The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump has filed a motion to have his dismissed defamation lawsuit against Hillary Clinton et al. reinstated based on the conspiratorial claims in Special Counsel John Durham's report, and as noted here, Trump also indicates in the motion that he's going to move to have the judge removed from his case on the grounds that "this Court imposing sanctions against President Trump and his counsel raise reasonable questions as to the appearance of impartiality of the Court."

The judge has ruled against Trump's motion: "the Durham Report changes nothing."

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump has filed a motion to have his dismissed defamation lawsuit against Hillary Clinton et al. reinstated based on the conspiratorial claims in Special Counsel John Durham's report, and as noted here, Trump also indicates in the motion that he's going to move to have the judge removed from his case on the grounds that "this Court imposing sanctions against President Trump and his counsel raise reasonable questions as to the appearance of impartiality of the Court."

The judge has ruled against Trump's motion: "the Durham Report changes nothing."

And speaking of John Durham: in the course of his investigation, one of this top deputies, Nora Dannehy, unexpectedly resigned. Now she's been nominated to be on Connecticut's top court, and she's had to testify to the state legislature about her departure. She confirmed what had previously been reported: she left because Attorney General William Barr wanted a preliminary report published before the election. That in itself alarmed her, and she grew even more concerned about the nature of the report, which she felt was not in accordance with Dept. of Justice standards.

[N.E. Brigand]

Among the many shell companies Donald Trump controls is one literally named "China Trademark LLC."

[N.E. Brigand]

Today I was reminded about a story from February 2021 that I know I saw at the time but then forgot. I searched the forums for "Ghislaine" and "Epstein," and it seems that we were too busy focusing on the aftermath of January 6th and other matters to take note of it, but I think it's worth mentioning:

"Ghislaine Maxwell ‘told reporter that Epstein had tapes of Trump and Clinton’."

That's the Independent citing a memoir by Ira Rosen, formerly of the CBS program 60 Minutes, who claims that Maxwell told him this in 2016. Maxwell may have been lying to Rosen. Rosen may have been lying to sell more books. But as regards Trump, it does connect to what Maggie Haberman reported him as having said following Maxwell's arrest.

Since this was the most recent reference on these forums to Jeffrey Epstein, I'll note here that the Department of Justice Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, has issued his "Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York." Here's the link. You can read his one-page statement summarizing the report here. It appears there's nothing new: the Bureau of Prisons is awful, that's all.

Edited to note a new story about Epstein from Business Insider, which reveals that Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands's Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, received campaign contributions from Epstein even after he was a convicted sex offender. In 2018, she also persuaded him to make a large donation to the DCCC -- which is Congressional Democrats' official fundraising PAC -- but the DCCC rejected his donation.

CNBC reports that the "U.S. Virgin Islands issued subpoena to Elon Musk in Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit." This is part of the territory's ongoing lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase for "allegedly enabling and benefiting from Epstein’s trafficking of young women to his private island in the Virgin Islands to be abused by him and others." The territory has asked a federal judge in New York to permit the subpoena to be filed with Musk's registered agent, because they haven't been able to get it to Musk directly. The subpoena was issued about three weeks ago "because of suspicion that Epstein 'may have referred or attempted to refer' Musk as a client to JPMorgan." To be fair to Musk: Epstein seems to have been very good at making connections with wealthy or famous individuals, and in most such cases he was probably just networking.

There's a new story in the New York Times which reports:

The billionaire investor Leon Black agreed to pay $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands in January to be released from any potential claims arising out of the territory’s three-year investigation into the sex trafficking operation of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to a copy of the settlement agreement.

The previously undisclosed settlement came after the Virgin Islands reached a $105 million deal in November with Mr. Epstein’s estate. The next month, the territory sued JPMorgan Chase in federal court over the bank’s 15-year relationship with Mr. Epstein, a registered sex offender who killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019.

"JP Morgan settles the lawsuit brought by the Virgin Islands over its business with Jeffrey Epstein, closing down another avenue of public disclosure about the scope of his criminal empire." The firm has agree to pay $75 million.

[N.E. Brigand]

Trump has filed with New York's appeals court because Justice Arthur Engoron, who's overseeing his case, has yet to issue a ruling, in light of an earlier appeals court decision, about just which past conduct should be included or excluded from consideration in the trial, which is supposed to start Oct. 2.

I don't trust Jose Pagliery's reporting on this. I am hoping to get some clarity from a more reliable source.

This seems like pretty big news: "Judge rules Trump engaged in repeated fraud, effectively deciding $250M civil trial" (ABC).

Edited to add from that story:

The judge immediately canceled all of the defendants' business certificates in New York, and ordered that they must recommend no more than three potential independent receivers to manage the dissolution of the canceled LLCs within 10 days.

This severely restricts Trump's ability to conduct business in New York going forward.

Edited further to add still more from that story:

[Judge Arthur] Engoron also found that Trump inflated the value of his Mar-a-Lago club by at least 2,300%, claiming the property assessed by the county between $18 million and $27.6 million was actually worth between $426,529,614 and $612,110,496.

In total, Engoron wrote that the New York attorney general "submitted conclusive evidence" that the defendants overvalued their assets between $812 million and $2.2 billion.

Engoron also sanctioned Donald Trump’s lawyers for peddling “bogus arguments,” ordering five attorneys to pay $7,500 each. Christopher Kise, Michael Madaio, Clifford S. Robert, Michael Farina and Armen Morian were each ordered to pay within 30 days.

A lawyer for the New York attorney general's office had earlier described "staggering" misrepresentations about the value of Trump's properties and assets, arguing that Trump engaged in a prolonged "bait-and-switch" to lower his tax burden while inflating his assets to obtain favorable loan terms.

[N.E. Brigand]

In his order, Judge Engoron suggests that Donald Trump seems open to "influence buying."

This is in response to Trump's argument in a deposition that he wasn't overinflating the value of his assets because "a buyer from Saudi Arabia" would pay that amount.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, I would say it is a big deal.

Here is the order.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And Trump responds.

[N.E. Brigand]

As did Eric Trump, first saying that with today's decision, he's "lost all faith in the New York legal system," and attributing the result to "hatred" on Judge Engoron's part, and then doubling down on the fraudulent claims for which he was just found liable, by claiming that Mar-a-Lago is "speculated to be worth we'll [sic] over a billion dollars" and not $18 million (which is the bottom end of the range cited by the judge).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If, in fact, Mar-a-Lago was worth over a billion dollars, then the Trumps would be committing tax fraud.

[N.E. Brigand]

And as noted here, what Judge Engoron actually writes is that Donald Trump has signed agreements with Palm Beach that limit the use of the property (in perpetuity?), and it is these restrictions which enable Trump to pay such low taxes.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Trump has filed with New York's appeals court because Justice Arthur Engoron, who's overseeing his case, has yet to issue a ruling, in light of an earlier appeals court decision, about just which past conduct should be included or excluded from consideration in the trial, which is supposed to start Oct. 2.

I don't trust Jose Pagliery's reporting on this. I am hoping to get some clarity from a more reliable source.

Sure enough, this was a tempest in a teapot.

[N.E. Brigand]

Trump has filed with New York's appeals court because Justice Arthur Engoron, who's overseeing his case, has yet to issue a ruling, in light of an earlier appeals court decision, about just which past conduct should be included or excluded from consideration in the trial, which is supposed to start Oct. 2.

I don't trust Jose Pagliery's reporting on this. I am hoping to get some clarity from a more reliable source.

Sure enough, this was a tempest in a teapot.

I thought this would be sorted out, but Pagliery was correct that the trial was put on hold, wasn't he? The appeals court can't lift a hold they never put in place. But until now, I didn't see any more reporting about what was going on. Did you?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It's a little confusing but as i understand it, a stay was never granted. The appellate court simply granted the request to consider granting a stay and then rejected the request for the stay. If a stay had been granted the judge would not have been able to issue the order on the summary judgment motion. Pagliery misrepresented what had happened.

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks for explaining that, V.

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And returning to this thread's roots:

Former Washington Post editor-in-chief Marty Baron (also known for helming the Boston Globe during its early 2000s "Spotlight" investigation into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church* -- Baron was played by Liev Schreiber in the movie) writes in his new book (Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post) that Jared Kushner attempted to convince Fred Ryan, the Post's publisher, to fire Baron in Dec. 2019 because of the Post coverage of the Trump-Russia investigation.

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*Speaking of sexual misconduct in religious settings, Jerry Falwell Jr., who unexpectedly endorsed Donald Trump in early 2016 after Trump fixer Michael Cohen helped Falwell hide a sex scandal involving his wife and their pool man (Cohen says those two things are not related), was eventually fired from Liberty University due to that scandal. He has a suit against Liberty, which he amended today to include allegations that multiple other prominent Liberty employees -- whom Falwell names -- were known to be engaging in their own extramarital escapades without consequence. (Falwell was last discussed in this thread here.)

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump is suing Christopher Steele (in the UK, on a "data protection" claim).

[RoseMorninStar]

*Speaking of sexual misconduct in religious settings, Jerry Falwell Jr., who unexpectedly endorsed Donald Trump in early 2016 after Trump fixer Michael Cohen helped Falwell hide a sex scandal involving his wife and their pool man (Cohen says those two things are not related), was eventually fired from Liberty University due to that scandal. He has a suit against Liberty, which he amended today to include allegations that multiple other prominent Liberty employees -- whom Falwell names -- were known to be engaging in their own extramarital escapades without consequence. (Falwell was last discussed in this thread here.)

Peyton Place? Harper Valley PTA? Do as I say not as I do? Shocked I tell you! Shocked! (Not).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The real reason Trump is pushing for the shutdown (probably not, but maybe)

[River]

When it comes to Trump, the dumbest, most self-serving explanation for anything he does is probably the right one. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if that is, in fact, the rationale behind his orders to elements of the House GOP. Now why they're taking said orders when they were actually elected to represent the will of their districts is a whole other story.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

In the courthouse itself. Not even on the steps outside. Talking about the judge is going to decide the case. Because his attorneys failed to ask for a jury (not that a jury in Manhattan would have been any better for him).