#campaign disclosure filings

[tomorrowusa]

You can often judge people by their associates.

Santos' major backers include a migrant smuggler, an unlikely Trump donor, the cousin of a sanctioned Russian oligarch and a convicted felon.

A controversial donor, who along with his apparent domestic partner gave a combined $34,500 to Santos, is Andrew Intrater, the CEO of a company which once had ties to a sanctioned Russian oligarch Intrater is the CEO of Sparrow Capital — an investment firm formerly known as Columbus Nova. Prior to the imposition of sanctions on the oligarch in 2018, it was listed in regulatory filings as an affiliate of Viktor Vekselberg's Renova Group, an aluminum, energy and telecom conglomerate.

[ ... ]

Intrater is a prolific donor to Republican candidates and causes — he paid $250,000 to attend former President Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017. 

So there’s an indirect tie to Putin. That gives Santos something else in common with Trump.

Aren’t foreign nationals prohibited from making campaign donations?

Rocco Oppedisano's family was visibly involved with Santos's campaign. Reportedly an Italian national, the 54-year-old, donated $500 to a victory committee benefiting Santos' campaign in September according to FEC records. That donation to the son of Brazilian immigrants who campaigned as tough on immigration, drew attention after the Daily Beast reported that Oppedisano had pleaded guilty to smuggling undocumented migrants into the U.S. in 2019. A further review of Oppedisano's court records show his criminal record also includes convictions for grand larceny, DWIs, and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. 

It seems that Oppedisano was smuggling migrants to Ron DeSantis’s Florida.

When Oppedisano was arrested on his 63-foot Sunseeker yacht, the INXS FINALLY, in December 2019 off the coast of Miami, the Coast Guard found he was smuggling over a dozen undocumented migrants from the Bahamas to Florida. They also said they found over $200,000 in U.S. and Bahamian currency hidden behind a panel in a closet on board.

Yes, anti-immigrant Republicans are smuggling migrants into the US for cash. So what else is new?

But wait, there’s more!

In his May 2020 campaign disclosure filings, he claimed to have no assets and a $55,000 salary from a previous employer. However, in disclosures filed just weeks before election day for his latest campaign, Santos claimed to have earned $750,000 in annual salary for the period between January 2021 and December 2022, as well as millions in dividends from his company, Devolder Organization LLC.

As they said in the film All the President’s Men, “follow the money”.

#george santos #corruption #campaign contributions #andrew intrater #russia #donald trump #rocco oppedisano #migrant smuggling #campaign disclosure filings #devolder organization llc #ny-03 #118th congress #us house of representatives #house gop caucus

[iww-gnv]

Oct 6 (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) must provide U.S. regulators with documents detailing its spending on efforts to discuss unionizing with workers, part of the agency's probe into whether the coffee chain violated financial disclosure laws, a federal judge has ruled. The decision, which the U.S. Labor Department announced on Friday, requires Starbucks to document travel expenses it paid to send former CEO Howard Schultz and other company officers to Buffalo, New York in 2021 after workers there filed a petition to hold a union election. The Labor Department subpoenaed the information as part of its investigation into whether Starbucks should have disclosed expenses related to the trip and bonuses paid to the company officers. Federal law requires employers to report expenses aimed at discouraging organizing and union membership.

#news #starbucks #us news #uspol #us pol #us labor department #unions #union strong

[strictlyfavorites]

One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.

Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.

There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.

One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America—Atlanta, New York, Washington—where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.

Two, they are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Donald Trump.

Carroll’s suit was funded by left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman.

Smith sued to rush his court schedule in hopes of putting Trump on trial before the November election.

Three, there would not be any of these cases had Donald Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.

Carroll’s suit bypassed statute of limitation restrictions by prompting the intervention of a left-wing New York legislator. He passed a special bill, allowing a one-year window to waive the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims from decades past.

Until Trump, no New York prosecutor like James had ever filed a civil suit against a business for allegedly overvaluing real estate assets to obtain loans that bank auditors approved and were paid back in full, on time, and with sizable interest profits to the lending institutions.

Alvin Bragg bootstrapped a Trump private non-disclosure agreement into a federal campaign violation in a desperate effort to find something on Trump.

Smith is also charging Trump with insurrectionary activity. But Trump had never been so charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.

Willis strained to find a way to criminalize Trump’s complaints about his loss of Georgia in the 2020 national election. She finally came up with a racketeering charge, usually more applicable to mafiosi and drug cartels.

Four, in all these cases, the charges could have been equally applicable to fellow left-wing public figures and officials.

Joe Biden, like Trump, was accused of sexual assault decades earlier by former staffer Tara Reade. Yet Reade was torn apart by the media and the left for inconsistencies in her memory. By contrast, the wildly inconsistent and amnesiac E. Jean Carroll won $83 million from Trump.

Jack Smith created the precedent of charging former president Trump for unlawfully removing classified files to his private residence.

But the government simultaneously did not charge Joe Biden for similar offenses. Yet Biden had removed files not for two years but for more than 30. He stored them not in one location but several.

His rickety garage was a mess, not a secure family compound like Trump’s estate. Moreover, Biden did so while a senator and vice president, without any presidential authority to declassify almost any presidential document he wished.

Biden never came forward to report the crime for over thirty years—until Trump was charged. Indeed, he was caught on tape six years ago, admitting to his ghostwriter that he possessed classified files but never reported it.

Bragg might have noticed that both Hillary Clinton (fined $113,000) and Barack Obama (fined $350,000) broke campaign financing laws. Neither was subject to federal criminal charges by local prosecutors.

An array of left-wing celebrities, politicians, 2004 House Members, former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have all recently challenged elections. They sought either to delay or redo ballot counting or, on the federal level, to sidetrack electors to ignore popular votes in their respective states.

These lawfare cases are part of other efforts that were highly partisan and without merit. Recall the Trump “Russian collusion” hoax and the “Russian disinformation” laptop farce.

In another first, some blue states are suing to take Trump’s name off the ballot for “insurrection,” a crime for which he has never been charged.

Total up the deaths, damage, and length of the summer 2020 Antifa/BLM riots. Then compare the tally to the one-day January 6 riot.

The former proved far more lethal, long-lasting, and destructive. Yet very few of the 14,000 arrested rioters in 2020 were ever prosecuted, much less convicted.

By contrast, the Biden administration sought to jail hundreds for crimes allegedly committed on January 6, such as “illegal parading.”

We are entering a dangerous era in America.

Ideology and party affiliations increasingly determine guilt and punishment. Opponents are first targeted, and then laws are twisted and redefined to convict them.

The left is waging lawfare with the implicit message to political opponents: either keep quiet or suffer the consequences.

[beemovieerotica]

Thought you might be interested in this 100% real (I'm not kidding) email I got:

I’m writing to inform you of the outcome of our investigation concerning ads for the Netflix show “One Piece”, seen on Tumblr.

In their response to the Complaint Notification Netflix and Tumblr said that that the ads had not been intended to be served to a UK audience, but that a combination of human and technical errors led to the posts being incorrectly visible to UK users for 36 hours. Netflix have confirmed that if the ads had been intended to be served to UK audiences, further measures would have been taken to include the type of ad disclosure labelling required by the ASA. Netflix and Tumblr have provided us with an assurance that they will take steps to ensure such errors are not repeated, and that measures are put in place to ensure that clear targeting instructions will be followed in future. Netflix have also acknowledged the concerns raised in some of the complaints we received regarding the presentation of “Buggy the Clown” and have assured us that if they run similar campaigns in the future, they will ensure that additional reassurances are provided, and steps taken to ensure that any content is targeted in accordance with their internal guidelines.

We consider that this will resolve the complaint without referring the matter to the ASA Council, and will consequently be closing our file.

In a formal investigation, if the ASA Council decides that an ad is in breach of the Code, the advertisers are told to withdraw or amend it. Because both Netflix and Tumblr have already assured us that the advertising you complained about is no longer ‘live’, and explained the steps they will take to ensure future ads are compliant with the CAP Code, we consider there is little to be gained from continuing with a formal investigation, which would achieve that same outcome.

oh my god???

#ask #good on you for making the complaint #i had no idea it was against uk law

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

B’nai Brith is pleased that our advocacy has finally led Canada to declassify a report detailing the extent to which Nazi war criminals settled in this country after World War II.

This uncomfortable chapter in Canadian history resurfaced in September, 2023, after Parliament celebrated a 98-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS. Following this outrage, B’nai Brith reiterated its longstanding call for the Government to release all Holocaust-related records.

Earlier Wednesday, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced the release of a more complete version of the Rodal Report, a document originally prepared by historian Alti Rodal as part of the 1985-1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada (the Deschênes Commission) – Canada’s only official inquiry into Canada’s Nazi past.

Rodal’s work, largely based on materials that are still classified, was the first to hint at the extent to which Canada provided a safe haven to former Nazis during the Cold War.

B’nai Brith Canada has been advocating for the release of the entirety of the report of the Deschênes Commission’s findings since the 1980s, when our senior legal counsel, David Matas, represented the organization before the Commission. Ever since, Matas and B’nai Brith have been lobbying for the public release of the totality of the inquiry’s report.

“We welcome this almost complete disclosure of the Rodal Report,” Matas said Wednesday. “It is now close to 79 years since World War II and more than 37 years since the completion of the Rodal Report. Yet, in light of ongoing mass atrocities in many locations on this planet, and the efforts of many perpetrators to seek a haven in Canada, this Report has contemporary relevance.

“We cannot learn from the past unless we know the past. The almost complete disclosure of the Rodal Report is an important step in coming to grips with our past and applying its lessons for the present.

“We look forward to continuing and ultimately completing disclosure of the Rodal Report, the Deschênes Report Part II and the Government of Canada Nazi war crimes files.”

Within the past year, B’nai Brith Canada filed several Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests, which the Government repeatedly declined. Lawyers David Rosenfeld, Michael Wenig and Rachel Silber – members of B’nai Brith’s Matas Law Society (MLS) – have provided valuable assistance to our campaign to correct this historic wrong.

Following the Parliament debacle this past fall, several academics, scholars, and leading community organizations signed letters of support for, or endorsed, our ongoing national campaign to unseal Canada’s secret Nazi records. The newly released portions of Rodal’s study will help to complete the picture, but there is still much to be done to come to grips with our nation’s Nazi past.

“This is an important first step towards full public accountability,” said David Granovsky, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Government Relations. “We thank Minister Miller and look forward to continuing to work with the Government to declassify all Holocaust-related archival materials.”

#canada #nazis #nazi war criminals #b'nai brith #rodal report

[foreverlogical]

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Rifle Association and its former longtime leader were found liable Friday in a lawsuit centered on the organization’s lavish spending.

The New York jury found that Wayne LaPierre, who was the NRA’s CEO for three decades, misspent millions of dollars of the group’s money on pricey perks, and it ordered him to repay the group $4,351,231. Jurors also found that the NRA omitted or misrepresented information in its tax filings and violated New York law by failing to adopt a whistleblower policy.

LaPierre, 74, sat stone-faced in the front row of the courtroom as the verdict was read aloud. The jury actually found him liable for $5.4 million, but it determined he’d already paid back a little over a million.

The verdict is a win for New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who campaigned on investigating the NRA’s not-for-profit status. It is the latest blow to the powerful group, which in recent years has been beset by financial troubles and dwindling membership. LaPierre, its longtime face, announced his resignation on the eve of the trial.

NRA general counsel John Frazer and retired finance chief Wilson Phillips were also defendants in the case. Phillips was ordered to pay $2 million in damages to the NRA. Frazer, meanwhile, was found to have violated his duties, but was not ordered to pay any money.

The penalties paid by LaPierre and Phillips will go back to the NRA, which was portrayed in the case both as a defendant that lacked internal controls to prevent misspending and as a victim of that same misconduct.

James also wants the three men to be banned from serving in leadership positions at any charitable organizations that conduct business in New York. A judge will decide that question during the next phase of the state Supreme Court trial.

Another former NRA executive turned whistleblower, Joshua Powell, settled with the state last month, agreeing to testify at the trial, pay the NRA $100,000 and forgo further involvement with nonprofits.

James sued the NRA and its executives in 2020 under her authority to investigate not-for-profits registered in the state.

She originally sought to have the entire organization dissolved, but Manhattan Judge Joel M. Cohen ruled in 2022 that the allegations did not warrant a “corporate death penalty.”

The trial, which began last month, cast a spotlight on the leadership, organizational culture and finances of the powerful lobbying group, which was founded more than 150 years ago in New York City to promote rifle skills and grew into a political juggernaut that influenced federal law and presidential elections.

Before he stepped down, LaPierre, had led the NRA’s day-to-day operations since 1991, acting as its face and becoming one of the country’s most influential figures in shaping gun policy.

During the trial, state lawyers argued that he dodged financial disclosure requirements while treating the NRA as his personal piggy bank, liberally dipping into its coffers for African safaris and other questionable expenditures.

His lawyer cast the trial as a political witch hunt by James.

LaPierre billed the NRA more than $11 million for private jet flights and spent more than $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over a three-year span, state lawyers said.

He also authorized $135 million in NRA contracts for a vendor whose owners showered him with free trips to the Bahamas, Greece, Dubai and India, as well as access to a 108-foot (33-meter) yacht.

LaPierre claimed he hadn’t realized the travel tickets, hotel stays, meals, yacht access and other luxury perks counted as gifts, and that the private jet flights were necessary for his safety.

But he conceded that he had wrongly expensed private flights for his family and accepted vacations from vendors doing business with the NRA without disclosing them.

Among those who testified at the trial was Oliver North, a one-time NRA president and former National Security Council military aide best known for his central role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. North, who resigned from the NRA in 2019, said he was pushed out after raising allegations of financial irregularities.

After reporting a $36 million deficit in 2018 fueled largely by misspending, the NRA cut back on longstanding programs that had been core to its mission, including training and education, recreational shooting and law enforcement initiatives. In 2021, it filed for bankruptcy and sought to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, but a judge rejected the move, saying it was an attempt to duck James’ lawsuit.

Despite its recent woes, the NRA remains a political force. Republican presidential hopefuls flocked to its annual convention last year and former President Donald Trump spoke at an NRA event earlier this month — his eighth speech to the association, it said.

#nra #wayne lapierre #gun control #mass shooting #assault weapon ban

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Philosopher and presidential Green Party candidate Cornel West currently owes more than half a million dollars between unpaid taxes and unpaid child support, according to tax records.

Records show West owes nearly $466,000 in federal income taxes from 2013 until 2017. This came after he accrued (and later repaid) a debt of nearly $725,000 from 1998-2005, and more than $34,000 in 2008, according to tax records in Mercer County, New Jersey – where he owns a home.

Additionally, West has an outstanding $49,500 child support judgement from 2003, records show.

The debts were first reported by The Daily Beast.

The tax debts have not been paid off as of 30 days ago – the last available data, according to Mercer County records. ABC News reached out to West and his campaign to see if West had plans to pay off the debt or set up a payment plan; they have not returned those requests for comment.

The outstanding child support payment is owed to Aytul Gurtas, his former partner and mother of one of his children. ABC News was unable to reach Gurtas for comment.

While it's not clear how long West didn't pay child support, New Jersey family lawyer Kathleen Stockton said that the amount of money appears substantial. The average U.S. child support obligation is about $5,800 per year, according to census data, making West's nearly $50,000 more than eight times that.

Stockton noted that it is possible West paid Gurtas and didn't register it with the court – though West has given no indication of that.

When the question of his debts was brought up on The Breakfast Club radio morning show last week, West told the radio show host "Charlamagne the God" that they were being used as a "distraction" from his presidential campaign, which has focused on ending poverty, mass incarceration and environmental degradation.

"Any time you shine a flashlight under somebody's clothes, you're gonna find all kind of mess, because that's what it is to be human," West said.

Earlier on the show, West mentioned he was "broke as the Ten Commandments financially, personally, collectively."

West's debts are personal, not related to the campaign, so they may not directly bear on the finances of his candidacy. Still, personal finance issues have been known to interfere with campaigns: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's sometimes imprudent management of his own finances were scrutinized during his 2016 campaign for president, and then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's personal debt seemed to undermine his message of fiscal hawkishness.

According to West's financial disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission in August 2023, he currently makes at least $200,000 annually. That includes his professorship at the Union Theological Seminary, where his annual income falls upward of $100,000; his speaking engagements, where he makes at least another $100,000; and his retirement fund, which earns him somewhere between $5,000 and $15,000 annually. His spouse, a professor, makes at least $50,000 per year.

Kedric Payne, an ethics lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, said in an email to ABC News that the U.S. Office of Government Ethics advises candidates to disclose debts the size of West's.

"The federal disclosure law requires candidates for president to report liabilities owed over $10,000. Child support is excluded, but OGE advises that overdue taxes are reportable. If West in fact owes taxes, voters have a right to know why this isn't disclosed," Payne wrote.

West's associate, author Christopher Phillips described West as "authentic" and someone who hasn't hesitated to spend his own money to help others.

Phillips, who said he has known West for eight years, said that when he first met West over the phone, the scholar volunteered to lecture and spend time with his students at the University of Pennsylvania, where Phillips was a writing fellow.

"He said he could come down on his own nickel, and he spent the entire day breaking philosophical bread with my students … just because he likes what I do," Phillips said.

The campaign did not respond to ABC News' multiple requests for comment.

#us politics #news #abc news #green party #Cornel West #third party #2023 #2024 elections #unpaid taxes #unpaid child support #Aytul Gurtas #Kathleen Stockton #The Breakfast Club #Charlamagne the God #Federal Election Commission #Kedric Payne #Campaign Legal Center #U.S. Office of Government Ethics #financial disclosure #Christopher Phillips

[odinsblog]

A super PAC aligned with former President Donald J. Trump paid Melania Trump $155,000 in late 2021, an unusual payment that was not visible in the group’s initial federal reports and came to light only in a filing by Mr. Trump on Thursday.

The money was listed as pay for a “speaking engagement” by Ms. Trump in the new filing, a personal financial disclosure by Mr. Trump. The $155,000 payment was made in December 2021 by Make America Great Again, Again, which at the time was Mr. Trump’s leading super PAC.

Ms. Trump’s name, however, did not appear on the super PAC’s list of expenditures, which were made public last year.

Instead, the super PAC’s report showed two payments, for $125,000 and $30,000, to “Designer’s Management Agency,” which lists Ms. Trump as a client on its website. The payments were made on Dec. 2 and Dec. 3, 2021; in the new disclosure, Mr. Trump reported that Ms. Trump was paid $155,000 on Dec. 2, 2021.

In the super PAC’s filing, those two payments were labeled “event planning and consulting,” according to Federal Election Commission records. Federal rules are generally lax when it comes to requiring that the final destination of money be revealed. Instead, committees must disclose only the first vendor paid.

It is rare for the spouse of a potential presidential candidate to be paid directly by a campaign or an outside group affiliated with the candidate.

The super PAC has since folded and in late 2022 transferred $8.9 million to a new, similarly named pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.

(continue reading)

#politics #republicans #donald trump #melania trump #money laundering #russia #trump kleptocracy

[nicklloydnow]

“The whistleblower, David Charles Grusch, 36, a decorated former combat officer in Afghanistan, is a veteran of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). He served as the reconnaissance office’s representative to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force from 2019-2021. From late 2021 to July 2022, he was the NGA’s co-lead for UAP analysis and its representative to the task force.

The task force was established to investigate what were once called “unidentified flying objects,” or UFOs, and are now officially called “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP. The task force was led by the Department of the Navy under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. It has since been reorganized and expanded into the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office to include investigations of objects operating underwater.

Grusch said the recoveries of partial fragments through and up to intact vehicles have been made for decades through the present day by the government, its allies, and defense contractors. Analysis has determined that the objects retrieved are “of exotic origin (non-human intelligence, whether extraterrestrial or unknown origin) based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures,” he said.

In filing his complaint, Grusch is represented by a lawyer who served as the original Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG).

(…)

Grusch’s disclosures, and those of non-public witnesses, under new protective provisions of the latest defense appropriations bill, signal a growing determination by some in the government to unravel a colossal enigma with national security implications that has bedeviled the military and tantalized the public going back to World War II and beyond. For many decades, the Air Force carried out a disinformation campaign to discredit reported sightings of unexplained objects. Now, with two public hearings and many classified briefings under its belt, Congress is pressing for answers.

(…)

Grusch prepared many briefs on unidentified aerial phenomena for Congress while in government and helped draft the language on UAP for the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act, spearheaded by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Marco Rubio and signed into law by President Biden in December 2022. The provision states that any person with relevant UAP information can inform Congress without retaliation, regardless of any previous non-disclosure agreements.

(…)

He said he reported to Congress on the existence of a decades-long “publicly unknown Cold War for recovered and exploited physical material – a competition with near-peer adversaries over the years to identify UAP crashes/landings and retrieve the material for exploitation/reverse engineering to garner asymmetric national defense advantages.”

Beginning in 2022, Grusch provided Congress with hours of recorded classified information transcribed into hundreds of pages which included specific data about the materials recovery program. Congress has not been provided with any physical materials related to wreckage or other non-human objects.

(…)

“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence,” said Karl Nell, the retired Army Colonel who worked with Grusch on the UAP Task Force.

(…)

Grusch said it was dangerous for this “eighty-year arms race” to continue in secrecy because it “further inhibits the world populace to be prepared for an unexpected, non-human intelligence contact scenario.”

“I hope this revelation serves as an ontological shock sociologically and provides a generally uniting issue for nations of the world to re-assess their priorities,” Grusch said.”

#leslie kean #ralph blumenthal #david grusch #ufo #ufology #uap #aliens

[mightyflamethrower]

One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.

Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.

There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.

One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America—Atlanta, New York, Washington—where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.

AD

Two, they are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Donald Trump.

Carroll’s suit was funded by left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman.

Smith sued to rush his court schedule in hopes of putting Trump on trial before the November election.

Three, there would not be any of these cases had Donald Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.

AD

Carroll’s suit bypassed statute of limitation restrictions by prompting the intervention of a left-wing New York legislator. He passed a special bill, allowing a one-year window to waive the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims from decades past.

Until Trump, no New York prosecutor like James had ever filed a civil suit against a business for allegedly overvaluing real estate assets to obtain loans that bank auditors approved and were paid back in full, on time, and with sizable interest profits to the lending institutions.

Alvin Bragg bootstrapped a Trump private non-disclosure agreement into a federal campaign violation in a desperate effort to find something on Trump.

Smith is also charging Trump with insurrectionary activity. But Trump had never been so charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.

Willis strained to find a way to criminalize Trump’s complaints about his loss of Georgia in the 2020 national election. She finally came up with a racketeering charge, usually more applicable to mafiosi and drug cartels.

Four, in all these cases, the charges could have been equally applicable to fellow left-wing public figures and officials.

Joe Biden, like Trump, was accused of sexual assault decades earlier by former staffer Tara Reade. Yet Reade was torn apart by the media and the left for inconsistencies in her memory. By contrast, the wildly inconsistent and amnesiac E. Jean Carroll won $83 million from Trump.

Jack Smith created the precedent of charging former president Trump for unlawfully removing classified files to his private residence.

But the government simultaneously did not charge Joe Biden for similar offenses. Yet Biden had removed files not for two years but for more than 30. He stored them not in one location but several.

His rickety garage was a mess, not a secure family compound like Trump’s estate. Moreover, Biden did so while a senator and vice president, without any presidential authority to declassify almost any presidential document he wished.

Biden never came forward to report the crime for over thirty years—until Trump was charged. Indeed, he was caught on tape six years ago, admitting to his ghostwriter that he possessed classified files but never reported it.

Bragg might have noticed that both Hillary Clinton (fined $113,000) and Barack Obama (fined $350,000) broke campaign financing laws. Neither was subject to federal criminal charges by local prosecutors.

An array of left-wing celebrities, politicians, 2004 House Members, former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have all recently challenged elections. They sought either to delay or redo ballot counting or, on the federal level, to sidetrack electors to ignore popular votes in their respective states.

These lawfare cases are part of other efforts that were highly partisan and without merit. Recall the Trump “Russian collusion” hoax and the “Russian disinformation” laptop farce.

In another first, some blue states are suing to take Trump’s name off the ballot for “insurrection,” a crime for which he has never been charged.

Total up the deaths, damage, and length of the summer 2020 Antifa/BLM riots. Then compare the tally to the one-day January 6 riot.

The former proved far more lethal, long-lasting, and destructive. Yet very few of the 14,000 arrested rioters in 2020 were ever prosecuted, much less convicted.

By contrast, the Biden administration sought to jail hundreds for crimes allegedly committed on January 6, such as “illegal parading.”

We are entering a dangerous era in America.

Ideology and party affiliations increasingly determine guilt and punishment. Opponents are first targeted, and then laws are twisted and redefined to convict them.

The left is waging lawfare with the implicit message to political opponents: either keep quiet or suffer the consequences.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 22, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

This week, news has been focused on the former president’s possible indictment for paying $130,000 in hush money to adult film performer Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their 2006 affair before the 2016 election. The information currently being thrown about has been shaped by Trump himself and is obviously suspect (among other things, he has apparently raised $1.5 million since he claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday). Although Republican lawmakers have no more idea than any of the rest of us do what the Manhattan grand jury might have seen, or what charges might be brought against Trump, they have tried to gloss over the scandal by claiming it is about a non-disclosure agreement or that it happened seven years ago or that its investigation is “a political witch hunt perpetrated by one of the far left radical socialist district attorneys,” as Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said. But as journalist Aaron Rupar and Noah Berlatsky explained today in Public Notice, the payment was a big deal in the larger scheme of American democracy. Trump bought Daniels’s silence because he was willing to break laws in order to get elected. Then–Trump fixer Michael Cohen paid Daniels for her story in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. Cohen testified that he paid her through a shell company to keep Trump’s connection to the payment hidden. Then Trump reimbursed Cohen for “legal fees.” That’s a problem with regard to business filings and tax fraud. It is also a problem for the campaign finance laws intended to protect clean elections. Cohen’s payment was a contribution to the Trump campaign because it was made “in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.” The payment was intended to make sure voters didn’t hear another sex scandal in October 2016, just after the Access Hollywood tape came out in which Trump talked vulgarly about sexually assaulting women, when it might have hurt his chances at election. The $130,000 contribution was far above the individual limit of $2,700, and the Trump campaign did not disclose it. This is not small potatoes. When the issue came to light, Cohen pleaded guilty for his role in the payments, and he was sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen testified that he made the payments at Trump’s direction. This is also not an isolated incident. Trump has proved himself more than willing to cheat to win elections. In the 2020 presidential election season, before he tried to overthrow the election altogether, he tried to strong-arm Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation into the son of the Democratic candidate about whom he was most worried: Joe Biden. Trump knew that the media would run with an announcement of an investigation, wounding Biden’s candidacy by keeping the story in the news even without any real investigation behind it. The Trump campaign had done much the same thing in 2016. According to the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, which investigated the ties between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, Trump’s people were willing at the very least to work alongside Russian operatives to weaken Trump’s Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Trump campaign also boosted Trump’s standing in the 2016 election season with the recurring refrain of the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails, convincing voters—falsely—that she had committed crimes. The pending issue of the hush-money payment is not just about 2016, and it is not just about Trump. That today’s Republican leaders have not condemned any of his attempts to cheat speaks volumes about the party. As Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) pointed out today, when “Cohen was arrested, indicted, convicted, and went to prison for participating in an illegal hush money payment scheme to Stormy Daniels, not a single Republican leader complaining now said a thing about what happened to Michael Cohen.” So why the rush to defend Trump in the same case? It appears Republicans have gotten to the point that they don’t believe they can win a free and fair election, and in their conviction that Democrats will destroy the country, they believe cheating to win is justified. They cannot condemn Trump because he delivered what they wanted: a victory. In a democracy, the way parties are supposed to win elections is by making a better case for being in power than their opponents do. Losing elections is supposed to make leaders think deeply about how better to appeal to voters. That system keeps all parties constantly honing their policies, thinking through problems, benefiting their constituents. Our election laws are designed to try to hold the playing field level, and a party should want to keep the system fair in order to keep itself healthy. But if a party is willing to cheat to win, it no longer has to work on policies that appeal to voters; it can simply game the system to dismantle the competition on which democracy depends and instead create a one-party state. There are many legal problems in Trump’s front yard these days. Some, like his theft of documents with markings bearing the highest level of classification and his attempt to overturn the Georgia results for the 2020 presidential election, are heating up fast, and their significance is clear. But for all that the case we are currently hearing so much about seems less serious on its face than the other things charged to Trump's account, a hush-money payment to silence someone whose story might have affected the 2016 election is no laughing matter.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From an American #Corrupt GOP #Criminal GOP #history #American Democracy #democracy based in rule of law #The Rule of Law #a conspiracy to seize power

[itsmythang]

BREAKING: Trumper Congressman George Santos gets brutal news as the House Ethics Committee announces that it found evidence of MULTIPLE crimes committed by Santos — and recommends that he be criminally prosecuted by the Justice Department.

The Committee revealed today, “We unanimously concluded that there was substantial evidence that Representative George Santos: knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with RedStone Strategies LLC; and engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to his Financial Disclosure (FD) Statements filed with the House."

This is brutal news for the Trumper Congressman — not only because it means that he will likely be expelled from Congress, but it also means that he will soon be slapped with serious criminal charges that carry prison sentences.

Another day, another criminal Trumper is exposed…

[beardedmrbean]

WASHINGTON (TND) — The House Ethics panel announced it has found “substantial evidence” that Republican Rep. George Santos broke multiple laws.

The panel conducted an investigation into the New York congressman and released its findings on Thursday, adding that it referred the information to the Justice Department.

A news release notes the panel determined Santos:

Knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission

Used campaign funds for personal purposes

Engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with RedStone Strategies LLC

Engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to his Financial Disclosure Statements filed with the House

Santos, 35, who represents New York, has maintained his innocence, insisting he is the victim of a “witch hunt.” He has resisted all calls to resign, saying he intends to run for reelection next year.

He took to social media to speak out against the Committee's findings.

"If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the 'Ethics committee', they would have not released this biased report," he wrote on X, whcih is the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "The Committee went to extraordinary lengths to smear myself and my legal team about me not being forthcoming (My legal bills suggest otherwise). It is a disgusting politicized smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk. Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of Justice should all be ashamed of themselves ... I’ve come to expect vitriol like this from political opposition but not from the hallowed halls of public service."

He went on to say that he "will remain steadfast in fighting for my rights and for defending my name in the face of adversity. I am humbled yet again and reminded that I am human and I have flaws, but I will not stand by as I am stoned by those who have flaws themselves. I will continue on my mission to serve my constituents up until I am allowed. I will however NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time."

In October, prosecutors said Santos allegedly stole the identities of people who donated to his campaign, as well as repeatedly used their credit cards without their permission. Prosecutors said some of the stolen money ended up in his own bank account.

As alleged, Santos was charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign," Breon Peace, who is a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a separate news release."

"Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen," Peace added. "This Office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions.”

The latest charges include the following:

One count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States

Two counts of wire fraud

Two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC)

Two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC

Two counts of aggravated identity theft

One count of access device fraud

Prosecutors said he also stole from his own family members.

The defendant -- a Congressman -- allegedly stole the identities of family members and used the credit card information of political contributors to fraudulently inflate his campaign coffers,” District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly noted in the release. “We thank our partners in the US Attorney’s Office and the FBI as we work together to root out public corruption on Long Island.”

According to prosecutors, Santos allegedly charged more than $44,000 to his campaign using cards belonging to contributors without their knowledge. In one case, he charged $12,000 to a contributor’s credit card and transferred the “vast majority” of that money into his personal bank account, prosecutors said.

The charges, said prosecutors, are in addition to the seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives that were charged in the original indictment.

He was initially arrested in May on a 13-count federal indictment, which charged him with using funds earmarked for campaign expenses on designer clothes and other personal expenses and improperly obtaining unemployment benefits meant for Americans who lost work because of the pandemic.

Santos was also accused of falsely reporting to the Federal Elections Commission that he had loaned $500,000 to his campaign in an attempt to convince Republican Party officials that he was a serious candidate, when he actually had less than $8,000 in his personal accounts.

Santos, who likely faces a lengthy prison term if convicted, was elected to Congress in November and sworn in as the U.S. Representative for New York’s Third Congressional District on January 7, 2023.

#nunyas news #buddy you need to make a deal to resign #in exchange for the charges being reduced or dropped

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a new proposal Thursday to cut greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of power plants burning coal or natural gas, two of the top sources of electricity across the United States. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), criticizing the “radical” proposal, issued his own scorched earth ultimatum on Wednesday ahead of the announcement.

Manchin, chair of the Senate Energy Committee and the top recipient of contributions from the oil and gas industry during the 2022 election cycle, vowed Wednesday to oppose every one of President Joe Biden’s nominees for the EPA “until they halt their government overreach.”

“This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability,” Manchin wrote in a statement released Wednesday.

The EPA proposal would require most fossil fuel-fired power plants to slash their greenhouse emissions by 90% between 2023 and 2040. The EPA projects the emissions reduction would deliver up to $85 billion in climate and health benefits over the next two decades by heading off premature deaths, emergency room visits, asthma attacks, school absences and lost workdays.

“Alongside historic investment taking place across America in clean energy manufacturing and deployment, these proposals will help deliver tremendous benefits to the American people — cutting climate pollution and other harmful pollutants, protecting people’s health, and driving American innovation,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement issued Thursday.

By 2035, the Biden administration aims to shift all electricity in the U.S. to zero-emission sources including wind, solar, nuclear and hydropower, Roll Call reported. In a written statement, Manchin warned the administration’s “commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security.”

Manchin is up for reelection during the 2024 election cycle, but he has not yet announced whether he will run.

Last month, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) announced his campaign for Manchin’s seat. The Democrat-turned-Republican is among the most popular governors in the country and leads a state former President Donald Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points in 2020.

Manchin has hammered the Biden administration in recent weeks for its implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the president’s signature climate change bill that the Democratic senator was instrumental in shaping.

“Neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards. However, I fear that this Administration’s commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security and I will oppose all EPA nominees until they halt their government overreach,” Manchin said in his Wednesday statement.

What Manchin did not disclose in his statement, however, is that the EPA proposal would jeopardize one West Virginia coal facility that’s particularly lucrative for Manchin’s family business, Enersystems Inc., POLITICO reported. Enersystems delivers waste coal to the Grant Town power plant, which was reportedly already struggling financially, troubles that are expected to deepen with the strict new climate proposal.

Manchin personally received $537,000 from Enersystems last year, according to POLITICO’s analysis of personal financial disclosures filed with the U.S. Senate, and he has been paid more than $5 million by the company since he was first elected in 2010. His son, Joe Manchin IV, now runs Enersystems. The Senator’s campaign has also benefited from political contributions from Enersystems, OpenSecrets reported last year.

“This is going to make it harder for them to stay around. You won’t find written anywhere in the rule that this is supposed to be putting coal plants out of business, but just do the math,” Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University, told POLITICO.

In 2020, Manchin’s home state of West Virginia generated about 90% of its power from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By contrast, less than 20% of the energy generated nationally comes from coal. Many states, including neighboring Virginia, are phasing out coal by replacing it with natural gas.

While the U.S. may show signs of moving away from coal, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told the Senate Energy Committee earlier this month that the country was not prepared to abandon coal and maintain a reliable energy system.

“Coal is more dependable than gas and yes, we need to keep coal generation available for the foreseeable future,” said Commissioner Mark Christie.

Manchin took another swipe at the EPA on Thursday during an energy committee hearing on permitting reform, when he accused the agency of preventing the development of carbon capture technology by denying companies the permits they need to trap captured carbon underground.

“Don’t tell me that you’re going to invest in carbon capture sequestration when we can’t get a permit to basically sequester the carbon captured,” Manchin said. “This is the game that’s being played. I know it, they know I know it, and we’re not gonna let them get away with it.”

#us politics #news #opensecrets #Environmental Protection Agency #sen. joe manchin #west virginia #Senate Energy Committee #biden administration #president joe biden #2023 #clean energy #green energy #natural gas #coal #big coal #fossil fuels #fossil fuel industry #Michael Regan #roll call #Gov. Jim Justice #Inflation Reduction Act #infrastructure bill #infrastructure reform #Enersystems Inc. #politico #U.S. Energy Information Administration #Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[reddancer1]

Heather Cox Richardson

March 22, 2023 (Wednesday)This week, news has been focused on the former president’s possible indictment for paying $130,000 in hush money to adult film performer Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their 2006 affair before the 2016 election. The information currently being thrown about has been shaped by Trump himself and is obviously suspect (among other things, he has apparently raised $1.5 million since he claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday).

NOTE:  his supporters are such MORONS!  The grift goes on..........

Although Republican lawmakers have no more idea than any of the rest of us do what the Manhattan grand jury might have seen, or what charges might be brought against Trump, they have tried to gloss over the scandal by claiming it is about a non-disclosure agreement or that it happened seven years ago or that its investigation is “a political witch hunt perpetrated by one of the far left radical socialist district attorneys,” as Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said. But as journalist Aaron Rupar and Noah Berlatsky explained today in Public Notice, the payment was a big deal in the larger scheme of American democracy.

Trump bought Daniels’s silence because he was willing to break laws in order to get elected. Then–Trump fixer Michael Cohen paid Daniels for her story in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. Cohen testified that he paid her through a shell company to keep Trump’s connection to the payment hidden. Then Trump reimbursed Cohen for “legal fees.” 

That’s a problem with regard to business filings and tax fraud. It is also a problem for the campaign finance laws intended to protect clean elections. Cohen’s payment was a contribution to the Trump campaign because it was made “in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.” The payment was intended to make sure voters didn’t hear another sex scandal in October 2016, just after the Access Hollywood tape came out in which Trump talked vulgarly about sexually assaulting women, when it might have hurt his chances at election. The $130,000 contribution was far above the individual limit of $2,700, and the Trump campaign did not disclose it. 

This is not small potatoes. When the issue came to light, Cohen pleaded guilty for his role in the payments, and he was sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen testified that he made the payments at Trump’s direction. 

This is also not an isolated incident. Trump has proved himself more than willing to cheat to win elections. In the 2020 presidential election season, before he tried to overthrow the election altogether, he tried to strong-arm Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation into the son of the Democratic candidate about whom he was most worried: Joe Biden. Trump knew that the media would run with an announcement of an investigation, wounding Biden’s candidacy by keeping the story in the news even without any real investigation behind it.

The Trump campaign had done much the same thing in 2016. According to the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, which investigated the ties between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, Trump’s people were willing at the very least to work alongside Russian operatives to weaken Trump’s Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Trump campaign also boosted Trump’s standing in the 2016 election season with the recurring refrain of the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails, convincing voters—falsely—that she had committed crimes. 

The pending issue of the hush-money payment is not just about 2016, and it is not just about Trump. That today’s Republican leaders have not condemned any of his attempts to cheat speaks volumes about the party. As Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) pointed out today, when “Cohen was arrested, indicted, convicted, and went to prison for participating in an illegal hush money payment scheme to Stormy Daniels, not a single Republican leader complaining now said a thing about what happened to Michael Cohen.” So why the rush to defend Trump in the same case?

It appears Republicans have gotten to the point that they don’t believe they can win a free and fair election, and in their conviction that Democrats will destroy the country, they believe cheating to win is justified. They cannot condemn Trump because he delivered what they wanted: a victory. 

In a democracy, the way parties are supposed to win elections is by making a better case for being in power than their opponents do. Losing elections is supposed to make leaders think deeply about how better to appeal to voters. That system keeps all parties constantly honing their policies, thinking through problems, benefiting their constituents. 

Our election laws are designed to try to hold the playing field level, and a party should want to keep the system fair in order to keep itself healthy. But if a party is willing to cheat to win, it no longer has to work on policies that appeal to voters; it can simply game the system to dismantle the competition on which democracy depends and instead create a one-party state.

There are many legal problems in Trump’s front yard these days. Some, like his theft of documents with markings bearing the highest level of classification and his attempt to overturn the Georgia results for the 2020 presidential election, are heating up fast, and their significance is clear. 

But for all that the case we are currently hearing so much about seems less serious on its face than the other things charged to Trump's account, a hush-money payment to silence someone whose story might have affected the 2016 election is no laughing matter.

[reading-writing-revolution]

Campaign Legal Center respectfully requests that the Judicial Conference exercise its authority pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 13106(b) and refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Attorney General because there is “reasonable cause to believe” that he “willfully failed to file information required to be reported” under the Ethics in GovernmentAct (“EIGA”). Specifically, Justice Thomas’ public statement on April 7, 2023, and recent news reporting, confirm that for over twenty years he did not file required gift disclosures of private plane and yacht travel from one individual. There is reasonable cause to believe that the omissions were willful because Justice Thomas (1) previously reported private plane travel from the same individual in compliance with the law, but stopped the disclosures after negative media attention; and (2) has a history of omitting significant information from his financial disclosure reports.

A Criminal Referral Is Being Sought For Clarence Thomas