was actually a front for money laundering.
Kriss has sued Bayrock, alleging that in addition to laundering money, the Bayrock team also skimmed cash from the operation, dodged taxes and cheated him out of millions of dollars. Sater and others at Bayrock would not comment for this column; in court documents they have contested Kriss's charges and describe him, essentially, as a disgruntled employee trying to shake them down.
Jody Kriss in a luxury unit in a building he is developing in New York. Photographer: Jeff Brown for Bloomberg
But Kriss's assertion that Bayrock was a criminal operation during the years it partnered with Trump has been deemed plausible enough to earn him a court victory: In December, a federal judge in New York said Kriss's lawsuit against Bayrock, which he first filed nine years ago, could proceed as a racketeering case.
Sater made the front page [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-russia.html ] of the New York Times in February for his role in a failed effort -- along with Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen -- to lobby former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on a Ukrainian peace proposal.
Comey was still Trump's FBI director when he testified before the House Intelligence Committee in March about Russian interference in the 2016 election. During that hearing, Comey was asked if he was "aware of" Felix Sater, his criminal history and his business dealings with the Trump Organization. Comey declined to comment.
However the Mueller probe unfolds, a tour of Trump's partnership with Bayrock exposes a number of uncomfortable truths about the president's business history, his judgment, and the possible vulnerabilities that his past as a freewheeling dealmaker -- and his involvement with figures like Sater -- have visited upon his present as the nation's chief executive.
Zegna Suits and Luxury Cars
Sater was born in the Soviet Union in 1966 and emigrated with his parents to the heavily Russian enclave of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, when he was about eight years old. He attended Pace University before dropping out when he was 18, then found his way to Wall Street where he worked as a stockbroker.
His early years on Wall Street, according to the recollections of his one-time business partner, Salvatore Lauria, were flush. By his mid-20s, Sater was collecting expensive watches, spending thousands of dollars on Zegna suits and buying luxury cars. That all came to a brief halt in 1993 when he was sent to prison for using the stem of a broken margarita glass during a bar fight two years earlier to attack another stockbroker; Sater’s victim needed 110 stitches to hold his face together.
When Sater emerged from prison 15 months later, he found his way back into trouble. With a group that included Lauria (who admits to having had ties to organized crime figures and grew up in New York as a close friend of a prominent Mafia boss), Sater opened an investment firm on the penthouse floor of 40 Wall Street [ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-trump-40-wall-street/ ], a Trump-owned building in Manhattan. From there, according to federal prosecutors, Sater and his team set about laundering money for the mob and fleecing about $40 million from unwitting and largely elderly investors, a number of whom were Holocaust survivors.
By the time law enforcement authorities eventually caught on to the 40 Wall Street operation, Sater had fled to Russia. Lauria visited him there.
Sater "was always hustling and scheming, and his contacts in Russia were the same kind of contacts he had in the United States," Lauria wrote in a 2003 memoir, "The Scorpion and the Frog." "The difference was that in Russia his crooked contacts were links between Russian organized crime, the Russian military, the KGB, and operatives who played both ways, or sometimes three ways."
Sater, who had been charged with racketeering and money laundering by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn in connection with the 40 Wall Street scam, eventually decided to return to America and face those charges. He had a card to play, however: his knowledge, gleaned from contacts in Russia, about a small stock of Stinger [ http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/stinger/ ] antiaircraft missiles loose on the black market in Afghanistan that were of interest to U.S. intelligence officials.
"We were hoping for a free ride or a get-out-of-jail-free card for our crimes on Wall Street," Lauria wrote of Sater's maneuvering with U.S. officials.
Sater told authorities that he could use his Russian contacts to buy the Stingers and, according to court filings in Kriss's lawsuit and other accounts, a deal was struck in December, 1998. Sater pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges and then entered into a cooperation agreement with the government that sealed court records in the case and allowed his sentencing to be postponed for 11 years. (Sater would ultimately only pay a $25,000 fine and never go to prison.)
Many years later, as part of her confirmation hearings to become President Barack Obama's attorney general, Loretta Lynch would note that the cooperation deal she made with Sater when she was the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn lasted for a decade -- from 1998 to 2008 -- and that Sater gave the government "information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of La Cosa Nostra."
At some point after becoming an informant, Sater also recast himself as a real-estate savant. He made his way to a Manhattan real-estate investment firm, APC Realty, where he raised money for deals and where he met Kriss in 2000.
Kriss, a native of Miami and a business graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, was an aspiring real-estate developer who was in his early 20s when they met. He says he was initially captivated by Sater.
“Felix knew how to be charming and he knew how to be brutally nasty,” says Kriss. “He has a talent for drawing people in. He has charm and charisma. But that’s what con men do.”
After APC began to fall apart in 2002, Kriss decided to strike out on his own back home in Miami, doing real-estate deals. Sater made his way to a small Hong Kong investment bank that used him as a New York-based rainmaker for real-estate deals.
In addition to his new life as a real-estate investor and government informant, Sater owned a comfortable home in Sands Point, Long Island, a toney New York suburb that was a setting for “The Great Gatsby.” He also had a wife and three daughters and was a member of an Orthodox synagogue in neighboring Port Washington. On one occasion Sater brought his rabbi with him to meet U.S. intelligence officials in New York, where, the rabbi said, agents praised Sater's service to the country.
When Sater received a community service award at his synagogue on another occasion, a band played "Hail to the Chief." Sater gave an acceptance speech in which he noted that he was "not a very religious person" but that his goal in life was to "repair the world or make it a better place."
'Air of Success'
About a year after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sater joined Bayrock, a company that marketed itself as a property developer and had opened Manhattan offices on the 24th floor of a well-known building at 725 Fifth Avenue: Trump Tower.
In late 2002, Sater phoned Kriss and invited him to consult at Bayrock, bragging about a deep-pocketed investor, Tevfik Arif, who was partnering with him in search of bigger deals.
Arif, born in Kazakhstan, was a former Soviet official who had relocated to Turkey to make his fortune. He ran several upscale, seaside hotels there that catered almost exclusively to Russians, according to Kriss, and he had also redeveloped a shopping center in Brooklyn. At one point in his post-Soviet years, Arif also reportedly [ https://theblacksea.eu/index.php?idT=88&idC=88&idRec=1278&recType=story ] took over a former Kazakh state-owned chromium producer with his brother.
Like Sater, Arif had a home in Sands Point and Kriss says that Arif brought his children there from Turkey to learn English. (Arif's representatives declined to respond to a list of questions about his business history, including how he met Sater and brought him to Bayrock, citing ongoing litigation.)
Bayrock was initially funded, in part, with a $10 million investment transferred to the firm by Arif's brother in Russia, who, according to Kriss's lawsuit, was able to tap into the cash reserves of a Kazakh chromium refinery. (A spokeswoman for Arif declined to comment on that allegation.)
A marketing document Bayrock once circulated to prospective investors noted that Alexander Mashkevich [ http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/a-kazakh-oligarch-trying-to-be-a-jewish-tycoon-1.30063 ], an oligarch born in the former Soviet Union, was one of Bayrock's primary sources of funding. Mashkevich's firm, the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, was based in Kazakhstan and elsewhere and had interests in chromium, aluminum, coal, construction, and banking. (A person close to Mashkevich, who requested anonymity because of the Kriss-Bayrock litigation, said Mashkevich never invested in Bayrock.)
Bayrock never seemed to be short of money, however. According to Kriss’s lawsuit, the team running the little development firm in Trump Tower could locate funds "month after month, for two years, in fact more frequently, whenever Bayrock ran out of cash." If times got tight, Bayrock's owners would "magically show up with a wire from 'somewhere' just large enough to keep the company going."
Kriss says that Sater and Arif wooed him to Bayrock by offering him 10 percent of the firm's profits. Bayrock’s Trump Tower offices gave “an air of success to it,” Kriss says. Bayrock also gave Kriss, then 28 years old, the opportunity to work with Trump.
It was Sater who initially developed the relationship with Trump, according to Kriss and court records from Trump's lawsuit against me. Sater had made the acquaintance of three Trump Organization executives who then introduced him to their boss. When the Bayrock team met Trump in 2002, the future president was enduring a long stretch in the financial wilderness, having narrowly escaped personal bankruptcy in the early 1990s.
He eventually emerged from that mess as a pariah among big banks. He was also a determined survivor and tireless self-promoter and he parlayed those skills into recreating himself as a branding machine and golf course developer in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Kriss says that it was Arif and Sater who pitched the future president on the idea of launching an international chain of Trump-branded, mixed-use hotels and condominiums. And Bayrock got to Trump at a time when his “brand” could help get a little extra attention for a condo project, but didn’t amount to much more than that.
“Trump was trying to build his brand and Bayrock was trying to market it,” Kriss recalls. “It wasn’t clear who needed each other more. This was before the show, remember.”
The “show,” of course, was “The Apprentice.” It aired for the first time on Jan. 8, 2004, and became a sensation that vaulted Trump into reality TV stardom. In the real world, Trump's casinos were faltering. But on reality TV, Trump posed as a successful leader and dealmaker who embodied a certain kind of entrepreneurial flair and over-the-top billionairedom -- an impression that stuck with tens of millions of TV viewers.
The popularity of "The Apprentice" also gave the Bayrock-Trump partnership added zing.
“That put Bayrock in a great position once the show debuted,” Kriss says. “The show did it for Trump, man. Nobody was interested in licensing his name before that.”
The hook at Bayrock, for Trump, was an 18 percent equity stake in what became the Trump Soho hotel, a steady stream of management fees on all Bayrock projects and the ability to plaster his name on properties without having to invest a single dollar of his own.
The Trump SoHo. Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Sater said in court filings that he disclosed his securities fraud conviction to members of the Trump Organization. He assumed they had told Trump, but he wasn't sure.
"It's not very hard to get connected to Donald if you make it known that you have a lot of money and you want to do deals and you want to put his name on it," Abe Wallach, who was the future president's right-hand man at the Trump Organization from 1990 to about 2002, told me in an interview. "Donald doesn't do due diligence. He relies on his gut and whether he thinks you have good genes."
Given Arif's halting English, it was Sater and Kriss who interacted most frequently with the Trump family—and Sater the most often with Trump himself. Kriss says that most of his own contacts were with the elder Trump children, Don Jr. and Ivanka, and included drafting contracts and occasional nights on the town.
While Trump’s kids were involved in the back-and-forth with Bayrock, it was Trump himself who always had the final say.
“Donald was always in charge,” says Kriss. “Donald had to agree to every term of every deal and had to sign off on everything. Nothing happened unless he said it was okay to do it. Even if Donald Jr., shook your hand on a deal, he came back downstairs to renegotiate if his father told him to.”
The Trumps, Kriss says, saw Sater "frequently" and valued the relationship because “Felix demonstrated that he was loyal to them.” He says that at one point Sater was meeting with the future president in his Trump Tower office multiple times a week. Sater, according to a later court deposition, said that his business conversations with Trump in that office were wide-ranging and frequent -- “on a constant basis."
The pair had what Sater described as "real-estate conversations," and they talked about "gathering intelligence, gathering know-how, general market discussions," and also chatted about using Sater's Russian connections to build a "high-rise, center of Moscow” that would be a “great opportunity, megafinancial home run."
Although Sater socialized with Trump, "I wouldn't call him my friend," he said in the 2008 deposition. Still, Sater said he traveled with Trump to look at deals and was proud of Bayrock's relationship with the famous developer. "Anybody can come in and build a tower," he said. "I can build a Trump Tower because of my relationship with Trump."
Bayrock and the Trumps then began laying the groundwork for domestic and international hotel-condo projects, eventually exploring deals in Turkey, Poland and Ukraine. Sater escorted Ivanka and Don Jr. on a trip to Moscow, where they looked at land for a Trump-branded hotel.
None of those overseas projects got past the planning stages. In the U.S., Bayrock and Trump projects moved forward haltingly.
Sater's dealings in Phoenix later landed him in court with a local developer who had invested in the Phoenix project, Ernest Mennes. Mennes said in a lawsuit that when he threatened to reveal Sater's criminal record, Sater told him that he would have a cousin "electrically shock Mr. Mennes’ testicles, cut off Mr. Mennes’ legs, and leave Mr. Mennes dead in the trunk of his car."
The next project Trump and Bayrock pursued was the Trump International Hotel and Tower, a mixed-use hotel and condominium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Announced in 2005, it later went into foreclosure.
The third and final major project Bayrock and Trump worked on together was their most high-profile effort, the 46-story Trump Soho hotel in lower Manhattan.
Trump, Sater and Arif were all photographed together at a splashy launch party for the Trump Soho in 2007. Trump also pitched the Trump Soho on an episode of "The Apprentice," promising that "this brilliant, $370 million work of art will be an awe-inspiring masterpiece."
Helping Trump and Bayrock fund that masterpiece was a fresh influx of money from an Icelandic investment bank called the FL Group. Sater and Lauria, his longtime mob associate, had jointly recruited FL, introducing the firm to Bayrock and the Trump Organization. (I’ll have more on the FL Group and Bayrock in a future column; the firm's former leaders, one of whom was later convicted of tax and accounting fraud, declined to comment or did not respond to interview requests for this column.)
Yet again, the Trump Organization — even though it signed off on the FL investment — appeared to care little about vetting a firm that came into the partnership through Sater. FL operated in a country with a porous, vulnerable banking system, and some investigators who scrutinized other Icelandic banks at the time said they suspected those banks of being conduits -- unwitting or otherwise -- for dirty funds from outside Iceland. (The FL Group collapsed a little over a year after it invested in Bayrock. The firm itself was never prosecuted; the leaders of a number of other Icelandic banks were prosecuted or jailed for crimes including money laundering).
Kriss said in an interview that an Icelandic competitor of the FL Group also contacted him to invest in Bayrock. When he took that offer to Sater and Arif they told him, he says, that the money behind Icelandic banks “was mostly Russian” -- and that they had to take FL’s funds for deals they were doing with Trump because the investment firm was “closer to Putin."
“I thought it was a lie or a joke when they said Putin,” Kriss recalls. “I didn’t know how to make sense of it at all.”
(Kriss says he doesn't have financial records showing that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a connection to the FL Group and that his own knowledge is purely anecdotal. A Kremlin spokesman said via email that Putin had no connection to the FL Group or Bayrock.)
'Somebody Said That He Is in the Mafia'
Kriss says that in the wake of the FL deal he was owed a payout that could have ranged from about $4 million to $10 million, but that Bayrock reneged. When he persisted, he claims, Sater threatened him.
So Kriss says he accepted a $500,000 payment instead and then eventually quit. Sater, as it turns out, didn’t have much time left at Bayrock either.
In December, 2007 the New York Times published an article detailing some of Sater’s past run-ins [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/nyregion/17trump.html ] with the law and some of his ties to organized crime (the article also noted that Sater had begun using “Satter” as an alternate spelling for his last name so he could try to “distance himself from his past” if people Googled him).
Two days after the Times story ran, Trump sat for a deposition with my attorneys as part of the libel lawsuit he had filed against me for “TrumpNation.” They asked him whether he planned to sever his relationship with Sater because of Sater's organized crime ties. Trump said he hadn't made up his mind.
"Have you previously associated with people you knew were members of organized crime?" one of my lawyers asked.
Whenever he was asked in later years about his relationship with Sater, Trump routinely misrepresented it as distant. In a 2013 deposition taken as part of litigation surrounding Trump and Bayrock’s failed Fort Lauderdale project, Trump was asked again about his partnership with Sater.
"He was supposedly very close to the government of the United States as a witness or something," Trump said. "I don't think he was connected to the Mafia. He got into trouble because he got into a barroom fight."
"I don't know him very well," Trump added, saying that he hadn't conversed very often with Sater. "If he were sitting in the room right now I really wouldn't know what he looked like."
Trump also said that he didn't think that questions about Sater’s background meant that he should have ended his business partnership with him: “Somebody said that he is in the Mafia. What am I going to do?”
Shortly after my lawyers asked Trump about Sater, Bayrock began discussing the best way for him to resign, according to company email and court records. By 2008, Sater had left the firm.
The Trump Soho ended in failure. It opened in 2010, but many units failed to sell and early condo purchasers sued Bayrock and the Trumps. Three years later, the Trump Soho went into foreclosure with most of its units still unsold, and a new company took control of the property. Bayrock hasn’t done another deal since then. (A spokeswoman for Bayrock attributed the failures of the Trump partnerships to fallout from the 2008 financial meltdown.)
'He Seems to Have Unlimited Funds'
After Kriss left Bayrock, he set up his own development firm in New York and then sued Sater, Arif, Trump and Bayrock in Delaware in 2008, alleging that Bayrock was a criminal enterprise and demanding to be paid in full for his work there.
When the case moved to New York in 2010, it came with a twist. Sater had left a copy of his cooperation deal with the government -- the one dating back to his Stinger missile and mob informant days -- on the hard drive of his Bayrock computer. A Bayrock employee leaked it to Kriss’s attorney, who promptly filed it as an exhibit in court.
Trump was eventually dropped from the case and Sater began carpet-bombing Kriss with his own lawsuits, ultimately filing several separate actions that claimed, among other things, that Kriss has used the courts to prosecute him maliciously.
Sater also apparently kept busy outside of the courtroom.
Kriss says that about three years ago he started receiving threatening email from websites carrying versions of his name (“JKrissInfo.com,” for example). He soon discovered there were hundreds of other new websites that also contained false, disparaging information about him.
Kriss sued the anonymous authors of the websites for defamation and when the court ruled in his favor he was able to get a large portion of the sites delisted from Google. He says he also was able to use the court order to untangle the provenance of the websites, discovering that their registration tracked back to Sater’s home address in Sands Point.
Kriss says that goons once showed up at real-estate developments he was overseeing in Brooklyn, asking his employees if they knew the true story about their boss. Waves of letters questioning his bona fides have arrived at his office and in the mailboxes of every resident in two separate buildings where Kriss kept apartments.
Kriss says investors in his new company, East River Partners, have stood by him, but he's worried that Sater's digital vendetta may be hard to overcome. His new lawyer, Bradley D. Simon, says that he's mystified by how Sater has managed to stay afloat all these years.
“Sater was a cooperating witness for the Eastern District of New York and he continued going on a crime rampage,” says Simon. “He’s filed all kinds of frivolous lawsuits, but that’s what he does. He seems to have unlimited funds.”
Mueller. Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images
For his part, Sater continues to wear many hats. A couple of years after he left Bayrock, the Trump Organization hired him briefly as a consultant to prospect for real-estate deals, giving him company business cards with his name engraved on them.
More recently, Sater got enmeshed in litigation again, this time around the sale of an Ohio shopping mall -- and the alleged disappearance of tens of millions of dollars -- in a court case that was settled in 2013.
Sater has also entered into a war of words with his former Bayrock partner, Tevfik Arif. Sater claims [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/publicity-over-dispute-by-former-trump-partners-could-tarnish-president-one-warns-1492680604 ], according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, that Arif owes him money -- and that if he isn't paid he'll publicize what he describes as Arif's ties to organized crime and to tainted dealings in Kazakhstan’s metals business. (A Bayrock spokeswoman says that Sater's claims about Arif are baseless.)
Donald Trump, Felix Sater and the Mob: Lawyers Push to Unseal Court Documents They Say Could Show Fraud by President 6/19/17 Lawyers seeking to unseal documents related to the criminal past of a former business partner of President Donald Trump said in federal court on Monday that the documents may contain evidence that Trump committed fraud. The sealed documents are from a federal case against Felix Sater. Trump reportedly tapped Sater as a senior advisor for his real estate business in the 2000s even after Sater’s earlier role in a Mafia-linked stock scheme became public. [...] http://www.newsweek.com/trump-sater-mafia-mob-bayrock-russia-court-brooklyn-fraud-behar-627408 [with embedded video, and comments]
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Deutsche Bank Names Former IRS Chief Head of Anti-Financial Crime June 21, 2017 Deutsche Bank [ https://www.db.com/usa/ ] appointed Richard Weber as managing director and head of Anti-Financial Crime for the Americas and Irwin Nack as managing director and deputy head. Weber will report to Philippe Vollot, global head of Anti-Financial Crime and group anti-money laundering officer, and to Stuart Clarke, COO for the Americas. Weber will also join the Global AFC executive committee. “I am honored and delighted that Richard and Irwin have accepted such critical and important positions at the bank,” said Vollot. “Their additions represent a material enhancement to our AFC program and demonstrate the bank’s commitment to fighting financial crime. Their arrival will reinforce the overall talent pool within the Chief Regulatory Office division and enhance the control environment.” Weber joins Deutsche Bank from the Internal Revenue Service, where he served as chief of the Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI) for the past five years. Before IRS-CI, Weber was the deputy chief of the Investigation Division and chief of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. He previously served as chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section at the U.S. Department of Justice and as an assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. Nack joins Deutsche Bank from the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ where he most recently was head of Global Financial Crimes Advisory. He was previously the bank’s chief compliance officer for the Americas, a role he assumed after serving as head of Bank Secrecy Act / Anti-Money Laundering for the Americas. http://www.abfjournal.com/dailynews/deutsche-bank-names-former-irs-chief-weber-head-of-anti-financial-crime/
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House Dems Go At Deutsche Bank Again For Info On Trump Loans And Russia
Privacy laws don’t apply to Congressional requests to release information, they say in a letter to the bank.
By Mary Papenfuss 06/24/2017 02:48 am ET | Updated June 24, 2017
However, representatives of the Financial Services Committee, as well as members of the Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finances say that U.S. privacy laws do not apply in this case.
Such legislation isn’t applicable when information is called for by members of Congress, the Democrats’ latest letter states [ https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2017.06.22_cmw_et_al_to_deutsche_bank.pdf ]. In addition, disclosure of a client’s information is permitted if it “may yield information indicating potential criminal or fraudulent conduct” or may “prevent actual or potential fraud [or] unauthorized transactions.”
“Given President Trump’s repeated assertions that he does not have ties to Russia, such disclosure would ostensibly be in his interest,” the Democrats say in the letter.
The Democrats also wrote a letter [ https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=400482 ] last month to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin requesting that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network provide records of Trump’s financial ties to Russia, as well as those of his family members and associates. Mnuchin has so far not responded.
Kushner firm’s $285 million Deutsche Bank loan came just before Election Day White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in the East Room of the White House in Washington. June 25, 2017 One month before Election Day, Jared Kushner’s real estate company finalized a $285 million loan as part of a refinancing package for its property near Times Square in Manhattan. The loan came at a critical moment. Kushner was playing a key role in the presidential campaign of his father-in-law, Donald Trump. The lender, Deutsche Bank, was negotiating to settle a federal mortgage fraud case and charges from New York state regulators that it aided a possible Russian money-laundering scheme. The cases were settled in December and January. Now, Kushner’s association with Deutsche Bank is among a number of financial matters that could come under focus as his business activities are reviewed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/special-counsel-is-investigating-jared-kushners-business-dealings/2017/06/15/5d9a32c6-51f2-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html ] Kushner as part of a broader investigation into possible Russian influence in the election. The October deal illustrates the extent to which Kushner was balancing roles as a top adviser to Trump and a real estate company executive. After the election, Kushner juggled duties for the Trump transition team and his corporation as he prepared to move to the White House. The Washington Post has reported that investigators are probing Kushner’s separate December meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, and with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov, the head of Vnesheconombank, a state development bank. The Deutsche Bank loan capped what Kushner Cos. viewed as a triumph: It had purchased four mostly empty retail floors of the former New York Times building in 2015, recruited tenants to fill the space and got the Deutsche Bank loan in a refinancing deal that gave Kushner’s company $74 million more than it paid for the property. The White House, in response to questions from The Post, said in a statement that Kushner “will recuse from any particular matter involving specific parties in which Deutsche Bank is a party.” Kushner and Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Deutsche Bank loans to Trump and his family members have come under scrutiny. As Trump’s biggest lender, the bank supplied funds to him when other banks balked at the risk. As of last year, Trump’s companies had about $364 million in outstanding debts to the bank [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/deutsche-bank-agrees-to-pay-72-billion-to-settle-mortgage-abuse-case/2016/12/22/d3eac2b4-c6ca-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html ]. Democrats from the House Financial Services Committee wrote on March 10 [ https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2017.03.10_cmw_to_jh_re_db_mirror_trades_final_signed_pdf_v2.pdf ] that they were concerned about the integrity of a reported Justice Department investigation into the Russian money-laundering matter “given the President’s ongoing conflicts of interest with Deutsche Bank,” citing “the suspicious ties between President Trump’s inner circle and the Russian government.” The Justice Department did not respond to a question about whether it is following up on the money-laundering settlement that Deutsche Bank reached with New York state regulators in December. On May 23, the Democratic members asked Deutsche Bank [ https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ltr_fsc_to_john_cryan_deutsche_bank_mirror_trade_and_trump_accounts_5.23.17.pdf ] to disclose what it had learned in its internal review about whether Trump may have benefited from the improper Russian money transfers. The bank refused, citing U.S. privacy laws. The Democratic letter also raised the possibility that the bank had conducted a similar review of Kushner — without mentioning his name — by referring to a review of accounts “held by family members, several of whom serve as official advisers to the president.” The Democrats wrote that it was important to learn more about Deutsche Bank loans to Trump and family members to determine whether they were “in any way connected to Russia.” The refinancing loan with Deutsche Bank is mentioned in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a public offering of mortgage-backed securities. It states that Kushner and his brother, Joshua, “will be guarantors” under what was called a “nonrecourse carve-out.” Such guarantees require more than a loan default to kick in. They are commonly known as “bad boy” clauses, a reference [ https://content.next.westlaw.com/3-507-0086?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&__lrTS=20170521211551568 ] to how a lender could seek to hold the guarantor responsible for the debt under circumstances that might include fraud, misapplication of funds or voluntary bankruptcy deemed inappropriate. The terms of the guarantee, which generally are not secured by collateral, are negotiated between lender and borrower. “The way to look at this is, so long as you’re not a ‘bad boy’ and don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about,” said James Schwarz, a real estate lawyer who is an expert in such clauses. “To the extent you would do something fraudulent, then you have things to worry about.” The corporate loan and Kushner’s personal guarantee are not mentioned on his financial disclosure form, filed with the Office of Government Ethics. Blake Roberts, a lawyer who represented Kushner on the matter, said in a statement to The Post that Kushner’s form “does not list the loan guarantee” because the disclosure relied on “published guidance [ https://www.oge.gov/Web/278eGuide.nsf ]” from OGE that he said “clearly states that filers do not have to disclose as a liability a loan on which they have made a guarantee unless they have a present obligation to repay the loan.” The Post sent the language cited by Kushner’s lawyer to Don Fox, a former general counsel and acting OGE director. After reviewing the wording, he said in an interview that he would have advised Kushner to disclose the personal guarantee of the $285 million corporate loan because of its size and possible implications. “If I were still at OGE and somebody came to us with that set of facts, I would say, ‘By all means, disclose it,' ” he said, referring to “the spirit of the law.” After being informed of Fox’s statement, Roberts contacted Fox to present his view that no disclosure was required. Fox said in a follow-up email to The Post that even if OGE “advised there was no requirement to disclose,” he would not have argued that point but “I would have nonetheless recommended Jared over report in this instance given the magnitude of the contingency and the public interest in liabilities — actual and potential — to Deutsche Bank.” Separately, Kushner disclosed that he and his mother have a personal line of credit with Deutsche Bank worth up to $25 million. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/kushner-firms-285-million-deutsche-bank-loan-came-just-before-election-day/2017/06/25/984f3acc-4f88-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html [with embedded video, and (approaching 4,000) comments]
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Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russia election interference
Former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson testifies before House Intel Committee
Streamed live on Jun 21, 2017 by PBS NewsHour
Former Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson will testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday as part of its Russia investigation.
Read Jeh Johnson’s prepared testimony on Russia U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson (L) and FBI Director James Comey listen to opening remarks during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 14, 2016. June 20, 2017 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/read-jeh-johnsons-prepared-testimony-russia/ [with comments]
Obama White House Knew of Russian Election Hacking, but Delayed Telling Jeh Johnson, the former secretary of Homeland Security, arrived to testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday. JUNE 21, 2017 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration feared that acknowledging Russian meddling in the 2016 election would reveal too much about intelligence gathering and be interpreted as “taking sides” in the race, the former secretary of homeland security said Wednesday. “One of the candidates, as you recall, was predicting that the election was going to be ‘rigged’ in some way,” said Jeh Johnson, the former secretary, referring to President Trump’s unsubstantiated accusation before Election Day. “We were concerned that by making the statement we might, in and of itself, be challenging the integrity of the election process itself.” Mr. Johnson’s testimony, before the House Intelligence Committee, provided a fresh insight into how the Obama administration tried to balance politically explosive information with the public’s need to know. That question also vexed federal law enforcement officials investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Mr. Johnson said he became increasingly concerned about the vulnerabilities of the nation’s election infrastructure, particularly after the hacking at the Democratic National Committee [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_national_committee/index.html ] last summer. The administration formally accused the Russian government of hacking into emails from the D.N.C. and other institutions and individuals on Oct. 7. He said he considered having elections systems designated as “critical infrastructure,” a classification that would allow for the same cybersecurity protections available to the financial services and transportation sectors. But the reactions to that idea, at least from several state election officials who control elections, “ranged from neutral to negative,” Mr. Johnson said. Around mid-August, Mr. Johnson said, federal officials began hearing reports of “scanning and probing” of some state voter database registries. In the weeks after, intelligence officials became convinced the Russians were behind those efforts, though he said it was not until January that they were “in a position to say” that. The administration formally accused the Russian government on Oct. 7, when Mr. Johnson and James R. Clapper Jr., then the director of national intelligence, released a statement [ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/politics/us-formally-accuses-russia-of-stealing-dnc-emails.html ] saying the Russians had leaked information “intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.” That was not soon enough for some Democrats, who have criticized the Obama administration for waiting until a month before the election to reveal its concern. Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the committee’s senior Democrat, pressed Mr. Johnson to explain their rationale. “Why wasn’t it more important to tell the American people the length and breadth of what the Russians were doing to interfere in an election than any risk that it might be seen as putting your hand on the scale?” Mr. Schiff asked. “Didn’t the public have a compelling need to know?” Asked why former President Barack Obama [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html ] did not make his own announcement that a foreign power was meddling in the election process, Mr. Johnson suggested administration officials believed just his involvement would inherently politicize the facts. “We were very concerned that we not be perceived as taking sides in the election, injecting ourselves into a very heated campaign or taking steps to delegitimize the election process and undermine the integrity of the election process,” he said. Noting that the hacking happened “at the direction of Vladimir Putin [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/vladimir_v_putin/index.html ] himself,” Mr. Johnson said he was moved to try to shield the nation’s election system by the “unprecedented” nature of Russian interference in the last election. “What I mean is that we not only saw infiltrations, but we saw efforts to dump information into the public space for the purpose of influencing the ongoing campaign,” he said, referring to the disclosure of hacked emails. [...] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/us/politics/jeh-johnson-testimony-russian-election-hacking.html [with comments]
June 23, 2017 Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides. Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race. But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump. At that point, the outlines of the Russian assault on the U.S. election were increasingly apparent. Hackers with ties to Russian intelligence services had been rummaging through Democratic Party computer networks, as well as some Republican systems, for more than a year. In July, the FBI had opened an investigation of contacts between Russian officials and Trump associates. And on July 22, nearly 20,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were dumped online by WikiLeaks. But at the highest levels of government, among those responsible for managing the crisis, the first moment of true foreboding about Russia’s intentions arrived with that CIA intelligence. The material was so sensitive that CIA Director John Brennan kept it out of the President’s Daily Brief, concerned that even that restricted report’s distribution was too broad. The CIA package came with instructions that it be returned immediately after it was read. To guard against leaks, subsequent meetings in the Situation Room followed the same protocols as planning sessions for the Osama bin Laden raid. It took time for other parts of the intelligence community to endorse the CIA’s view. Only in the administration’s final weeks in office did it tell the public, in a declassified report, what officials had learned from Brennan in August — that Putin was working to elect Trump. Over that five-month interval, the Obama administration secretly debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing Russia, including cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure, the release of CIA-gathered material that might embarrass Putin and sanctions that officials said could “crater” the Russian economy. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/ [with embedded video, and comments], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfpMsxWiAMo [non-YouTube version embedded; with comments], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAXqqpm7T_E [with comments]
Trump lashes out at Obama over latest report on Russian election meddling June 24, 2017 President Trump on Saturday called out Obama administration officials for not taking stronger actions against Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, contradicting his past statements and suggesting without proof that they were trying to help Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. His tweets came after The Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/ (just above)] revealed Friday that the Obama White House had received reports as early as August 2016 regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in the cyber campaign with instructions to defeat or damage Clinton and help to elect Trump, according to “sourcing deep inside the Russian government.” [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/24/trump-lashes-out-at-obama-over-latest-report-on-russian-election-meddling/ [with embedded video, and comments]
Full Show - Democrats Lose Four Special Elections In A Row! Trump Surges, Elites Panic - 06/21/2017
Published on Jun 21, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
Wednesday, June 21st 2017[, with an appearance by Joe Biggs, and the fourth hour hosted by Paul Joseph Watson with an appearance by George Llewelyn-John and Lucy Brown of Rebel Media ( https://www.therebel.media/ ) UK ( https://uk.therebel.media/ )]: Democrats Lose Again - Dems are licking their wounds yet again following defeats in special elections across the country, where they hoped voters would turn back the Trump tide. We'll break down why the party's anti-Trump platform isn't working, and also look at former DHS Chief Jeh Johnson's testimony on Russian meddling in the US election. Amerigeddon filmmaker Gary Heavin joins the show for his take on the latest news and North Korea's EMP threat to America. And Infowars White House Correspondent Dr. Jerome Corsi breaks down the Democrats' election plight.
Austin Petersen, who was runner up to be the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 2016, opens up about his experience dealing with Nazis and fascists in the right-libertarian movement.
“I just support most of his ideas and what he is trying to do. I know he is a little bombastic, but he says the things I believe in,” said Jerry Chafee, 79, who backed Trump in November.
The dissatisfaction with politics-as-usual that helped you win here and elsewhere remains.
“I am so angry with our elected officials. Instead of moving this country forward, they seem to be the ones dividing it,” said Tim Gull, 54, owner of Metro Transmission in Marion and a Trump voter. “I don’t believe Trump is dividing things.”
It’s always a big deal when a president comes to town. But we couldn’t help but notice the main event of your trip today is a campaign rally. We’re glad you’re also making a stop to tour Kirkwood Community College, an outstanding educational and economic development asset in our region.
Mr. President, the campaign is over. You won. Now is not the time to rally. Now is the time to sell your policies, listen to Americans with a stake in those efforts and govern.
Iowans have questions and concerns about your plans. They can’t be heard over the cheers of a rally.
Iowa farmers are concerned about how your efforts to rewrite trade agreements will affect valuable overseas markets for Iowa’s bounty. Your budget blueprint includes cuts in crop insurance and other programs our producers depend upon, especially now in tough times. They’re also worried about cuts to science agencies that approve new crop developments and responses to pests and disease.
Cedar Rapids still is waiting to hear whether the federal government will deliver on its promise to help pay for flood protection in the heart of the city. We hope you’ll let us know how you plan to address the issue and end our wait. And although we understand addressing climate change is not among your priorities, we will point out that the more frequent heavy rains it spawns have brought major flooding to this city twice in eight years. Preparing for the worst is a priority here, not a hoax.
Just a short chat with local leaders clearly would show the project’s importance.
We understand your strong desire to save America’s coal industry. But here in Iowa, we’re already generating a large percentage of our power through alternative energy sources. We’re a state that benefits from economic opportunities sparked by producing energy from the wind, the sun and the crops we grow.
Maybe you’ll see a wind farm or two as you fly in today.
More than 70,000 Iowans face losing health insurance obtained through the Affordable Care Act as uncertainty, indecision and partisan politics roil the health care system. You promised a “terrific” Obamacare replacement, but we haven’t seen anything resembling a terrific plan. There are fears of deep cuts to Medicaid funding for states such as Iowa, jeopardizing care for thousands more. Your appointee to run the Medicare and Medicaid system is the same consultant who advised Iowa to swiftly privatize its Medicaid program, spawning confusion and consternation for patients and providers.
We’ve read troubling reports indicating your attorney general may seek to prosecute medical marijuana providers and users in states where its legal. That’s very bad news for suffering Iowans and their families who have been lobbying hard at the Statehouse for years to gain access to medical cannabis.
You really should sit down with some of those Iowans and hear their stories.
As Iowa struggles to afford its state investments in public schools, human services, the justice system and many other services used by Iowans every day, your proposed budget would make the situation worse. An analysis by the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency shows it would cut $100 million in various federal grants for state efforts aimed at improving classroom technology, cleaning up water, providing affordable housing and supporting job training. Your budget plan, according to the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, would force Iowa to pay $884 million more to provide food assistance to low income families over the next decade.
We hope you have time to speak with some of the state and local leaders who would have to deal with the deep and real impacts of such reductions.
That’s a lot of ground to cover while you’re on the ground in Iowa. But we think it’s critical you understand the real world implications of these and many other policies your administration is proposing.
We concede it’s not as much fun as hearing the cheers and chants of folks convinced you’re making America great again. But it’s what presidents do.
Again, welcome to Cedar Rapids, and safe travels. Mr. President.
Staff editorials, including this open letter, are the consensus of The Gazette Editorial Board. Comments: (319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com
President Donald Trump Rally in Cedar Rapids Iowa 6-21-17
Wed, June 21, 2017 Cedar Rapids, IA 07:00 pm (CST)
DOORS OPEN AT 4:00PM CST U.S. Cellular Center 370 1st Ave NE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
President Trump is set to hold a "Make America Great Again" rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Wednesday in a county that went for former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
President Trump will hold a rally in Iowa this week after canceling a similar event planned by the campaign for the end of May.
Donald J. Trump for President Inc. announced the June 21 rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in an email blast on Monday. Trump had previously been scheduled to appear there in May, following his first foreign trip as president, but was forced to reschedule the event.
“Due to an unfortunate change in President Trump’s schedule, we will need to unfortunately postpone the previously schedule rally in Cedar Rapids,” a statement from the Trump campaign read at the time. “President Trump will see you in Iowa very soon.” Trump last held a campaign-style rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on April 29, the same night as the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C.
"They would love to be with us right here tonight," Trump said of the press that night, adding his rally drew a “much larger crowd, and better people, too.”
President Donald Trump and two Cabinet secretaries will visit Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday to draw attention to advancements in high-tech agriculture.
Trump will appear with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Iowa as part of the administration’s “technology week,” the White House confirmed Monday.
The official White House event comes in addition to a previously announced campaign rally on Wednesday night in Cedar Rapids.
The trio will tour the community college’s agriculture program — the largest two-year ag curriculum in the country — to see high-tech farming equipment and learn about technology-intensive farm management practices.
The trip will be Trump’s first to Iowa as president and the second for Perdue as the head of the USDA. Perdue came to Boone just last month to deliver his first major farm policy address as secretary.
In One Rally, 12 Inaccurate Claims From Trump [img][/img] President Trump at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Wednesday night. JUNE 22, 2017 He falsely said insurance companies “have all fled the state of Iowa.” He exaggerated his legislative accomplishments. He falsely claimed the United States is “the highest-taxed nation in the world.” He misrepresented the trend in home building. He falsely claimed that an Obama-era rule applied to “a little puddle in the middle of their field.” He falsely claimed Gary Cohn paid “$200 million in taxes” to serve as his economic adviser. He exaggerated the increase in military spending as “historic.” He took undue credit for a new coal mine in Pennsylvania and the creation of 33,000 coal-mining jobs [1,300, actually]. He repeated inaccurate claims about the Paris agreement. He exaggerated his actions toward Cuba as “canceling the prior administration’s completely one-sided deal.” He said he would bar immigrants from receiving welfare benefits for five years, but they already are prohibited. He prematurely touted “hundreds of billions of dollars” of deals made in Saudi Arabia. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/factcheck-donald-trump-iowa-rally.html [with each lie further detailed]
Trump’s putdown of wind energy whips up a backlash in Iowa In this June 2, 2014 file photo, cattle graze in a pasture near a wind turbine in Adair, Iowa. President Trump’s putdown of wind energy at his Iowa rally was denounced Thursday, June 22, 2017, across the state, which has been a national leader in wind generation. Trump was talking up his support for coal during his speech in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday when he said: “I don’t want to just hope the wind blows to light up your homes and your factories.” He added “as the birds fall to the ground,” a reference to birds killed by turbines. June 22, 2017 https://www.apnews.com/a2b500b82d5a44eeb9759ca31d0b4a33/Trump's-putdown-of-wind-energy-whips-up-a-backlash-in-Iowa
Populist President Says He’d Rather Get Economic Advice From Wall Street Than ‘a Poor Person’ Man of the (exorbitantly wealthy) people. June 22, 2017 Donald Trump spent much of the 2016 campaign playing a class traitor. During the Republican primary, the mogul decried the way that “greedy, greedy, greedy [ https://www.vox.com/2016/1/29/10866388/donald-trump-greedy ]” rich people, like himself, routinely buy political favors from our elected representatives. Throughout the general-election race, Trump identified himself with America’s “forgotten men and women,” while savaging Hillary Clinton for her connections to Wall Street titans and “international bankers [ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/trump-my-accusers-are-part-of-a-global-plot-to-end-the-u-s.html ].” In the GOP nominee’s final campaign ad, he informed America that “those who control the levers of power in Washington” do not “have your good in mind,” as a sign reading "Wall St." flickered across the screen. Moments later, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs appeared, cast as an embodiment of the global elite that has “robbed our working class.”
Trump Touts Putting ‘Minors’ Back To Work, Twitter Goes Giddy “Hopefully the miners get work also.” 06/23/2017 A captioned video posted to Donald Trump [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/donald-trump ]’s Facebook page [ https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/ ] Friday shows the proofreading-challenged president (apparently backed by a staff with a similar problem) at Wednesday’s Iowa campaign rally [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-check-donald-trump-rally_us_594bb1bde4b0a3a837bd51f6 ] boasting about putting “minors” back to work. That’s all it took for Twitter to gleefully go nuts. Almost as provocative was Trump’s boast about “ending the war on clean beautiful coal” - which he claims will put miners back to work. Lots of Facebook comments pointed out the spelling error, but it remained on Trump’s page Friday night, five hours after it was posted. “Hopefully the miners get work also,” one person commented. “I mean it’s great for our youth to have employment, but mining seems kind of dangerous as a first job.” Some tweeters pointed out the same mistake was made in a joke scene on the film “Galaxy Quest.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_QAYXflAPc [this one also included for the complete slate of inspired opening speakers, uninterrupted, from the start partway into the very overtly Christo-fascist opening prayer through c. the 36:10 mark; with comments]
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Sen. Brian Schatz: Senate GOP bill 'extremely cruel'
All In with Chris Hayes 6/21/17
'This is Paul Ryan in college sitting around a keg imagining a bill - this is that bill.' Duration: 4:35
GOP Rep. Burgess, Chris Hayes spar on health care bill
All In with Chris Hayes 6/21/17
Hayes: If you're worried about the deficit, 'why are there $600 billion in tax cuts for people who are making lots of money' in the bill? Duration: 7:06
Hayes to Sen. Franken: Is Sessions avoiding your committee?
All In with Chris Hayes 6/21/17
Chris Hayes asks Senator Al Franken if he thinks the attorney general is avoiding testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ‘I think so,’ responds Sen. Franken. ‘I certainly have some questions for him.’ Duration: 4:18
Thing 1/Thing 2: Queen Elizabeth addressed the opening of the new Parliamentary session today, a time when the monarch traditionally announces state visits - and made one notable omission. Duration: 2:21
Hayes: Hard to say Philando Castile got due process
All In with Chris Hayes 6/21/17
'Officer Yanez…had due process, which is afforded to any police officer when that officer is charged with a crime. But the truth is that due process simply is not a lived reality for millions of people who are run through the criminal justice system.' Duration: 2:16
US election officials still assessing Russian 2016 cyber attack
The Rachel Maddow Show 6/21/17
Rachel Maddow looks at how the US voting system consists of thousands of individual precincts, making it harder to hack as a whole, but also more difficult to monitor and defend, making assessment of Russia's 2016 hack tricky. Duration: 24:57
Congressman Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, talks with Rachel Maddow about the effort to understand the extent and intent of the 2016 Russian election attack and preparing for what might come next. Duration: 6:11
Concern spreads as GOP works in secret on health bill
The Rachel Maddow Show 6/21/17
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, talks with Rachel Maddow about the threat of the Republican health bill to American women's health care. Duration: 6:42
Pence not without options to pay legal defense bills
The Rachel Maddow Show 6/21/17
Rachel Maddow follows up on previous reporting on the possibility that Mike Pence would use PAC money to pay for his legal defense noting that absent that he could also use Trump/Pence campaign money. Duration: 3:22
Trump: Democrats' help could make health bill better
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 6/21/17
At a rally in Iowa, Trump admits the health care bill would be better if Republicans had help from Democrats. Lawrence O'Donnell talks to Joy Reid, Tim O'Brien, and David Frum about the GOP health care strategy and the ever-present cloud cast by the Russia probe. Duration: 15:12
Officials: No policy from Trump on Russian vote attacks
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 6/21/17
Government cybersecurity and intelligence officials say they haven't received directions from Trump about stopping Russian meddling in future elections, and that Russia targeted 21 election systems in 2016. Malcolm Nance and David Frum join Lawrence O'Donnell. Duration: 9:00
Despite stalled agenda, Trump touts wins at campaign-style rally
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 6/21/17
Promising his supporters a border wall, great health care, improved infrastructure, and a huge tax cut, Pres. Trump held his fifth campaign-style rally in just five months as president. Duration: 5:40
Future election could be stolen expert warns Congress
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 6/21/17
In testimony to lawmakers, experts and officials warned of the threat Russia poses saying that a future cyber-attack could have huge repercussions on U.S. elections. Our panel reacts. Duration: 10:31
GOP health care bill authors blasted Dems for secrecy in 2009
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 6/21/17
GOP senators writing their party's Senate health care bill are being pummeled for writing it in secret. But many of them took aim at Democrats making similar charges in 2009. Our panel reacts. Duration: 7:00
Report Trump once called 'stupid' says his net worth has fallen
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 6/21/17
A new analysis by Bloomberg found that Pres. Trump's net worth has taken a hit since he took office. The reporter behind the report, Caleb Melby, joins to explain why. Duration: 3:51
New video reveals police shot Philando Castile in 7 seconds, waited 5 minutes to deliver first aid The tape reveals a disturbing contrast: alacrity in gunplay, languor in medical attention. Protesters blocking a highway in Minnesota hold pictures of slain Philando Castile. Jun 21, 2017 Barely seven seconds passed from the moment Philando Castile alerted Officer Jeronimo Yanez that he had a gun in the car and the moment when Yanez fired seven shots at Castile, dash camera video released by the St. Anthony, Minnesota police department on Tuesday afternoon reveals. In those seven seconds, Castile and girlfriend Diamond Reynolds tried more than once to tell Yanez that the slain man was not reaching for the weapon. The video also captures Yanez giving his first explanation of what happened from his perspective. “He was just staring straight ahead. I was getting fucking nervous,” Yanez tells a colleague near the end of the clip released Tuesday. “It was just getting hinky.” The suddenness of Yanez’s fatal choice makes a stark contrast to the long moments that elapse before any officer attempts to render first aid to Castile. A full five minutes elapse in the video between Yanez’s shots and the moment that another officer from a neighboring jurisdiction begins chest compressions. [...] https://thinkprogress.org/philando-castile-dash-cam-video-footage-952574c6052c [with another YouTube of the dash cam video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ac7Zblqyk {comments disabled}) embedded, and comments]
New video after Philando Castile shooting: 'Mom... I don't want you to get shooted'
June 22, 2017 Updated June 22, 2017 Dramatic squad car video from moments after a suburban Minneapolis police officer fatally shot Philando Castile shows the 4-year-old daughter of his girlfriend begging her mother to stop cursing so she won't be shot. “Mom, please stop cussing and screaming cause I don’t want you to get shooted,” the girl says to Diamond Reynolds, who is handcuffed next to her child in the back of the squad car. Reynolds asks for a kiss, then her daughter tells Reynolds that "I can keep you safe." Reynolds says she can't believe Castile was shot, and when the child cries, Reynolds says she wants to get out of the handcuffs. [...] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/22/video-after-castile-shooting-mom-dont-want-you-get-shooted/103099426/ [with embedded videos, and comments], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjWjk_YG19w (with comments), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC9fjLfb9pg [with comments]
Judges Declares Second Mistrial in DuBose Shooting Case Two separate juries have been unable to agree on whether Ray Tensing is guilty of murder. Ray Tensing reacts as the judge declares another mistrial on June 23, 2017. Jun 23, 2017 The trial of Ray Tensing, a white University of Cincinnati police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man during a traffic stop in July 2015, resulted in a hung jury on Friday, marking the second time Tensing’s case has ended in a mistrial. In November 2016, a jury was unable to decide whether Tensing was guilty of murder and voluntary manslaughter after more than 25 hours of deliberations. Over the last five days, a new set of jurors deliberated for more than 30 hours before failing to reach a unanimous verdict. [...] https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/06/judges-declares-second-mistrial-in-dubose-shooting-case/531513/ [with comments]
Trump administration opposing bid for syphilis study museum In this photo taken Tuesday, April 4, 2017, an unidentified man walks past the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center in Tuskegee, Ala. The Trump administration is opposing a bid to use unclaimed money from a legal settlement to fund the museum, which includes exhibits honoring victims of the government’s infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. Jun 24, 2017 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Trump administration opposes a bid to use unclaimed money from a legal settlement over the government’s infamous Tuskegee syphilis study to fund a museum honoring victims of the research project. The Justice Department argued in court documents recently that providing the money to the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center would violate an agreement reached in 1975 to settle a class-action lawsuit. For the study, hundreds of black men suffering from the sexually transmitted disease were allowed to go untreated for decades so doctors could analyze the progression of the illness. The government said that it “does not intend in any way to justify, condone, or defend the Tuskegee Syphilis Study,” but allowing remaining money from a $9 million settlement to be used for the museum would violate the settlement’s original provision that any left over money go back to the government. Fred Gray, a civil rights attorney who represented men in the study and made the funding request in 2016, declined comment on the government’s position. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson held a telephone conference on the request on May 30, records show, but hasn’t ruled yet. Starting in 1932 and continuing for four decades, government medical workers operating in rural, segregated Alabama withheld treatment from unsuspecting black men infected with syphilis so doctors could track the disease and dissect their bodies afterward. Revealed by The Associated Press in 1972, the study ended and the men sued, resulting in the settlement negotiated by Gray on behalf of the victims, all of whom have died. The men wanted to be remembered in a memorial that told their story, Gray said in court documents, and a county-owned history museum that already includes exhibits about the study could use the “relatively small” amount of unclaimed money. The men’s names are emblazoned in a circle on the floor of the museum, which only opens during the summer because of funding shortages. The Justice Department said sending the money to the museum would “fundamentally alter the terms of the agreement.” Days after the government made its argument in legal documents, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo barring third-party organizations from receiving money from settlements involving the government. [...] https://apnews.com/bea414c1d35d4a2e9ebd03f9f0824bdc
Republicans Want A Vote, Not A Debate, On Healthcare
Published on Jun 22, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The Senate has debated hot tub safety and outer space settlements, but Mitch McConnell is only allowing a handful of Republicans to debate the healthcare bill.
Republicans Don't Know What's in Their Own Health Care Bill: A Closer Look
Published on Jun 21, 2017 by Late Night with Seth Meyers
Seth takes a closer look at Senate Republicans trying to vote next week on the health care bill they've written behind closed doors without telling anyone what's in it.
Really!?! with Seth and Amy: Julius Caesar Protests
Published on Jun 21, 2017 by Late Night with Seth Meyers
Really, protesters? You'd wait in line for Shakespeare in the Park tickets to a play you hate and watch for three hours just to run on stage to protect someone dressed like the president from getting pretend-stabbed with a fake knife?
this is part 5 of a 17-part post which proceeds (point arising on the given) day by (point arising on the given) day from June 17, 2017 through July 3, 2017 -- the preceding part is the post to which this is a reply; the next part is a reply to this post -- the following 'see also (linked in)' listing, updated for intervening posts along the way, is common to all 17 parts
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in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (any future other) following, see also (linked in):
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
