Tag: The Trump Administration

Categories
Donald Trump Melania Trump The Trump Adminstration

Former Press Secretary Ready To Burn Donald And Melania Down By Exposing Their Hidden Scandals: Report

Does the name Stephanie Grisham ring any bells? Considering that she was a member of the Trump administration and staff turnover was a constant during the years failed, one-term former President Donald Trump was in office, you can be forgiven if her name doesn’t automatically evoke any memories of her tenure.

Grisham was chief of staff to Melania Trump and also served as White House press secretary for a time. She’s the press secretary who never once held a press briefing. Remember her now? Here she is:

According to Axios, Grisham may soon be a household name thanks to a tell-all book she’s written about her time inside the Trump administration, because she’s allegedly going to detail scandals none of us knew about:

“Stephanie Grisham has quietly written a top-secret memoir of her four years in Donald Trump’s White House, and a publishing source says she’ll reveal ‘surprising new scandals.'”

The book — entitled I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in The Trump White House — is especially dangerous for the Trumps because Grisham reportedly knows things others don’t:

A source close to the publication told Axios: “Grisham knows where all the bodies are buried because she buried a lot of them herself.”

The source says Grisham “has receipts … she was a press person and it was her job to make sure she knew what was happening.”

Grisham knows the Trump family well, too, according to Axios, and that led a former White House colleague to remark:

“When I heard this, all I could think about was Stephanie surrounded by a lake of gasoline, striking a match with a grin on her face.”

The danger from Grisham’s book is significant for Donald Trump since he’s considering running again in 2024, but the person who would be most impacted is Melania:

“Melania Trump guarded her privacy intensely and trusted almost nobody during her time as first lady. Grisham, as her chief of staff, was one of the very few allowed into her inner sanctum.

“She saw another side of the Trumps — in the residence — that most staffers never got to see.”

And that alone led the former staffer who served with Grisham to warn:

“There isn’t enough water on earth to contain the fire she could set to all of Trump world, including parts like the first lady’s orbit, which not many people are in a position to illuminate.

“It’s hard to articulate how much anxiety this is going to cause.”

Good. As much anxiety as Donald Trump caused during his term of office, it’s about time karma paid him a visit.

Categories
Crime The Trump Adminstration

Steve Bannon’s Legal Problems Have Gone From Bad To Worse

When Donald Trump handed him a presidential pardon in the final days of the Trump administration, Steve Bannon probably thought he was in the clear legally and could stop worrying about being sent to prison.

But Bannon was very wrong.

 

The Washington Post reports that federal prosecutors are refusing to erase his indictment for fraud:

“The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is preparing for trial against three of Bannon’s co-defendants in an alleged border wall fundraising scam, is seeking an ‘administrative’ termination of Bannon’s case, which would halt the prosecution against him for good but would not clear his name from the docket. The case would officially remain pending while the others, who were not pardoned by Trump before he left office in January, await trial.”

That’s not the only legal jeopardy Bannon finds himself in, as Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is also considering whether or not he’ll seek an indictment against the former White House aide for his scheme to embezzle money from his failed “Build the Wall” scheme which turned out to be nothing but a con job:

“Following Bannon’s pardon, which covers only federal charges, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office began its own investigation of the alleged scam, raising the possibility that Bannon could face state fraud charges. If his case remains open in federal court, it is not expected to affect the ability of state prosecutors to file charges.”

Could Bannon be facing charges in both federal and state court? He most certainly could, and since he and his attorneys are likely to litigate the federal case against him in light of his pardon from Trump, the chances increase that if he’s found guilty, Bannon could be serving his time at Attica or Sing Sing, two of the most infamous prisons in the country.

Bannon probably thought being connected to and working for Donald Trump would bring him fame and fortune. Instead, it has resulted in him facing the prospect of spending a large portion of what remains of his life incarcerated.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump The Trump Adminstration

New York AG Tish James Puts Trump On Notice About His Many Alleged Crimes

New York Attorney General Tish James has been on a roll lately when it comes to her ongoing investigation of Donald Trump and his many alleged crimes.

Not long ago, a judge in the Empire State ruled the Trump Organization has to turn over records involving a property that’s currently the subject of a civil investigation by the AG’s office, according to the Washington Post:

“The documents and communications at issue could help investigators answer questions about a conservation easement that was granted several years ago at the Seven Springs estate in suburban New York’s Westchester Country, a move that netted President Trump’s company a $21 million tax deduction. The materials, which Trump’s lawyers had sought to shield, include messages exchanged between an engineer and a land-use lawyer who worked on Trump’s behalf.”

Additionally, James released a letter she and 15 other state attorneys general had sent to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone before the Trump administration came to an abrupty end reminding the White House they were required to “preserve and maintain” all records — including tweets, notes from private conversations, and emails from private servers that might have been used to conduct government work:

“The Trump Administration shouldn’t have to be told that they need to comply with the law and keep all records of official business, but the last four years have shown that the president needs to be constantly reminded what the law is and how he must comply with it. Even the president’s tweets, the private conversations he had with Russian President Putin, and Ivanka’s private email server must be archived. Every bit of this information belongs to the American people and the White House cannot deprive the public of this information.”

The letter from James to the White House counsel is particularly important because it means that every member of the administration was been placed on notice: If you destroy anything at all, you will be a party to obstruction of justice, which just so happens to be a felony.

But the letter is even more significant because it makes clear that James and many of her associates in other states are actively investigating and could charge Trump and his associates with crimes they committed while conducting their “official” duties.

The biggest danger to Donald Trump has never been from federal charges or courts. It’s the states that will be handing down indictments against the president, his family, his business, and members of his administration. And no presidential pardon can exonerate any of the guilty parties. They will have to stand before the bar of justice and answer for their crimes.

Be afraid, Donald. Be very afraid.

 

Categories
Donald Trump The Trump Adminstration

Trump Messed Up Some Of His Pardons – And The Recipients Can Still Be Prosecuted

In the final days of his administration, Donald Trump handed out 74 pardons and commuted the sentences of 70 others who had been convicted and sentenced to federal prison.

NBC News notes that many of those who received pardons from Trump were close friends, former associates, or people he believed would somehow endear him to the rich assholes he’s known to hang out with at Mar-a-Lago:

“A list of 143 people included his former chief strategist and longtime ally Steve Bannon as well as his former top fundraiser Elliott Broidy. Then, with less than an hour to go before President-elect Joe Biden was set to be sworn in, Trump granted one last pardon: to Albert J. Pirro, Jr., the ex-husband of Fox News host and longtime ally Jeanine Pirro.”

But some of those pardons were so narrowly constructed and written that they leave the recipients open to prosecution by the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Former Mueller investigation chief prosecutor Andrew Weissmann spelled out the mistakes Trump made in the pardons of two individuals, longtime Trump friend and confidant Roger Stone and Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort, in an article he wrote for Just Security:

“The pardon for Paul Manafort (on Dec. 23, 2020), is illustrative. By its own terms, the pardon covers only the crimes “for his conviction” on specific charges and not any other crimes (charged or uncharged). Specifically, the pardon is solely for the crimes of conviction — eight in the Eastern District of Virginia and two in the District of Columbia. That leaves numerous crimes as to which Manafort can still be prosecuted, as in Virginia there were 10 hung counts. In Washington, the situation is even more wide open. In that district, Manafort pleaded to a superseding information containing two conspiracy charges, while the entire underlying indictment — containing numerous crimes from money laundering, to witness tampering, to violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act — now remains open to prosecution as there was no conviction for those charges.”

And then we have Roger Stone and a rouges gallery of other criminals:

“Manafort is not the only example of narrow Trump pardons that may be rectified by the incoming Attorney General. The same narrow pardons were provided to Special Counsel Office defendants Roger Stone (Dec. 23, 2020), George Papadopoulos (Dec. 22, 2020), and Alex van den Zwaan (Dec. 22, 2020), as well as the myriad other felons who received pardons or commutations on December 22 and 23, 2020. As noted, these defendants include murderers, corrupt politicians and law enforcement officers, and Philip Esformes, the single largest health care fraudster in history. These windows of opportunity are due in significant part to a practice followed by prosecutors’ offices across the country: permitting defendants to plead to some, but not all, of their crimes. That feature of these cases should now redound to the benefit of the government, as it may now permit the Department to see that justice is done.”

All of these people can be tried and convicted once again, and this time they won’t be getting a presidential pardon, so they’ll have to serve all of their sentences without the promise of a get-out-of-jail free card waiting for them if they agree to not testify against Trump.

As with everything he does, Donald Trump failed. He wanted to provide protection to those who didn’t testify against him, but all he did was make it more likely they’ll wind up in prison for much longer than they anticipated.