The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[N.E. Brigand]

In a hearing today, FBI Director Christopher Wrap confirmed a statement by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, that the conservative social media site Parler "sent the FBI evidence of planned violence in DC on January 6. Parler referred this content to FBI for investigation over 50 times," and the content included "specific threats of violence being planned at the Capitol."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The New York Times is reporting that the Manhattan D.A.'s office has obtained the personal tax returns of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and that he might face charges for failing to pay taxes on benefits given to him by Trump as soon as this summer. Or he might not face any charges. Of course the most likely possibility is that the prosecutors are trying to put pressure on him to testify against others, including Trump and his children, either to avoid any charges, or to cut a deal to reduce or drop charges that are brought.

Here's a link to the article as it appear in the Seattle Times, which is not behind a paywall: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... is-summer/

[N.E. Brigand]

One of the very few bits of new information in Don McGahn's testimony does give regular people a glimpse into one of the clever ways that reporters hide their sources.

McGahn told the House last Friday that he was an unnamed source for this Washington Post story from January 2018, just a year into Donald Trump's presidency. That Post story followed up on a New York Times story, for which McGahn told Congress last week he was not the source, that had reported that McGahn had told Trump in the summer of 2017 that he would resign if Trump fired Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Post story updated the Times story with this tidbit:

"McGahn did not deliver his resignation threat directly to Trump but was serious about his threat to leave, according to a person familiar with the episode."

We now know that "a person familiar with the episode" was McGahn himself. How did the Post hide that fact? Have a look at these paragraphs from their story:

The special counsel probe has quickly expanded to include an exploration of whether Trump has attempted to obstruct the ongoing investigation — a line of inquiry that could now include the president's threats to fire Mueller himself.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel's office, declined to comment. McGahn did not respond to requests for comment.

A White House spokesman referred questions to Ty Cobb, the attorney coordinating the administration's response to the Russia investigations, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment. John Dowd, an attorney for the president, declined to comment.

Emphasis added. And I'm sure that bolded sentence is absolutely true: after McGahn gave the reporters the information about what happened six months earlier, they probably followed up with a couple emails asking him to comment, and he didn't respond. Because he had already commented. And the article never said that he didn't. Only that he didn't "respond to requests." It doesn't even say he didn't respond to "all requests." He might have responded to other requests they made before that.

Reporters do this sort of thing all the time. I'm not saying it's necessarily bad. It's often what they need to do to get a story. This is just a reminder about how closely you have to read the news to see around the tricks of the trade.

Putting this here because it has to do with media sourcing:

Ben Smith, who covers the media for The New York Times, reports that, based on his conversation with 16 different journalists working for various outlets, Fox News host Tucker Carlson is a regular source for (1) embarrasing stories about Donald Trump and (2) behind-the-scenes stories about Fox News.

Smith writes that it's an "open secret" that Carlson plays both sides, and that his readiness to act as a source leads other journalists to go easy on Carlson himself.

Edited to add this wise observation (source):

That Tucker Carlson is a "secret" source for reporters is not a surprise and isn’t really news. The real story, which isn’t explicitly mentioned, is that the country’s most powerful reporters cozy up to a famed white supremacist and launder stories on his behalf.

As I said, the mainstream media skews to the right.

[N.E. Brigand]

Putting this here because it has to do with media sourcing:

Ben Smith, who covers the media for The New York Times, reports that, based on his conversation with 16 different journalists working for various outlets, Fox News host Tucker Carlson is a regular source for (1) embarrasing stories about Donald Trump and (2) behind-the-scenes stories about Fox News.

Smith writes that it's an "open secret" that Carlson plays both sides, and that his readiness to act as a source leads other journalists to go easy on Carlson himself.

Edited to add this wise observation (source):

That Tucker Carlson is a "secret" source for reporters is not a surprise and isn’t really news. The real story, which isn’t explicitly mentioned, is that the country’s most powerful reporters cozy up to a famed white supremacist and launder stories on his behalf.

As I said, the mainstream media skews to the right.

It probably seems like I'm belaboring this point unnecessarily, but I emphasize it because despite (or because of) his tendency to push racist talking points, Tucker Carlson is one of America's most popular broadcast figures, and as the Times piece notes, he's very influential even in the mainstream that he claims to despise -- even though (as David Frum notes here) Carlson is so well known as a fabulist that his employer, Fox News, successfully argued in court that he couldn't defame someone, not even when falsely accusing that person of a crime, because his statements "would not have been taken by reasonable listeners as factual pronouncements but simply as instances in which [people like Carlson] expressed their views over the air in the crude and hyperbolic manner that has, over the years, become their verbal stock in trade" (that quote is Fox's argument, which again, won in court).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

CNN is reporting that the Trump Organization as well as its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, could face criminal charges as soon as next week. Weiselberg has reportedly thus far refused to cooperate with the investigation. It remains to be seen whether facing actual charges may change that position.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics ... index.html

Most likely, it will continue the pattern of people around Donald Trump taking the fall for him, and him walking away unscathed.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

With all the attention on the New York investigation and to some extent on the so-called Georgia investigation, it easy to forget about the ongoing investigation in D.C. regarding corruption in the Trump inaugural committee, which is also continuing to heat up.

D.C. Prosecutors Set Their Targets on Don Jr.’s Posse

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN is reporting that the Trump Organization as well as its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, could face criminal charges as soon as next week. Weiselberg has reportedly thus far refused to cooperate with the investigation. It remains to be seen whether facing actual charges may change that position.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics ... index.html

Most likely, it will continue the pattern of people around Donald Trump taking the fall for him, and him walking away unscathed.

Attorneys for Donald Trump say that the New York District Attorney's office told them today that the former president himself will not be charged at this time.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

At this time.

[N.E. Brigand]

With all the attention on the New York investigation and to some extent on the so-called Georgia investigation, it easy to forget about the ongoing investigation in D.C. regarding corruption in the Trump inaugural committee, which is also continuing to heat up.

D.C. Prosecutors Set Their Targets on Don Jr.’s Posse

Too many Trump administration scandals to keep up with.

Today, the Washington Post reported on Sonny Perdue, who was Donald Trump's Secretary of Agriculature from 2017 to 2021. He had also been Governor of Georgia from 2003 to 2011. (His cousin, David Perdue, was U.S. Senator from Georgia from 2016 to 2021; he lost to Jon Ossoff in the run-off election on January 6.)

Between his terms as Governor and Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue was in private business, and his company, AGrowStar, in 2015 tried to purchase a South Carolina property from Archer Daniels Midland, an enormous agriculture corporation (net worth $27 billion). ADM had paid $5.5 million for the property in 2010. They offered to sell it to Perdue's company for $4.4 million.

But then in December 2016, after Perdue was known to be under consideration for a position in the Trump administration and the Agriculture position was considered his likely post, but before Donald Trump nominated him for that position, ADM sold the South Carolina property to Perdue's company for $250,000. Perdue did not disclose that purchase; apparently the rules don't require that because it happened before his nomination.

And then during the Trump administration, the Dept. of Agriculture made decisions that probably made ADM hundreds of millions of dollars.

[N.E. Brigand]

If the Trump Organization is found guilty, do you think it will serve its sentence in a minimum security facility?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The indictments will reportedly be unsealed around 2 p.m. EDT (about 20 minutes from now).

Weisselberg surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office this morning and is set to be arraigned later today.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Prosecutors allege 15-year tax scheme, charges include 15 felony counts against Trump Org

Prosecutors allege Weisselberg evaded taxes on $1.7 million of income. He showed up at the indictment in handcuffs. That begs the question if they end up charging Trump, will he also appear wearing handcuffs.

[N.E. Brigand]

I did not realize that "The Trump Organization is a trade name that embraces a number of privately held corporate and partnership entities whose beneficial owners include Donald J. Trump and the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust dated April 7, 2014".

The indictment is actually against Allen Weiselberg and two of those entities, The Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp.

I wonder if the latter two will flip on Weiselberg in order to avoid lengthy prison sentences.

(Yes, I'm ridiculing the very idea of corporate personhood.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The "Trump Organization" [sic] put out a statement saying ""The District Attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney would ever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics."

Notice what this statement does not say. It does not say that Weiselberg or the charged entities did not engage in the charged conduct. And it does not say that the charged conduct was not illegal.

Translation: "sure we violated the law, but we are supposed to be above the law."

[N.E. Brigand]

So Weiselberg evaded just over $1 million in taxes.

And that includes federal taxes -- in fact, that accounts for more than half the total.

Donald Trump has claimed that he and his companies are always being audited by the IRS.

This scheme is alleged to have taken place over 15 years.

Why didn't the IRS ever notice this?

[N.E. Brigand]

Daniel Shaviro, a Professor of Taxation at NYU Law School, writes:

"I've read the Weisselberg indictment. If we take its assertions as true, this is no ticky-tack, or foot fault, or debatable case of tax fraud. You might as well repeal the federal, state, and city income taxes as discover this sort of conduct and not prosecute it."

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And Daniel Hemel, who teaches tax law at the University of Chicago, says this: "If the allegations in the indictment are true, this was pants-on-fire tax evasion. It is very hard to believe that this could have happened without the man on top knowing."

- - - - - - - - - -
Just six days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial arguing that there was no reason to beef up the IRS, because there isn't much crime for them to catch: people who avoid taxes generally don't break the law, the Journal claimed. Instead their accountants find clever ways to exploit loopholes in the law, so that they can legally avoid paying taxes.

But maybe the Trump/Weisselberg way of avoiding taxes is the exception to the regular practice of wealthy tax dodgers.

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Andrew Feinberg asks a good question about Eric Trump's comments on the charges against The Trump Organization on Fox News tonight: "Does the lawyer for the indicted company that Eric is an executive vice president at know he's on TV?"

[N.E. Brigand]

In a speech today, Donald Trump tried out a defense based on ignorance: "They go after good hardworking people for not paying taxes on a company car. You didn't pay tax on the car. Or on a company apartment. You used an apartment because you need an apartment, because you have to travel too far, where your house is. Or education for your grandchildren. I don't even know: do you have to--does anybody know the answer to that stuff?"

So it's worth noting that he tweeted this in 2016: "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them."

Edit: Lev Parnas, the Ukranian-American businessman who was wound up in the scandal that led to Donald Trump's first impeachment, who met with Trump on numerous occasions, and who has been indicted for his work with Rudy Giuliani assisting foreign actors in their efforts to influence U.S. politics, points out that Trump has made several other public statements claiming to be very knowledgeable about the tax laws.

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Additionally, I'm not sure this approach will resonate with his supporters: how many people at that rally have had their company pay for their grandcildren's education?

Donald Trump Jr. was also publicly commenting on the case in the past 24 hours. He said during a television interview that if you don't count what his father paid for Weisselberg's grandchildren's tuition, then that means that Weisselberg only avoiaded paying $60,000 per year in taxes.

The average American's salary is less than $36,000 per year.

[N.E. Brigand]

Daniel Alonso, a former federal and New York state prosecutor, points out that in 2018, SDNY gave Allen Weisselberg a limited immunity so that they could compel him to testify to a grand jury about the crimes that Michael Cohen was charged with. That may have been a factor preventing the New York DA's office from pursuing Weisselberg directly on the crimes that were widely thought to be under investigation: the real estate and bank fraud crimes that Cohen testified about to Congress before he went to jail.

[N.E. Brigand]

Conservative cartoonist Ben Garrison accidentally draws something that's accurate:



Now for some reason I'm thinking of the trailer for the Schwarzenegger Hamlet action movie in Last Action Hero.

"To be, or not to be?"

(castle blows up)

"Not to be."

[Frelga]

... How to say you didn't read Don Quixote without saying you didn't read Don Quixote.