Author: Andrew Bradford

Proud progressive journalist and political adviser living behind enemy lines in Red America.

Categories
Donald Trump U.S. Senate

Former Solicitor General Has A Fascinating Theory For Why Lindsey Graham Continues To Kiss Trump’s A*s

Why does Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) remain so fervently loyal to Donald Trump? The failed, one-term president can’t do anything for Graham politically, and the South Carolina senator isn’t even up for reelection until 2026.

Could it be that Graham is trying to cover his ass legally, because he knows that his neck is on the line when it comes to a legal matter that Trump is also facing?

Neal Katyal, who served as acting Solicitor General in the Obama administration, had some thoughts on the matter that he shared Monday on MSNBC.

Pointing to the investigation being conducted by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis into efforts Trump made to get election totals in the Peach State overturned by calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Katyal noted that Graham also tried to meddle in the Georgia election:

“Racketeering is often really about violent crimes like murder or kidnapping, but Georgia defines it more broadly to include false statements made to state officials.

“And here Trump does have a defense. “What he’s going to say is ‘I wasn’t falsifying information, I genuinely believed I had won the election.’ Now ordinarily, that kind of defense wouldn’t pass the smell test, but when you’re dealing with delusion of grandeur Donald, maybe he’s got a defense there.”

Katyal then theorized that Graham and others who are part of the larger conspiracy to meddle in the Georgia election may be looking for a way to flip on Trump, cooperate with prosecutors, and save their own skins:

“The investigation is not just about Trump. It’s also about Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani, the former U.S. Attorney, Mr. Byung Pak and some others. And any of those folks can flip on Trump.

“Why is (Graham) still paling around with Donald Trump? Well, one shouldn’t rule out … the possibility that he might be paling around with Donald Trump because he’s hoping Trump will let something slip that Lindsey Graham can use in exchange for a deal.”

Think about it: Graham doesn’t want to be indicted and face a trial in Georgia. And he certainly doesn’t want to do 20 years in a Georgia prison for racketeering.

If indeed Graham does make a deal and agree to testify against Trump, the Donald could be in a world of hurt.

Here’s Neal Katyal on MSNBC:

 

Categories
Business Donald Trump

The Trump Organization Is Hemorrhaging Massive Amounts Of Money: Report

Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, is hemorrhaging money, especially at its golf resorts, according to a report from Forbes:

“The Trump Organization, which has … declared losses of roughly $90 million at its European golf resorts, according to an analysis of records from Ireland and the United Kingdom. Since the president opened his Aberdeen course in 2012, he has lost $15.5 million. Business has been even worse at Turnberry, which Trump bought in 2014 for $65 million. Despite investing an additional $75 million or so to fix up the property from 2014 to 2018, the place piled up losses of $58 million, according to an analysis of financial reports. The 2019 figures, first reported by the Scotsman, bring Turnberry’s total losses to $61 million since 2014.”

All of Trump’s golf resorts — which were once a major source of revenue for the company — have seen dramatic declines since Trump took office:

For example, at the 643-room Trump National Doral in Miami, Forbes notes:

“Revenues dropped to $87.5 million in 2016, and profits slid to $12.4 million. After election night, the resort lost 100,000 booked room nights, according to someone familiar with the business. Revenue plummeted to $75.4 million in 2017, and profits sank to $4.3 million.”

This latest bad financial news comes on top of the losses suffered by Trump’s hotels during the coronavirus pandemic, which has also negatively impacted the Trump Organization’s bottom line, as was first reported earlier this year:

“Seventeen of Trump’s clubs and hotels have closed. The remainder of Trump properties are operating at a fraction of their normal capacity: hotels running with restaurants closed, golf clubs operating with clubhouses shut down, and golfers warned not to share carts or touch the flagsticks.”

Simply put, not only is Donald Trump and his company facing serious legal problems in the very near future, there’s a very real possibility that the Trump Organization could be on the verge of bankruptcy.

Looks like karma is starting to catch up with the ex-president in a major way.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Elections Uncategorized

Former Prosecutor: DA In Georgia Has Trump Nailed On Election Meddling Charges

With all of the legal issues swirling around failed, one-term former President Donald Trump, it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with all of the jurisdictions currently investigating and possibly preparing to indict him.

One of the cases that hasn’t gotten nearly as much ink as the ongoing probes in New York is the election meddling investigation being conducted by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, who believes that the Donald meddled in the 2020 election in the Peach State by calling Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and urging him to “find” thousands of votes that would turn the tide and allow Trump to be declared the winner.

Willis’ case, according to former U.S. Attorney Michael J. Moore, is a strong one.

Moore was asked by CNN host Fredricka Whitfield:

“Michael, how difficult is it to build a case around fraud in particular?”

Moore responded:

“You can build it. You just have to be specific in your claims and allegations,. You want to show somebody had an intent to do something wrong, and that they tried to influence somebody else to participate in it or to turn things in a way that made it more favorable to the defendant. So fraud is a tough case on its own. But again, in these cases, you either trace the money, you trace the phone call, you trace the emails.”

He added that the phone call Trump made is compelling evidence:

“What you find is these fraudsters and folks out there get caught by their own tongue. They just are unable to keep their mouths shut. That’s why we’ve got an hour-long, essentially, confession about the president in Georgia on the case. He is soliciting somebody, that being the secretary of state, to commit election fraud. When you have a confession, the case against is a lot simpler.”

The tape of the phone call Trump made to Raffensperger makes clear that the former president did indeed try to meddle with the election results in Georgia. The grand jury Willis has impaneled will indict Trump and the case will go to trial. And there’s a very real possibility that Trump will be found guilty.

Fani Willis has Donald Trump nailed on the charge of election meddling. His phone call is all the evidence she needs to prove the serial sexual assaulter did indeed attempt to overturn the will of voters in Georgia.

Game, set, and match, Fani Willis.

Here’s Michael J. Moore on CNN Saturday:

 

Categories
Donald Trump Elections Polls

MAGA Faithful Have An Online Meltdown After A Poll Shows Americans Consider Trump A Failure

It seems that everyone except Donald Trump’s deranged supporters know that the current president is a massive failure who didn’t win a second term, was impeached, and is leaving the White House in disgrace, the most disliked American head of state since Richard Nixon.

Proof of that arrived courtesy of a USA Today/Suffolk University poll which shows that 50 percent of those surveyed say Donald Trump is indeed a failure:

“Fifty percent of Americans now predict history will judge him as a ‘failed’ president.

“The survey, taken in the waning weeks of his administration, shows the risks of actions he is contemplating on his way out the door. Americans overwhelmingly say issuing a preemptive pardon for himself would be an abuse of presidential power, and an even bigger majority, including most Republicans, say he should attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration to demonstrate the peaceful transfer of power.”

The overall breakdown of responses in the survey are telling:

“Asked how history would judge Trump’s presidency, 16% predict he will be seen as a great president, 13% as a good president, 16% as a fair president, and 50% as a failed president. Five percent are undecided.” 

Trump’s numbers are also significantly lower than those of his predecessor, Barack Obama:

Then, a USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll found that half of Americans predicted history would view Obama in a positive light, with 18% calling him a great president and 32% a good one. Twenty-three percent called him a failed president.

That poll was all it took for the MAGA minions to lose their tiny minds on social media, where they proved just how clueless they truly are:

https://twitter.com/britektire/status/1342116893138685952?s=20

https://twitter.com/mujikins27/status/1342122152712163332?s=20
https://twitter.com/BamaStryker/status/1342109924474687488?s=20

What’s going to be even more fun is in a few years when Trump gets ranked by historians as the worst president in American history. The Trump worshipers will probably demand that all the history books be burned. (Yeah, as if they could read them.)

 

Categories
Business Crime Donald Trump

Chief Financial Officer Of The Trump Organization Reportedly Ready To Tell ‘Where All The Bodies Are Buried’

Prosecutors in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. have turned their focus to Allen H. Weisselberg, who has served as chief financial officer of the Trump Organization for decades, and are clearly hoping to get him to turn state’s evidence and implicate former President Donald Trump, along with members of his family, according to a report from the New York Times:

“The increased focus on the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, could step up pressure on him to cooperate with the investigation if the prosecutors unearth evidence of wrongdoing on his part. He has served as the Trump Organization’s financial gatekeeper for more than two decades and could be a vital source of information for the government about the inner workings of the company.

“In recent weeks, the prosecutors working for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., have been interviewing witnesses who know Mr. Weisselberg and have asked at least one witness about Mr. Weisselberg’s sons, Barry and Jack Weisselberg, according to two of the people with knowledge of the matter.”

The idea of placing Weisselberg under the microscope in an effort to convince him to flip on his boss makes perfect sense, according to the former president’s niece, Mary:

Additionally, former federal prosecutor Harry Litman noted that Weisselberg is a key to Vance’s investigation because he “knows where all the bodies are buried.”

Would Weisselberg be willing to sing like a proverbial canary? According to Elie Honig, a former prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, we already know that the Trump Org. CFO is indeed willing to cooperate to make sure he isn’t charged with the Donald’s crimes:

And then there’s this from Andrew Weissmann, who was one of special counsel Robert Mueller’s top deputies in the Russia investigation:

The sudden turn to Weisselberg comes just a week after Vance’s office finally obtained eight years of Trump’s tax returns, along with “millions of pages” of his financial records. Those documents are suspected of containing evidence that Trump and his company committed fraud on an unprecedented scale.

For his part, the former president whined in response to the Manhattan D.A. getting his tax returns:

“For more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S.”

However, if Trump has done business by the books and committed no crimes, why did it take the Supreme Court to wrest control of his tax returns away from the Trump Organization? An innocent man would never fight so doggedly to keep such information private. Only a crook with something to hide would go to such lengths.