The Trump Investigation(s) Thread

[tgb]

So it turn out that in the end, Fuckhead & Cohen were just running a grift.

[Isgrimnur]

REEE TAIIII NERR!

[LawBeefaroni]

Fair enough. You clearly feel you’re in a good position to render judgment on Melania Trump. I just don’t feel the same.

I feel bad that she's munching down a giant shit sandwich but not that bad. It's a sandwich of her own making and no one is forcing her to keep eating it.

[GreenGoo]

I don't like to see people suffer, even when it's their own doing.

That doesn't make her a victim or even a sympathetic character (to me), however.

[GreenGoo]

So it turn out that in the end, Fuckhead & Cohen were just running a grift.

Well duh. Everything he does is a con. Worse, it's a simplistic, obvious con, but give a man a million dollars and suddenly he's not a street hustler, he's a real estate tycoon.

[Zaxxon]

Fair enough. You clearly feel you’re in a good position to render judgment on Melania Trump. I just don’t feel the same.

I feel bad that she's munching down a giant shit sandwich but not that bad. It's a sandwich of her own making and no one is forcing her to keep eating it.

Kind of this.

But also, to get back to Kurth's question specifically. Can I judge the inner workings of Melania's mind? No. But I can see that she's chosen anti-bullying as [one of] her focuses. She's also married to Donald Trump, the single most powerful bully in the world.

Those two things are totally, objectively incompatible with one another. This dichotomy shows that she's an unserious person. Given the public nature of this project for her, the fact that she's either unwilling to address this problem or is too taken by cognitive dissonance to see that there's an issue here suggests that she's equally complicit in private.

[Kurth]

Fair enough. You clearly feel you’re in a good position to render judgment on Melania Trump. I just don’t feel the same.

I feel bad that she's munching down a giant shit sandwich but not that bad. It's a sandwich of her own making and no one is forcing her to keep eating it.

Also fair enough. I just feel like I don’t have enough information on her to really get all that fired up about taking mean shots at her and alleging she’s basically a high-priced prostitute.

I read that Vanity Fair article GreenGoo posted. I didn’t come away from it with the same impression he did, apparently. I’m not going to sit in judgment over a woman from Slovenia, the daughter of a former Communist Party member, who jumps at the chance at a privileged life in New York for her and her family (she brought them over from Slovenia). Reading the Vanity Fair article, she mostly comes across as sad and greatly disappointed that Trump is now President, forcing her into the public eye. A profile in courage, she definitely does not appear to be, but is she someone who needs to be pilloried? That seems far less clear to me.

Also, I think some of the animosity toward her and the thing that inclines people to disparage her is the thought that she, as a woman, is somehow obligated to be standard bearer and publicly oppose Trump. From that Vanity Fair article:

[P]rotesters at the Women’s March carried signs that said, FREE MELANIA. A fashion fixture who’s known the Trump clan for decades shared with me his fantasy: “My dream is that Michelle Obama will convince her to leave him, and she’ll become this great feminist icon. She will walk into the middle of everything and say, ‘He’s crazy. This is nuts. I don’t know what I was doing!’ ”

Again, I don’t know much about her, but from what I’ve seen and read, she appears to be a victim of Trump. I don’t think it’s fair (or remotely within the realm of possibility) to expect her to take up the cause against him. Seems to me like she made a deal with the devil, and now it’s having unexpected and unwanted consequences.

Just not sure what the point is of hating on her and disparaging her. Especially when there are those so much more deserving of that scorn.

[Unagi]

It's that she is in a position to help defeat the devil, that people are a little annoyed that she made and continues to keep her deal with the devil.
You don't get that?

Her taking on Cyber Bullying as "her thing" probably just makes the above feel even worse to a lot of people.

[Fireball]

It's that she is in a position to help defeat the devil, that people are a little annoyed that she made and continues to keep her deal with the devil.
You don't get that?

Her taking on Cyber Bullying as "her thing" probably just makes the above feel even worse to a lot of people.

Perhaps she picked this issue in order to highlight just how awful Trump is? No one can discuss her initiatives without bringing up her husband's behavior. It seems to me that there's no love lost between the two of them, so I could believe that she's just trolling him with this.

[Smoove_B]

In the same way she was able to use "chain migration" to get her parents here to America? You know, the very thing her husband blathers about all the Mexicans doing?

[GreenGoo]

It's that she is in a position to help defeat the devil, that people are a little annoyed that she made and continues to keep her deal with the devil.
You don't get that?

Her taking on Cyber Bullying as "her thing" probably just makes the above feel even worse to a lot of people.

Perhaps she picked this issue in order to highlight just how awful Trump is? No one can discuss her initiatives without bringing up her husband's behavior. It seems to me that there's no love lost between the two of them, so I could believe that she's just trolling him with this.

That crossed my mind.

[Smoove_B]

Oh hey look, another amazing coincidence regarding Cohen and money:

South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd (KAI) (047810.KS) said on Wednesday it had paid $150,000 for consulting services on accounting matters to a firm set up by U.S. President Donald Trump’s private lawyer Michael Cohen.

The arrangement came as the company, backed by state-owned Export-Import Bank of Korea, is competing to sell trainer jets to the U.S. Air Force in an auction that could be worth up to $16 billion.

Someone grab me my fainting couch.

[GreenGoo]

Seems to me like she made a deal with the devil, and now it’s having unexpected and unwanted consequences.

Right. Because there was no way to know that a deal with the devil would turn out badly.

Just not sure what the point is of hating on her and disparaging her. Especially when there are those so much more deserving of that scorn.

I have plenty of scorn for everybody. It's not a finite quantity. I am a bile factory equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

[GreenGoo]

Oh hey look, another amazing coincidence regarding Cohen and money:

South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd (KAI) (047810.KS) said on Wednesday it had paid $150,000 for consulting services on accounting matters to a firm set up by U.S. President Donald Trump’s private lawyer Michael Cohen.

The arrangement came as the company, backed by state-owned Export-Import Bank of Korea, is competing to sell trainer jets to the U.S. Air Force in an auction that could be worth up to $16 billion.

Someone grab me my fainting couch.

Obama did it, too.

[Sepiche]

Obama did it, too.

Used Michael Cohen to launder kickbacks?

[Blackhawk]

I think, should her story ever be told, that a lot of people are going to find they underestimated the kind of power that kind of victimizer can have over his victims.

And we already know he's the kind of person who gets his way through intimidation and power.

[Kurth]

I think, should her story ever be told, that a lot of people are going to find they underestimated the kind of power that kind of victimizer can have over his victims.

And we already know he's the kind of person who gets his way through intimidation and power.

That crossed my mind.

[Toe]

I think, should her story ever be told, that a lot of people are going to find they underestimated the kind of power that kind of victimizer can have over his victims.

And we already know he's the kind of person who gets his way through intimidation and power.

And you can guarantee the prenuptial agreement is brutal (from her point of view). Would not surprise me at all that if there lots of NDA stuff in there as well. But then again, maybe he didn't sign it. Heh.

[El Guapo]

This might be what Kurth is getting at, but Melania's just not that interesting to talk through to me. We know she's complicit in the whole mess to at least some degree. We don't know exactly how she feels about Donald (though public signs suggest that she's not entirely thrilled). She could probably be doing more to stop the whole trainwreck, though it's not primarily her doing, and she would presumably pay some kind of a significant cost for doing so. The exact degree of her blameworthiness, while not zero, depends a lot on those details that we don't know.

[geezer]

We don't know exactly how she feels about Donald (though public signs suggest that she's not entirely thrilled). She could probably be doing more to stop the whole trainwreck, though it's not primarily her doing, and she would presumably pay some kind of a significant cost for doing so. The exact degree of her blameworthiness, while not zero, depends a lot on those details that we don't know.

Friend of a friend knows her well, likes her a bunch, and assuming what I'm told is accurate, you've got it pretty right, with the caveat being that the "significant cost" isn't necessarily her concern except that she's protective of her kid and wants what's best for him. On the whole, I'm fairly sympathetic toward her based on what little I know.

[Rip]

We don't know exactly how she feels about Donald (though public signs suggest that she's not entirely thrilled). She could probably be doing more to stop the whole trainwreck, though it's not primarily her doing, and she would presumably pay some kind of a significant cost for doing so. The exact degree of her blameworthiness, while not zero, depends a lot on those details that we don't know.

Friend of a friend knows her well, likes her a bunch, and assuming what I'm told is accurate, you've got it pretty right, with the caveat being that the "significant cost" isn't necessarily her concern except that she's protective of her kid and wants what's best for him. On the whole, I'm fairly sympathetic toward her based on what little I know.

I have heard the doting on the kid stuff before. She doesn't use a nanny and actually does her own kid rearing. Egads!

[hepcat]

Years of listening to Trump be an asshole on the old Howard Stern radio show, while also describing his various wives' (and remember, he's the choice of evangelicals, folks) extravagant spending, has created in me a palpable sense of contempt for all things Trump. I view them as parasites, one and all.

Except Barron. He has a chance to escape it all if he just tells himself over and over again, "He's not really my father...he's not really my father".

[LordMortis]

she's protective of her kid and wants what's best for him.

This is the vibe I get from her and where my sympathy for her lies. When she was being chastised for divorcing herself from pomp and circumstance of being the First Lady, it seemed to be out of concern for her child. I might be a fool but it's the vibe I get.

[LawBeefaroni]

Except Barron. He has a chance to escape it all if he just tells himself over and over again, "He's not really my father...he's not really my father".

I can only hope that the Secret Service used Luke Skywalker as his package code name.

[Rip]

So I am hearing a couple of the transactions in Avenatti's "possible fraudulent and illegal financial transactions" list are transaction of Michael Cohens that are not the one who was raided by the FBI.

Should be interesting to see the investigation into where he obtained such financial records of people totally uninvolved in this mess.

Here is one, but I am pretty sure there is another one as well.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pr ... -1.6073490

[GreenGoo]

I think, should her story ever be told, that a lot of people are going to find they underestimated the kind of power that kind of victimizer can have over his victims.

And we already know he's the kind of person who gets his way through intimidation and power.

This is fucking stupid. She dated him for 7 freakin' years before deciding that marriage was a good idea. She dated him while he was still married to another trophy wife. He had already divorced 1 trophy wife, who was available if Melania had any misgivings about what she was getting herself into. Drumpf was looking for someone to be seen and not heard, and she agreed to it, right from the start. If you let someone treat you like shit because you want to live on fifth avenue, are you really a victim?

Geezus fuckin' kay-rist. She knew exactly what she was doing and what it would cost her and she did it anyway. That's not on drumpf. That's on her. She was not lulled into a false sense of worth and love and then suddenly turned on in private when there were no witnesses. She was constantly objectified and humiliated right from the beginning. In public. Right from the beginning. Drumpf has not changed how he treats her from the moment he was introduced to her to now.

At best you could argue that she has some sort of mental disorder where she likes to be treated like shit.

"Oh, she's a poor victim, traumatized into remaining with her abuser." Give me a fuckin' break. There are real victims out there. Please don't conflate this gold digging opportunist with them. That belittles and demeans people who are actually worthy of your sympathy and support.

Honest to fuck. I posted one article, because it was the first one I found and the first few paragraphs covered exactly what I had already written. There are a million others. READ. Get informed. We don't have to speculate whether she is or isn't an abused spouse. She clearly is. Where we differ is whether she consciously chose to be abused in exchange for being taken care of financially. And let's be serious, she wasn't an orphan begging for scraps on the street. There are other options besides whoring yourself to an abusive "billionaire" to escape the "horrors" of your life.

I'm pissed off because this is an objective fact. That doesn't mean she's not human, or that there aren't nuances to her or her relationship to her spouse, but that doesn't change the basic fundamental aspects of her relationship to him. In this time of fake news and alt-facts, I'm tired of having to lead a horse to water AND hold his head to it.

I'm pissed because people would rather speculate on what might be happening behind the scenes, when there are reams of information they can process and actually decide for themselves. But no, let's just imagine scenarios where she is an unfortunate victim with no responsibility for how she arrived there and then poo-poo those who criticize her life choices because in your fevered imagination she's not what she obviously is, and thus the criticism is unfair.

[GreenGoo]

This might be what Kurth is getting at, but Melania's just not that interesting to talk through to me. We know she's complicit in the whole mess to at least some degree. We don't know exactly how she feels about Donald (though public signs suggest that she's not entirely thrilled). She could probably be doing more to stop the whole trainwreck, though it's not primarily her doing, and she would presumably pay some kind of a significant cost for doing so. The exact degree of her blameworthiness, while not zero, depends a lot on those details that we don't know.

I think there is some confusion here. Maybe for hepcat it's different, but I don't blame her for Drumpf's presidency. That's absurd. She almost certainly has near zero ability to influence him. It wouldn't surprise me if she couldn't convince him to drink a glass of orange juice at breakfast.

My criticisms of her are based on her own choices. I wouldn't feel any different if she had gone through the same courtship with Zuckerberg instead. She deserves criticism because she's a gold digger who looked for and found a sugar daddy. Not because this particular sugar daddy is a scumbag.

[El Guapo]

This might be what Kurth is getting at, but Melania's just not that interesting to talk through to me. We know she's complicit in the whole mess to at least some degree. We don't know exactly how she feels about Donald (though public signs suggest that she's not entirely thrilled). She could probably be doing more to stop the whole trainwreck, though it's not primarily her doing, and she would presumably pay some kind of a significant cost for doing so. The exact degree of her blameworthiness, while not zero, depends a lot on those details that we don't know.

I think there is some confusion here. Maybe for hepcat it's different, but I don't blame her for Drumpf's presidency. That's absurd. She almost certainly has near zero ability to influence him. It wouldn't surprise me if she couldn't convince him to drink a glass of orange juice at breakfast.

My criticisms of her are based on her own choices. I wouldn't feel any different if she had gone through the same courtship with Zuckerberg instead. She deserves criticism because she's a gold digger who looked for and found a sugar daddy. Not because of who her husband is.

I don't disagree exactly. I just don't care about Melania all that much. She's part of it, but she's also a sideshow.

[GreenGoo]

Until this thread I don't think I've written more than 2 or 3 sentences about her.

She wants to be quietly left alone, and I'm happy to do it. I came out with both barrels because the idea that she doesn't deserve criticism, or worse, she deserves our sympathy, is patently absurd. I don't care what kind of soft touch you are, defending from criticism someone who has chosen to sleep with the devil is...questionable.

I don't care if anyone else feels the same way I do with regard to Melania, but I do get my back up when it is suggested that how I feel is somehow unfair to her.

If Kurth wants to feel sadness at how unhappy a life Melania has made for herself, he can have at it. I had to push back because he's the one who suggested that I didn't know what I was talking about, when by his own admission, he knew nothing about Melania or her relationship with Drumpf, whereas I have unfortunately read about Drumpf and Ivana and then Drumpf and Melania for decades (I'm not very familiar with his first relationship, admittedly).

He's a pig. He latched onto her because he liked the way she looked and she didn't push back when he behaved like a boorish douche. She latched onto him because he was latch ontoable.

If that makes her sympathetic in other peoples' eyes, so be it. But don't lecture me about how unsympathetic I am, particularly if you know nothing about the topic.

I don't even hate Melania. She's just another mercenary in a world full of them. I don't care about the life choices she's made, other than to generally disapprove of that sort of behaviour. I'm pissed at the suggestion that it's *my* opinion that is misinformed, based on nothing and unfair.

If as Kurth suggested, there are better targets for criticism, well I would suggest that there are better individuals deserving of his sympathy.

[GreenGoo]

So I am hearing a couple of the transactions in Avenatti's "possible fraudulent and illegal financial transactions" list are transaction of Michael Cohens that are not the one who was raided by the FBI.

Should be interesting to see the investigation into where he obtained such financial records of people totally uninvolved in this mess.

Here is one, but I am pretty sure there is another one as well.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pr ... -1.6073490

Sure. I don't think any of us are relying on Avenatti to save us from drumpf, although I will admit that every time he's a fly in the ointment for drumpf, I am gleeful. Get back to me when Mueller is making these kinds of mistakes.

Who do you think should begin the investigation? What jurisdiction would this fall under?

[Rip]

So I am hearing a couple of the transactions in Avenatti's "possible fraudulent and illegal financial transactions" list are transaction of Michael Cohens that are not the one who was raided by the FBI.

Should be interesting to see the investigation into where he obtained such financial records of people totally uninvolved in this mess.

Here is one, but I am pretty sure there is another one as well.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pr ... -1.6073490

Sure. I don't think any of us are relying on Avenatti to save us from drumpf, although I will admit that every time he's a fly in the ointment for drumpf, I am gleeful. Get back to me when Mueller is making these kinds of mistakes.

Who do you think should begin the investigation? What jurisdiction would this fall under?

At this point I understand the Inspector General of the Treasury Department is investigating it.

Makes sense as it is a violation of banking privacy laws.

[Sepiche]

Makes sense as it is a violation of banking privacy laws.

So is your contention that it was illegal for him to accept and release leaked documents? Asking for a friend.

[Rip]

Makes sense as it is a violation of banking privacy laws.

So is your contention that it was illegal for him to accept and release leaked documents? Asking for a friend.

A day after revelations about money flows into an account set up by President Donald Trump’s longtime attorney, the U.S. Treasury’s internal watchdog is reviewing whether confidential banking information was improperly leaked.

“We are conducting an inquiry into possible improper dissemination of Bank Secrecy Act information,” said Rich Delmar, a spokesman for the Treasury’s inspector general, adding that the review is “predicated on information that was in the New York Times article earlier this week.”

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial institutions are required to report suspicious transactions to the Treasury. Unauthorized disclosure of these so-called suspicious-activity reports is a criminal offense.

In televised remarks Tuesday, Avenatti said that First Republic Bank had filed three SARs to the U.S. Treasury related to the Cohen account. The Treasury had declined Avenatti’s request to release those documents, Avenatti told MSNBC.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rly-leaked

Sounds like it to me. Pretty ballsy to request the Treasury Department release something and then disclose the info on TV when they decide not to.

[geezer]

We don't know exactly how she feels about Donald (though public signs suggest that she's not entirely thrilled). She could probably be doing more to stop the whole trainwreck, though it's not primarily her doing, and she would presumably pay some kind of a significant cost for doing so. The exact degree of her blameworthiness, while not zero, depends a lot on those details that we don't know.

Friend of a friend knows her well, likes her a bunch, and assuming what I'm told is accurate, you've got it pretty right, with the caveat being that the "significant cost" isn't necessarily her concern except that she's protective of her kid and wants what's best for him. On the whole, I'm fairly sympathetic toward her based on what little I know.

I have heard the doting on the kid stuff before. She doesn't use a nanny and actually does her own kid rearing. Egads!

Yes, that would also conform to what I've been told.

[geezer]

I think, should her story ever be told, that a lot of people are going to find they underestimated the kind of power that kind of victimizer can have over his victims.

And we already know he's the kind of person who gets his way through intimidation and power.

This is fucking stupid. She dated him for 7 freakin' years before deciding that marriage was a good idea. She dated him while he was still married to another trophy wife. He had already divorced 1 trophy wife, who was available if Melania had any misgivings about what she was getting herself into. Drumpf was looking for someone to be seen and not heard, and she agreed to it, right from the start. If you let someone treat you like shit because you want to live on fifth avenue, are you really a victim?

Geezus fuckin' kay-rist. She knew exactly what she was doing and what it would cost her and she did it anyway. That's not on drumpf. That's on her. She was not lulled into a false sense of worth and love and then suddenly turned on in private when there were no witnesses. She was constantly objectified and humiliated right from the beginning. In public. Right from the beginning. Drumpf has not changed how he treats her from the moment he was introduced to her to now.

At best you could argue that she has some sort of mental disorder where she likes to be treated like shit.

"Oh, she's a poor victim, traumatized into remaining with her abuser." Give me a fuckin' break. There are real victims out there. Please don't conflate this gold digging opportunist with them. That belittles and demeans people who are actually worthy of your sympathy and support.

Honest to fuck. I posted one article, because it was the first one I found and the first few paragraphs covered exactly what I had already written. There are a million others. READ. Get informed. We don't have to speculate whether she is or isn't an abused spouse. She clearly is. Where we differ is whether she consciously chose to be abused in exchange for being taken care of financially. And let's be serious, she wasn't an orphan begging for scraps on the street. There are other options besides whoring yourself to an abusive "billionaire" to escape the "horrors" of your life.

I'm pissed off because this is an objective fact. That doesn't mean she's not human, or that there aren't nuances to her or her relationship to her spouse, but that doesn't change the basic fundamental aspects of her relationship to him. In this time of fake news and alt-facts, I'm tired of having to lead a horse to water AND hold his head to it.

I'm pissed because people would rather speculate on what might be happening behind the scenes, when there are reams of information they can process and actually decide for themselves. But no, let's just imagine scenarios where she is an unfortunate victim with no responsibility for how she arrived there and then poo-poo those who criticize her life choices because in your fevered imagination she's not what she obviously is, and thus the criticism is unfair.

Dood... Jeebus.

[Holman]

Makes sense as it is a violation of banking privacy laws.

So is your contention that it was illegal for him to accept and release leaked documents? Asking for a friend.

A day after revelations about money flows into an account set up by President Donald Trump’s longtime attorney, the U.S. Treasury’s internal watchdog is reviewing whether confidential banking information was improperly leaked.

“We are conducting an inquiry into possible improper dissemination of Bank Secrecy Act information,” said Rich Delmar, a spokesman for the Treasury’s inspector general, adding that the review is “predicated on information that was in the New York Times article earlier this week.”

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial institutions are required to report suspicious transactions to the Treasury. Unauthorized disclosure of these so-called suspicious-activity reports is a criminal offense.

In televised remarks Tuesday, Avenatti said that First Republic Bank had filed three SARs to the U.S. Treasury related to the Cohen account. The Treasury had declined Avenatti’s request to release those documents, Avenatti told MSNBC.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rly-leaked

Sounds like it to me. Pretty ballsy to request the Treasury Department release something and then disclose the info on TV when they decide not to.

The secrecy of Trump's and Cohen's money laundering is the real victim here.

[Kurth]

If Kurth wants to feel sadness at how unhappy a life Melania has made for herself, he can have at it. I had to push back because he's the one who suggested that I didn't know what I was talking about, when by his own admission, he knew nothing about Melania or her relationship with Drumpf, whereas I have unfortunately read about Drumpf and Ivana and then Drumpf and Melania for decades (I'm not very familiar with his first relationship, admittedly).

Ok. Last post from me on this: I think the quote above captures our disconnect. My take on your position is that because you've read some stuff about Melania and her relationship with Trump, you believe you are in a good position to pass judgment and condemn her. But you're talking about a relationship and the motivations behind it. Contrary to what you write, I don't believe your opinion about those things is an "objective fact." Relationships and the emotions and motivations underlying them are murky and complicated things. And I think that's especially the case when there is a clear power imbalance from the get go and overwhelming evidence one of the people in the relationship is a domineering bully and the other has been subject to persistent and repeated victimization. Then you throw a kid into the mix, and things get even more complicated.

I'm not suggesting Melania is a blameless innocent deserving of anyone's sympathy. I'm just suggesting maybe we should be a little less certain about our judgment that she's deserving of our unabashed contempt.

Actually, it would be nice if we were all a little less certain about a lot of things!

[gilraen]

I have heard the doting on the kid stuff before. She doesn't use a nanny and actually does her own kid rearing. Egads!

Not that it really matters that much, but at the same time that Melania was insisting that she didn't have nannies for Barron (that was in interviews 2-3 years ago), in another interview she was also telling a "cute" story how her son was little and would tell his nannies "you're fired". She can't have it both ways.

[Zaxxon]

For my part, I don't claim to have enough info to judge her based on the specifics or history of her relationship with The Donald. It's enough to judge her based on the objective fact that she's married to the biggest bully in the world yet claims anti-bullying as a signature issue.

I'd have had similar disparaging remarks had Skyler White made a public campaign against meth dealing.

[Kurth]

For my part, I don't claim to have enough info to judge her based on the specifics or history of her relationship with The Donald. It's enough to judge her based on the objective fact that she's married to the biggest bully in the world yet claims anti-bullying as a signature issue.

I'd have had similar disparaging remarks had Skyler White made a public campaign against meth dealing.

Sure, but those remarks presumably wouldn't be that Skyler White was a gold-digging whore, right?