The Former Trump Presidency Thread

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 1:56 pm

Where is the image from? Bet he gets a takedown notice if it's not government owned...

PLW · Post by **PLW** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:24 pm

stessier wrote:Where is the image from? Bet he gets a takedown notice if it's not government owned...

Into the Jaws of Death. Owned by the Coast Guard?

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:31 pm

PLW wrote:Into the Jaws of Death. Owned by the Coast Guard?

National Archives.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:12 pm

Trump Org Shifted 1.2 Million dollars of children's cancer donations into the business. What a class act!

Farenthold is on the case, too.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:27 pm

The son of the world's most influential pathological lair is lying? Unpossible!

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:29 pm

I chuckled at his use of "misled". Yeah, right. Everyone knows what he means.

pr0ner · Post by **pr0ner** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:53 pm

TheMix wrote:I chuckled at his use of "misled". Yeah, right. Everyone knows what he means.

This is what tickles me about liberal Twitter sometimes. They crow that they want journalists to say things like "he lied!" instead of "misled", or to call alt-right people "Nazis", but I'm sure doing that could be seen as libel, and I doubt the liberal twitterers realize that fact.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 4:06 pm

Meanwhile at the Trump Organization:

Campaigning for Donald Trump inspired his sons to launch a patriotism-themed three-star hotel chain, a move that stands in contrast to the Trump Organization's premium roots.

The Trump Organization announced on Monday that the new hotel brand, called "American Idea," will begin with three hotels in Mississippi.

The organization, which is now run by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, plans to distinguish the new chain from other budget-friendly hotel brands, such as the Holiday Inn and Comfort Inn, with American-themed decorations and trinkets, The New York Times reported. According to The Times, the Trump children were inspired to start the chain after seeing the thousands of people who traveled to Trump rallies.

...

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 4:12 pm

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 6:41 pm

Remember when Rip was posting constant diatribes against the Clinton Foundation? And he said that was reason enough to vote for Trump?

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:11 pm

I recall that this was the core of someone else's argument that Clinton was 1000x times worse than Trump could ever be.

That was back in September or October, of course.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:41 pm

Man, the last few pages have been rough reading on tapatalk. Just blank post after blank post. Yet another reason to be mad that this presidency is happening mostly on Twitter.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:50 pm

Chaz wrote:Man, the last few pages have been rough reading on tapatalk. Just blank post after blank post. Yet another reason to be mad that this presidency is happening mostly on Twitter.

Only Twitter keeps pace with the madness of Trump.

Incidentally, why does Tapatalk fail to show tweets? Does it block other links too?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:55 pm

Oddly enough when I use Tapatalk (without logging in) I see Tweets fine. But using my PC to browse OO? Blank post after blank post. I feel you bro.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:57 pm

Chaz wrote:Man, the last few pages have been rough reading on tapatalk. Just blank post after blank post. Yet another reason to be mad that this presidency is happening mostly on Twitter.

I just came to post the exact same complaint.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:23 pm

Speaking of which...

A free-speech institute on Tuesday sent a letter to President Donald Trump demanding the prolific tweeter unblock certain Twitter (TWTR.N) users on grounds the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Trump's @realDonaldTrump account recently blocked a number of accounts that replied to his tweets with commentary that criticized, mocked or disagreed with his actions. Twitter users are unable to see or respond to tweets from accounts that block them.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York said in its letter that the blocking suppressed speech in a public forum protected by the Constitution.

link

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:12 pm

I remember when everyone was talking about this kind of stuff before the election and we all laughed saying how ridiculous it was that he could ever be elected. Not so funny now:

President Donald Trump’s Washington hotel received roughly $270,000 in payments linked to Saudi Arabia as part of a lobbying campaign by the Gulf kingdom against a controversial piece of terrorism legislation last year. The payments – for catering, lodging and parking – were disclosed by the public relations firm MSLGroup last week in paperwork filed with the Justice Department documenting foreign lobbying work on behalf of Saudi Arabia and other clients.

Saudi Arabia’s Washington lobbyists and consultants started spending the money in the fall, while lobbying against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which passed in the fall, before Trump became president. The payments, however, extended from Nov. 2016 into Feb. 2017 – which included the period after Trump’s inauguration.

I guess those income tax returns are coming any day now. Any day.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:30 pm

Sure glad Crooked Hillary isn't in office. Can you imagine the level of corruption?

msteelers · Post by **msteelers** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:40 am

Trump announced his nomination for the FBI Director on twitter this morning.

President Trump says he has chosen Christopher Wray, who worked in the Justice Department during President George W. Bush's administration, to head the FBI.

The president made the announcement via Twitter, writing Wednesday morning, "I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow."

...

Wray has been in private practice for the past 12 years, working in litigation as a partner at the King & Spalding law firm in Washington and Atlanta. Before that, he spent nearly a decade in the Justice Department, focusing on corporate fraud in addition to trade sanctions, money laundering, and other areas of the law.

"He served on the president's Corporate Fraud Task Force and oversaw the Enron Task Force and other major fraud investigations, both around the country and internationally," Wray's biography at King & Spalding states.

From 2003 to 2005, Wray was the assistant attorney general leading the Justice Department's criminal division. In that post, he worked under attorneys general John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales — as well as former FBI Director James Comey, who was then the deputy attorney general.

From 1997 to 2001, Wray was an assistant U.S. attorney in north Georgia. In May of 2001, he rose to become an associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:54 am

Go ahead and look up the King & Spalding law firm and Russia. I'll wait.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:01 am

Smoove_B wrote:Go ahead and look up the King & Spalding law firm and Russia. I'll wait.

Was I supposed to find something other than that they have offices there?

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:01 am

Smoove_B wrote:Go ahead and look up the King & Spalding law firm and Russia. I'll wait.

That's a bit too conspiracy theory for me.

But

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_%26_Spalding

Here is what they are known for

In April 2011 the firm signed a $500,000 contract with the Republican-controlled United States House of Representatives to take on the case of defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage in federal law as the union between one man and one woman, in court for the House, with former Solicitor General Paul Clement, the firm's most prominent Washington, D.C. partner,[4] as its lead attorney.[5] After the contract was signed, the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign announced it would launch a publicity war to "shame" the firm and planned protest, ads in legal publications, and to try to influence students and potential clients dealings' with the firm.[4] Soon after signing, the firm asked to withdraw from the case after facing criticism from gay rights groups, citing an "inadequate" vetting process.[6] Clement immediately resigned from the firm, writing in a letter to King & Spalding Chairman Robert Hays, "I resign out of the firmly-held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters. Defending unpopular decisions is what lawyers do...Efforts to delegitimize any representation for one side of a legal controversy are a profound threat to the rule of law."[7] He added, "If there were problems with the firm's vetting process, we should fix the vetting process, not drop the representation."[7] Clement immediately joined Bancroft PLLC, which took the case.[8] The National Law Journal wrote, "[the turn of events] leaves unanswered a myriad of questions about the status of Clement's other cases and clients, and the future of King & Spalding's D.C. appellate practice, which was built around Clement."[6]

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:12 am

RunningMn9 wrote:Was I supposed to find something other than that they have offices there?

King and Spalding are involved with Rosneft, whom you might recall from the Steel Dossier. Let's just agree that their representation of a blacklisted organization is rather interesting. The nomination of a partner as the head of the FBI is fascinating.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:22 am

malchior wrote:Trump Org Shifted 1.2 Million dollars of children's cancer donations into the business. What a class act!

Reading this story significantly raised my estimated probability that many / most of the senior Trump people wind up in jail. There's a lot in this story, but among other things (in the absence of a countervailing explanation / accounting that Eric Trump evidently declined to provide to Forbes), the following things appear to be uncontrovertibly true:

(1) A big part of Eric Trump's (and the Eric Trump Foundation) pitch to donors was that because the use of the golf course and most other expenses were donated, substantially all donations would go to the cause (children's cancer treatment);
(2) Starting around 2009 - 2010 (once Donald Trump got involved) that was no longer true. In fact, it appears that they began paying substantially above market rate (at the very least, their expenses went way above what it would cost to host a golf tournament);
(3) Eric Trump must have known that this was no longer true, but kept telling donors that it was; AND
(4) This would have been reasonably material to donors' decisions to give to the charity;

It's hard to see how this is anything other than a solid basis for criminal fraud charges against Eric Trump (and most likely at least a few other people as well). As long as some of the conduct was done via mail / phone / e-mail (obviously the case) you have pretty plausible mail and wire fraud charges.

On top of that, the locus of this conduct appears to have been New York; that would appear to give the New York AG jurisdictional grounds to get involved. There have been reports that Schneiderman's involved in Trump investigations, and unlike the FBI / DOJ, their people don't need to reasonably fear interference from senior people in their organization.

And the thing is that this is only one angle raised by this story (it also raises possible violations of charity and tax laws, though those seem less clear cut) and only really Eric Trump and possibly the Donald Trump connected people who joined the board of the Eric Trump foundation partway through.

But given that Forbes was able to put together what sure looks like solid grounds for criminal fraud charges against a senior Trumpworld person, one can imagine what the FBI (and maybe the New York AG) is putting together with the benefit of subpoenas and potential plea deals.

Of course, I am also unsure whether everyone in the Trumpworld other than Donald Trump going to jail would be enough to get Republicans to impeach Donald Trump.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:28 am

Smoove_B wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:Was I supposed to find something other than that they have offices there?
King and Spalding are involved with Rosneft, whom you might recall from the Steel Dossier. Let's just agree that their representation of a blacklisted organization is rather interesting. The nomination of a partner as the head of the FBI is fascinating.

Fascinating but soon to be buried under the endless shitstorm of other conflicts of interest and ethics violations that are continually excreted from this administration.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:31 am

Smoove_B wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:Was I supposed to find something other than that they have offices there?
King and Spalding are involved with Rosneft, whom you might recall from the Steel Dossier. Let's just agree that their representation of a blacklisted organization is rather interesting. The nomination of a partner as the head of the FBI is fascinating.

I think this needs to become a new Trump game. "six degrees of Vlad Putin"

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:38 am

LordMortis wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:Was I supposed to find something other than that they have offices there?
King and Spalding are involved with Rosneft, whom you might recall from the Steel Dossier. Let's just agree that their representation of a blacklisted organization is rather interesting. The nomination of a partner as the head of the FBI is fascinating.
I think this needs to become a new Trump game. "six degrees of Vlad Putin"

That seems too easy. Maybe "three degrees of Vlad Putin"?

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:43 am

TheMix wrote:
LordMortis wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:
RunningMn9 wrote:Was I supposed to find something other than that they have offices there?
King and Spalding are involved with Rosneft, whom you might recall from the Steel Dossier. Let's just agree that their representation of a blacklisted organization is rather interesting. The nomination of a partner as the head of the FBI is fascinating.
I think this needs to become a new Trump game. "six degrees of Vlad Putin"
That seems too easy. Maybe "three degrees of Vlad Putin"?

We should probably just find a bumper sticker depicting "The Shocker" with "PUTIN" under it.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:53 am

El Guapo wrote:Reading this story significantly raised my estimated probability that many / most of the senior Trump people wind up in jail.

If you'll remember, there were comments made by members of the intelligence community back in December or January that indicated it was going to happen. Also, let's not forget what Eric said last night on Lumpy's show:

Appearing on Fox News with host Sean Hannity, Eric Trump smeared his liberal detractors, saying, “They’re not even people.”

Asked by host Hannity, “Don’t you wish you went to Washington so you could deal with this everyday?” the president’s son sneered at Democrats.

“I’ve never seen hatred like this, ” he responded. “To me, they’re not even people. It is so so sad.”

He's quite endearing.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:06 am

The irony of that statement, while sitting across the desk from such a despicably hateful piece of shit like Hannity is amusing.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:25 am

Smoove_B wrote:
El Guapo wrote:Reading this story significantly raised my estimated probability that many / most of the senior Trump people wind up in jail.
If you'll remember, there were comments made by members of the intelligence community back in December or January that indicated it was going to happen. Also, let's not forget what Eric said last night on Lumpy's show:

Appearing on Fox News with host Sean Hannity, Eric Trump smeared his liberal detractors, saying, “They’re not even people.”

Asked by host Hannity, “Don’t you wish you went to Washington so you could deal with this everyday?” the president’s son sneered at Democrats.

“I’ve never seen hatred like this, ” he responded. “To me, they’re not even people. It is so so sad.”
He's quite endearing.

The irony here is that, aside from demonstrating that Eric Trump appears to have committed mail fraud and wire fraud, the article paints Eric in a pretty sympathetic light. Basically he was doing what he said he was doing, and did raise millions of dollars in charity for pediatric cancer research. The problems came about once Donald Trump found out that the Trump Organization was making free donations, which obviously he couldn't stand for.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:28 am

Smoove_B wrote:“To me, they’re not even people. It is so so sad.”

Is that meant to ironic, coming from a guy who looks like Flesh Golem? (Did I actually go there and insult someone for their looks?, ah well)

That quote should be plastered on billboards. It really does represent the heart of the matter.

Edit, three mentions of Irony in a row. What are we? An Alanis meme?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:01 am

LordMortis wrote: Edit, three mentions of Irony in a row. What are we? An Alanis meme?

No, they were talking about irony, Alanis confuses that with coincidence.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:19 am

Eric Trump wrote:“To me, they’re not even people. It is so so sad.”

That sounds like a comment that wouldn't be out of place in Nazi Germany during WWII.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 12:56 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clKi92j6eLE

Trump studied South Park, I think.

Newcastle · Post by **Newcastle** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:40 pm

@ Elguapo

Couldn't Daddy trump just issue a blanket pardon and clean off any associates crimes/misdeeds/etc?

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:43 pm

Newcastle wrote:@ Elguapo

Couldn't Daddy trump just issue a blanket pardon and clean off any associates crimes/misdeeds/etc?

Yes. I'm not an expert on this but my understanding is that the pardon power is pretty unlimited. Of course there would be considerable political blowback (especially if the individual had already been publicly indicted), but that hasn't been much of a constraint for the GOP so far.

Note that there's some debate over whether the President can pardon himself.

Newcastle · Post by **Newcastle** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:45 pm

That's what i am afraid of, that we, americans, wont see proper justice.

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 4:47 pm

Newcastle wrote:That's what i am afraid of, that we, americans, wont see proper justice.

We're never going to see proper justice. Best to let that pipe dream go. I'll settle for minimizing damage done.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:46 pm

Meanwhile, on the Good Timeline, headlines since January have been dominated by President Clinton not dissolving her charitable foundation quickly enough.