TBR News November 10, 2018

Nov 10 2018

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. November 10, 2018:”The degree and extent of blatant corruption that is the hallmark of the Trump administration beggars description. Trump’s dishonesty and that of his family and associates is so immense that if all of the sleazy ripoffs and thievery were exposed, no one would believe it.

Trump has lost the House and has made so many enemies in his elevation to what he considers a swindlers delight that his fall from power is  not if but when.

Nixon, when cornered, had the sense to resign but Trump will fight to the end, threatening, blustering, insulting, and stuffing his pockets en route.

In Washington today, the theme among top bureaucrats and lobbyists is a dead pool betting club on the removal of Trump from the public cash register.”

 

The Table of Contents 

  • Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 76
  • 501 Days in Swampland
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
  • Trump’s acting attorney general involved in firm that scammed veterans out of life savings

 

 

Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 76

August 8, 2018

by Daniel Dale, Washington Bureau Chief

The Toronto Star, Canada

The Star is keeping track of every false claim U.S. President Donald Trump has made since his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. Why? Historians say there has never been such a constant liar in the Oval Office. We think dishonesty should be challenged. We think inaccurate information should be corrected

If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of “false claims,” not lies? You can read our detailed explanation here. The short answer is that we can’t be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not teling the truth.

Last updated: Aug 8, 2018

  • May 30, 2018

“With the Right to Try law I’m signing today, patients with life-threatening illnesses will finally have access to experimental treatments that could improve or even cure their conditions. These are experimental treatments and products that have shown great promise, and we weren’t able to use them before. Now we can use them. And oftentimes they’re going to be very successful. It’s an incredible thing.” And: “The Right to Try also offers new hope for those who either don’t qualify for clinical trials or who have exhausted all available treatment options. There were no options, but now you have hope. You really have hope.”

Source: Remarks at signing of Right to Try legislation

in fact: Trump was exaggerating how dire the situation was before this Right to Try legislation passed. It is not true that there were “no options” for patients before the legislation or that patients simply “weren’t able to use” experimental treatments. Rather, they simply had to ask the Food and Drug Administration for approval first. While many patients objected to this requirement, which the new legislation removed, the FDA approved 99 per cent of all patient requests, the Trump-appointed head of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, testified to Congress in October 2017. The Government Accountability Office confirms: “Of the nearly 5,800 expanded access requests that were submitted to FDA from fiscal year 2012 through 2015, FDA allowed 99 per cent to proceed,” the GAO wrote in a July 2017 report. “FDA typically responded to emergency single-patient requests within hours and other types of requests within the allotted 30 days.” Further, the new legislation will not help the patients whose requests for experimental treatments have been rejected by drug companies themselves. The legislation does not compel the companies to provide access.

Trump has repeated this claim 5 times

“We’re also working very hard in getting the cost of medicine down. And I think people are going to see, for the first time ever in this country, a major drop in the cost of prescription drugs. Right? And, Mr. Secretary, that’s already happening. Right? That’s already happening. You were telling me yesterday that we’re seeing a big — a tremendous improvement.”

Source: Remarks at signing of Right to Try legislation

in fact: There is no sign that a decline in prescription drug prices is “already happening” or that anyone is seeing a “tremendous improvement.” Four months prior to Trump’s remarks, in February 2018, the administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that it expected prescription drug prices would keep rising rapidly in 2018 and beyond: “Prescription drug costs are expected to see the fastest annual growth among health care expenditures over the next decade, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) predicts, rising an average of 6.3% a year due to higher drug prices and more use of specialty drugs such as those for genetic disorders and cancer,” the health news website Managed Care reported. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Managed Care reported, also predicted a sharper increase in prescription drug prices in 2018 than in 2017: “Acceleration in prescription drug price growth (4.4% in 2018 from 2.1% in 2017) reflects the expectation that brand-name drug prices will more strongly influence growth in that year because the dollar value of drugs losing patents in 2018 is smaller than in prior years, the CMS said.”

Trump has repeated this claim 3 times

“There is no one better to represent the people of N.Y. and Staten Island (a place I know very well) than @RepDanDonovan, who is strong on Borders & Crime, loves our Military & our Vets, voted for Tax Cuts and is helping me to Make America Great Again. Dan has my full endorsement!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: Donovan voted against Trump’s tax cuts.

  • May 31, 2018

“The corrupt Mainstream Media is working overtime not to mention the infiltration of people, Spies (Informants), into my campaign! Surveillance much?”

Source: Twitter

in fact: There is no evidence that there were “spies” who “infiltrated” Trump’s campaign; it is now known that there was a single informant, a Republican professor, who made contact with campaign officials to try to get information about its relationship with Russia. Major media outlets have published numerous stories about this move and about Trump’s criticism of it.

Trump has repeated this claim 6 times

“Iger, where is my call of apology? You and ABC have offended millions of people, and they demand a response. How is Brian Ross doing? He tanked the market with an ABC lie, yet no apology. Double Standard!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: Though Trump did not receive a personal phone call, ABC did indeed apologize for this 2017 mistake by reporter Brian Ross. Ross had erroneously reported that former national security adviser Michael Flynn planned to testify that Trump had told him to contact Russian officials during the presidential election. The network issued a correction saying this alleged directive happened after the campaign, during the presidential transition. Its apology read: “We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error we made yesterday. The reporting conveyed by Brian Ross during the special report had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process. As a result of our continued reporting over the next several hours ultimately we determined the information was wrong and we corrected the mistake on air and online. It is vital we get the story right and retain the trust we have built with our audience — these are our core principles. We fell far short of that yesterday. Effective immediately, Brian Ross will be suspended for four weeks without pay.”

“Rod Blagojevich. Eighteen years in jail for being stupid and saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say.” And “And it was foolish … 18 years now.” And: “Eighteen years is I think really unfair.” And: “Because what he did does not justify 18 years in a jail.

Source: Remarks to reporters

in fact: Former Illinois governor Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison, not 18 years.

  • Jun 1, 2018

“We lose over $100 billion a year with Mexico. We lose many, many, many billions of dollars with Canada. Canada doesn’t take — I mean, they’re very restrictive as to taking our agricultural product, and other things. And, you know, all of these countries, including the European Union, they charge five times the tariff. We don’t charge tariffs, essentially. They charge five times what we charge for tariffs. And I believe in the word ‘reciprocal.’ You’re going to charge five times? We’re going to charge five times.”

Source: Media scrum after meeting with North Korean official Kim Yong Chol

in fact: Under NAFTA, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico agree to give most products from the other two countries tariff-free access. It is not clear what Trump was talking about when he said Canada and Mexico “charge five times the tariff.” Also, U.S. data has consistently shown that the U.S. has a trade surplus, not a deficit, with Canada; according to the website of Trump’s own U.S. Trade Representative, “The U.S. goods and services trade surplus with Canada was $8.4 billion in 2017.” (Canadian data, calculated differently, shows a U.S. deficit.)

“We lose many, many, many billions of dollars with Canada. Canada doesn’t take — I mean, they’re very restrictive as to taking our agricultural product, and other things.”

Source: Media scrum after meeting with North Korean official Kim Yong Chol

in fact: Canada does have some protectionism in its agricultural market; its supply management system for dairy and poultry is a prime example. It is patently false, though, that Canada “doesn’t take” U.S. agricultural products. According to a chart released three months prior by Trump’s Department of Agriculture, Canada took more U.S. agricultural exports in 2017, $20.5 billion, than any other country.

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“Well, NAFTA — look, it’s been a terrible deal for the United States. People are starting to see it. We lose over $100 billion a year with Mexico.” And: “But Mexico is making over $100 billion a year and they’re not helping us with our border because they have strong laws and we have horrible laws.”

Source: Media scrum after meeting with North Korean official Kim Yong Chol

in fact: The U.S. does not have a $100 billion trade deficit with Mexico. Trump was off by at least $31 billion, or at least $29 billion if you give him the benefit of the doubt. The U.S. trade deficit with Mexico was $71 billion in 2017 when counting goods alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Including trade in services, the net deficit was $69 billion, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis says. (The Bureau of Economic Analysis uses a different method of calculating deficits and surpluses than the Census Bureau.)

Trump has repeated this claim 34 times

  • Jun 2, 2018

“When you’re almost 800 Billion Dollars a year down on Trade, you can’t lose a Trade War!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: The U.S. had a $566 billion trade deficit with the world in 2017. The deficit can only be described as $800 billion — $810 billion, to be precise — if you ignore all trade in services and only count trade in goods. As usual, Trump did not specify that he was doing so.

Trump has repeated this claim 30 times

“There was No Collusion with Russia (except by the Democrats).”

Source: Twitter

in fact: The word “collusion” — in common language, a “secret agreement or co-operation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose” — simply does not apply to the Russia-related activities of the Democrats. This accusation is based on the fact that the British ex-spy who produced a research dossier on the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia, which was funded in part by Clinton’s campaign, used Russian sources in compiling his information. This does not come close to meeting the definition of “collusion.”

Trump has repeated this claim 22 times

  • Jun 3, 2018

“As only one of two people left who could become President, why wouldn’t the FBI or Department of ‘Justice’ have told me that they were secretly investigating Paul Manafort (on charges that were 10 years old and had been previously dropped) during my campaign? Should have told me!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: The charges against Manafort — who worked on Trump’s campaign for just under five months, from March 2016 to August 2016 — cover some alleged activities that date back years. But they also cover activities that allegedly happened while Manafort was working on the campaign. (One New York Times story began: “Even as he was managing Donald J. Trump’s campaign for president, Paul Manafort lied to banks to secure millions of dollars in cash loans as part of a decade-long money laundering scheme, according to charges unsealed by the special counsel on Thursday.”) Trump creates an inaccurate impression by suggesting the investigation only dealt with acts that were “10 years old.”

  • Jun 4, 2018

“The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow. They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.”

Source: Statement about the Philadelphia Eagles

in fact: All of the Eagles stood for the national anthem in every game of their Super Bowl season. While many Eagles players appear to be critical of Trump, there is no indication that the team disagrees that players should stand for the anthem. Wrote Torrey Smith, a member of the championship team: “So many lies…Here are some facts. 1. Not many people were going to go. 2. No one refused to go simply because Trump ‘insists’ folks stand for the anthem. 3. The President continues to spread the false narrative that players are anti military…There are a lot of people on the team that have plenty of different views. The men and women that wanted to go should’ve been able to go. It’s a cowardly act to cancel the celebration because the majority of the people don’t want to see you. To make it about the anthem is foolish.”

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House. Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: Trump strongly suggested that Eagles players in particular had stayed in the locker room for the playing of the national anthem. None of them did so last season. (A new NFL policy for the coming season allows players to stay in the locker room if they don’t want to stand for the anthem, but Trump did not make clear that he was lambasting the policy in general rather than the Eagles themselves.)

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“….We had Repeal & Replace done (and the saving to our country of one trillion dollars) except for one person, but it is getting done anyway.”

Source: Twitter

in fact: Sen. John McCain’s vote against Trump’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare did not cost the country $1 trillion. As the Washington Post noted: “Trump’s estimate is way off. The Senate bill to repeal and replace Obamacare that Trump is talking about would have reduced the deficit by a net $321 billion over 10 years, according to a joint analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.”

Trump has repeated this claim 4 times

  • Jun 5, 2018

“Wow, Strzok-Page, the incompetent & corrupt FBI lovers, have texts referring to a counter-intelligence operation into the Trump Campaign dating way back to December, 2015. SPYGATE is in full force! Is the Mainstream Media interested yet? Big stuff!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: There is no evidence of any December 2015 texts between Strzok and Page about an investigation into the Trump campaign. This is a conspiracy theory that was floated by right-wing websites and eventually by Fox Business host Lou Dobbs.

  • Jun 6, 2018

“But you’re doing a fantastic job at Energy. And we’re now the largest in the world in energy, Rick (Perry). The largest in the world. And we’re now exporting energy for the first time. Never did it. Now we’re exporting energy. But we have become the largest energy producer in the world.”

Source: Remarks at FEMA hurricane briefing

in fact: The U.S. has exported energy for decades — the U.S. government’s website includes oil-export data dating back to 1920 — so, taking Trump’s claim in the most literal way possible, it is false that the U.S. has just “now” become an exporter. What he was clearly suggesting, though, is that the U.S. has now become a net exporter of energy — exporting more than it imports. But that is also false; the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration estimated in early 2018 that it could happen around 2022. (It is true that U.S. exports have increased significantly in the Trump era to hit an all-time high, but this is not what Trump said.)

Trump has repeated this claim 9 times

“The brand of the Coast Guard has been something incredible what’s happened. Saved 16,000 people, many of them in Texas, for whatever reason that is. People went out in their boats to watch the hurricane. That didn’t work out too well. That didn’t work out too well.”

Source: Remarks at FEMA hurricane briefing

in fact: There is no evidence of Texans going out in boats to “watch” Hurricane Harvey; people used boats to escape the floodwaters or to rescue people. Texas first responders were baffled by this Trump claim when the Houston Chronicle asked about it. “I didn’t see anyone taking the approach that would reflect his comments,” said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. The Chronicle reported: “Coast Guard Petty Officer Edward Wargo said: ‘I don’t know how we would go about confirming that,’ when asked for evidence. ‘I don’t even know how to respond to that,’ said Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association.”

“I also want to recognize the Coast Guard, our other military services. I have to tell you, the Coast Guard saved 16,000 people. What do you think of that, Ben? Sixteen-thousand people.”

Source: Remarks at FEMA hurricane briefing

in fact: The Coast Guard says it “saved nearly 12,000 lives during last year’s hurricane season.” Trump correctly used the 12,000 number in a speech on June 1, just five days prior: “In last year’s historic hurricane season, our Coast Guard — heroes they are — saved almost 12,000 American lives in that short period.”

“And they can be very proud of their country because, literally, this week, we have gotten the best financial numbers, the best economic numbers, the best numbers on unemployment and employment that we’ve ever had as a country.”

Source: Speech at signing of VA Mission Act

in fact: This is an exaggeration. The unemployment numbers are good, but not the best ever. The unemployment rate at the time Trump tweeted was 3.8 per cent; it was 1.2 per cent in 1944, during World War II. Trump is on firmer ground when he claims historic lows for specific groups, like African-Americans and Hispanics — possibly because that racial data was not released until the early 1970s, so we don’t know for sure if there was a wartime low for them as well.

“And we got $1.6 billion — we’ve already started the wall on the southern border. The wall has started. $1.6 billion. So important.”

Source: Speech at signing of VA Mission Act

in fact: Construction on Trump’s border wall has not started. When he has made this claim in the past, Trump has appeared to be referring to a project in which a 2.25-mile stretch of existing wall in California is being replaced by a taller wall. That project was proposed in 2009, and the Los Angeles Times reported that Border Patrol spokesperson Jonathan Pacheco told reporters in March: “First and foremost, this isn’t Trump’s wall. This isn’t the infrastructure that Trump is trying to bring in. … This new wall replacement has absolutely nothing to do with the prototypes that were shown over in the San Diego area.” The $1.6 billion Congress allocated to border projects in 2018 is not for the type of giant concrete wall Trump has proposed: spending on that kind of wall is expressly prohibited in the legislation, and much of the congressional allocation is for replacement and reinforcement projects rather than new construction.

Trump has repeated this claim 20 times

“…Four reporters spotted Melania in the White House last week walking merrily along to a meeting. They never reported the sighting because it would hurt the sick narrative that she was living in a different part of the world, was really ill, or whatever. Fake News is really bad!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: At least one of the reporters present did indeed note that he had seen Melania Trump in the White House. Eamon Javers of CNBC wrote on Twitter: “Not that this will deter the conspiracy theorists, but I saw the First Lady walking with her aides in the West Wing yesterday afternoon.”

 

501 Days in Swampland

A constant drip of self-dealing. And this is just what we know so far …

by Joy Crane and Nick Tabor

Introduction by David Cay Johnston

New York Magazine

On the day he took the oath of office, Donald Trump delivered two messages about what to expect from his administration. First came the lofty promise of his inaugural address. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he vowed. “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth.”

The second message, which Trump delivered without speaking a word, was aimed at a much smaller, but very rich, audience. As the new president’s motorcade left the Capitol, rolling past knots of supporters and protesters, it suddenly stopped three blocks short of the White House. Trump, the First Lady, and the rest of his family got out of their limos and took a three-minute turn in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.

This was no random spot. The very first place Trump headed after being sworn in — his true destination all along, in a sense — was the Old Post Office and Clock Tower, which only 12 days before the election had been repurposed as the Trump International Hotel Washington. The elegant granite structure, whose architectural character Trump had promised to preserve, was now besmirched by a gaudy, faux-gold sign bearing his name. The carefully choreographed stop sent a clear signal to the foreign governments, lobbyists, and corporate interests keen on currying favor in Washington: The rewards of government would now be reaped by a single man — and the people would bear the cost.

7 Of President Trump’s Dictatorial Tendencies

More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal. For Trump, whose business revolves around the marketability of his name, there has proved to be no public policy too big, and no private opportunity too crass, to exploit for personal profit.

Nowhere has the self-enrichment been more evident than at his Washington hotel, which quickly filled up with the very lobbyists and swamp creatures Trump had railed against during his campaign. Oil companies, mining interests, insurance executives, foreign diplomats, and defense contractors all rushed to book their annual conferences at Trump’s hotels and resorts, where Cabinet members graciously addressed them. After hiking the nightly rate to $653 — 32 percent higher than other local luxury hotels — Trump collected $2 million in profits from the property during his first three months in office. By last August, the hotel’s bar and restaurant had hauled in another $8 million in revenue. And although Trump has pledged to give away any money his hotels earn from foreign governments, the plan contains a lucrative loophole: Employees at his hotels admit that they make no effort to identify guests who represent other countries, meaning that much of the foreign money spent at Trump’s properties flows directly into his own pockets. On March 28, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to go forward that charges Trump with violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his D.C. hotel.

In fact, although Trump refuses to disclose the details of his myriad business operations, he continues to enjoy access to every dime he makes as president. Instead of setting up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, as other presidents have done, Trump put his two grown sons in charge of his more than 500 business entities. His sons regularly brief Trump about how the enterprises are doing, enabling him to personally monitor how his decisions in office affect his bottom line. What’s more, only 15 days after this “eyes wide open” trust was set up, Trump amended the fine print to allow him to take money out of the operation any time he pleases. The loophole, buried on page 161 of the 166-page form, stipulates that any “net income or principal” can be distributed to Trump “at his request.” Far from putting his wealth in a blind trust, Trump asked the public for its blind trust, effectively sticking his money in a piggy bank in Don Jr.’s room that he is free to raid at any hour of the day or night.

Trump’s children are working hard to cash in on his time in office — especially with foreign investors. At taxpayer expense, they have flown to Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, and India in search of licensing and real-estate deals, trading on the president’s influence in exchange for investments. But the biggest complication of Trump’s presidency — and the one he works hardest to keep secret — is the way his entire business operation is mired in massive debt. Rather than being independently wealthy, public records show, Trump and the business partnerships in which he is a leading investor owe big banks and foreign governments at least $2.3 billion — far more than his disclosure reports indicate. His largest single loan — for nearly $1 billion — is from a syndicate assembled by Goldman Sachs that includes the state-owned Bank of China. If either Trump or Jared Kushner, who tried to shake down Qatar’s finance minister for a loan, winds up needing to negotiate new terms on his ballooning debt, America could find itself being dictated to by a foreign government — all because the White House, thanks to Trump’s business model, has become a true House of Cards.

What follows is 501 days of official corruption, from small-time graft and brazen influence peddling to full-blown raids on the federal Treasury. Given how little Trump has disclosed about his finances, this timeline of self-dealing is undoubtedly only a fraction of the corruption that will eventually come to light. But as even this initial glimpse makes clear, Trump isn’t draining the swamp — he’s monetizing it. —David Cay Johnston

Trump’s Hotel in D.C.

“The stars have all aligned. I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been.” —Eric Trump, speaking at the hotel

2016

12/7 Diplomats from Bahrain move the country’s National Day celebration from the Ritz-Carlton to the ballroom at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

2017

1/20 A watchdog group calls on the General Services Administration, a federal agency, to stop leasing the Old Post Office to Trump for use as the hotel. The agency’s ethics division, which reports to Trump, rules that the $180 million deal is fine.

/23 Saudi Arabia holds a bash at the hotel after renting rooms for lobbyists for five months. Trump’s haul: $270,000.

2/25 The Kuwaiti Embassy, reportedly pressured by the Trump Organization, moves its National Day celebration from the Four Seasons to Trump’s hotel.

3/1 The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association hosts a dinner at the hotel, drenched in Trump-branded coffee and wine.

3/22 The American Petroleum Institute holds its board meeting at Trump’s hotel, where it meets with EPA chief Scott Pruitt. A month later, Pruitt suspends drilling regulations.

5/1 Rates at the hotel jump to $653 per night, a price hike of 60 percent since Trump’s election.

5/21 A Turkish government council holds its annual conference at the hotel. The group’s chair founded the company that paid $530,000 to former national-security adviser Michael Flynn for lobbying work.

7/17 E-cigarette-makers hold their annual conference at the hotel. Ten days later, the FDA announces it will delay federal oversight of e-cigarettes until 2022.

8/11 A federal agency accidentally posts the hotel’s Q1 profits: $2 million.

9/13 Staffers for Linda McMahon, head of the Small Business Administration, try to cover up the fact that she addressed a business lobbying event at the hotel, avoiding images of hotel signs bearing Trump’s name when posting photos of the event on Twitter.

9/28 The Fund for American Studies, a conservative organization, hosts a lunch at the hotel. The keynote speaker, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, thanks Trump’s staff for helping him get confirmed.

10/4 At its annual board meeting, the National Mining Association is addressed by three Cabinet members: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. “Coal is fighting back,” Perry exults over breakfast with the country’s top mining executives. “Clearly the president wants to revive, not revile, this vital resource.” Five days later, the Trump administration announces the repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have encouraged states to replace coal with wind and solar energy. The plan would have cut climate-warming pollution from coal plants by a third and saved taxpayers and consumers as much as $93 billion a year. The venue for the mining board’s meeting: the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

10/5 A commercial real-estate trade association hosts an awards gala at Trump’s hotel, sponsored by a roster of prominent lobbying agents.

10/11 The American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful conservative lobbying group with ties to the Koch brothers, announces that the venue for its 45th-anniversary gala will be Trump’s hotel. The group requests corporate sponsorships of up to $100,000.

2018

3/5 The Independent Petroleum Association of America holds a three-day lobbying event at the hotel.

3/28 A federal judge declines to stop a lawsuit that accuses Trump of violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his hotel.

Mar-a-Lago

“The ornate Jazz Age house was designed with Old-World Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese influences.” —From a state department promo online

2016

12/31 Mar-a-Lago hosts a New Year’s Eve party with Trump, priced at $525 a ticket. His take for the night: $400,000.

2017

1/1 The resort quietly doubles its initiation fee to $200,000 — a potential haul of $2 million. In return, club members get access to the president on a par with White House officials.

4/4 The State Department runs an online promotion for Mar-a-Lago, which is also picked up by embassy websites in England and Albania.

4/6 Trump and Ivanka meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. That same day, China approves trademarks for three of Ivanka’s brands.

6/16 Financial-disclosure filings show that Trump’s revenues from the resort soared by 25 percent during his presidential run.

7/17 The administration increases the allotment of H2-B visas for foreign workers. Within days, Mar-a-Lago applies for 76 of the new visas — even though a local jobs agency has 5,100 applicants qualified to fill the openings.

11/10 The Republican Attorneys General Association, which has spent more than $75,000 at Trump’s properties in five months, holds a reception at Mar-a-Lago. It later forms a “working group” to partner with the Trump administration to roll back environmental protections.

12/9 Oxbow Carbon, a major energy company that would benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline, holds its annual holiday gala at Mar-a-Lago.

12/31 Trump boosts ticket prices for his New Year’s Eve bash to $750. Taxpayers foot the $26,000 bill for lights, generators, and tent rental.

2018

1/9 The Trump administration opens offshore drilling in all but one state: Florida, where oil and gas exploration could hurt business at Mar-a-Lago.

2/18 Reports reveal that Trump regularly solicits input from Mar-a-Lago members on everything from gun control to Jared Kushner’s favorability. Unlike other politicians, who are limited to asking the wealthy for campaign contributions, Trump has found a way to personally profit from selling access to the president.

2/26 An Israel-focused charity, the Truth About Israel, relocates its gala to Mar-a-Lago in appreciation of the president’s support for Israel.

Trump’s Other Properties & Investments

The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves. They’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars selling access, selling favors, selling government contracts.” —Donald Trump

2016

11/14 In a call with Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, Trump reportedly pushes for approval to build a Trump Tower in downtown Buenos Aires. Ivanka Trump, who oversees the family business with her brothers, sits in on the call.

2017

1/24 Trump signs an executive order to fast-track the Dakota Access Pipeline. He claims to have sold the stock he owns in the pipeline’s builders — as much as $300,000 — but offers no proof.

1/27 Trump issues the travel ban but leaves off Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt — countries where he has significant business interests. His company was paid as much as $10 million for use of his name on a tower in Istanbul, and he registered eight new businesses in Saudi Arabia during his campaign.

2/3 Trump, who owned as much as $5 million in bank stocks in 2016, orders the Treasury secretary to consider ways to roll back regulations on banks. The value of bank stocks soars nearly 30 percent during his first year in office.

2/14 Trump, who owned stock in large oil companies, allows oil companies to hide the payments they make to foreign governments in exchange for extraction rights. The move comes only two months after ExxonMobil, which lobbied for the concession, donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration.

2/21 Angela Chen, a consultant with ties to China’s ruling elite, buys a $16 million penthouse in a Trump-owned property.

2/28 Trump, who owns 12 golf courses in the U.S., rolls back a rule that limits water pollution by golf courses.

/29 Overriding diplomatic concerns, Trump invites Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte to the White House. To gain favor with Trump, Duterte had appointed the president’s partner on the Trump Tower in Manila as his economic envoy to the U.S.

5/7 The Metals Service Center Institute, which is pushing the Commerce Department for steel tariffs, holds its annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.

5/16 The Republican Governors Association holds a conference at Trump’s golf club in Miami, where members strategize with corporate executives over how to persuade the new administration to dismantle environmental regulations and enact other business-friendly moves. Trump’s take for the conference: $400,000.

5/19 Trump proposes slashing HUD’s budget — but retains a subsidy that has poured more than $490 million into a housing complex in Brooklyn where Trump has a financial stake.

6/16 Lynne Patton, an event planner and friend of the Trump family with no experience in housing, is put in charge of the HUD region covering New York and New Jersey — giving her a senior position in the agency that disburses federal subsidies to a Brooklyn housing complex from which Trump made $5 million in 2016. (Patton recused herself from matters involving the complex, after a congressional committee sent a letter to HUD.)*

8/2 Activists protest against JPMorgan Chase, which lobbied to slash the corporate tax rate while paying Trump $1.5 million a year in rent at one of his office buildings.

9/19 Report reveals that the Pentagon spends $130,000 a month in rent at Trump Tower — more than twice as much as other tenants.

10/9 Trump International Hotel in Chicago hosts a two-day conference for the manufacturing industry.

10/10 An insurance-industry trade association holds its four-day annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.

10/16 GEO Group, the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, holds its annual conference at the Trump National Doral. The company poured $450,000 into Trump’s campaign and inauguration after Obama announced plans to end all federal contracts with private prisons. GEO also hired two of Jeff Sessions’s former aides, plus a former Trump Organization employee, as lobbyists. The investment paid off: A month after Trump took office, he ended the ban on private prisons. GEO received a $110 million contract to build a new immigration jail in Texas, plus $44 million a year to operate it. Earlier this year, the federal Bureau of Prisons announced it would slash some 6,000 jobs and transfer more inmates to private facilities.

10/18 Defense contractor L3 Technologies holds its annual meeting at Trump National Doral. L3 depends on government largesse for 84 percent of its revenue.

10/19 In a break with tradition, Trump personally interviews candidates for U.S. attorney in the districts that cover most of his business dealings. For the New York position, he ultimately chooses one of his campaign donors.

11/7 Trump hawks his golf course during a major speech to South Korea’s legislature.

11/8 A payday-lender lobbying group announces it will hold its 2018 annual conference at the Trump National Doral. Two months later, the administration announces it is considering scrapping a rule that requires payday lenders to stop taking advantage of clients who cannot pay off their loans.

2018

1/2 A judge rules that Starrett City, a housing complex in Brooklyn that Trump owns a stake in, can be sold to private developers. The sale is expected to net Trump $14 million after the administration approves it.*

2/21 Mississippi awards $6 million in tax breaks to a new Trump-branded hotel.

Family & Friends

“The company and policy and government are completely separated. We have built an unbelievable wall in between the two.” —Eric Trump

2016

11/13 While appearing on 60 Minutes to discuss her father’s election, Ivanka Trump wears a $10,800 bracelet from her jewelry company. After the interview, the company sends out a “style alert” promoting the bracelet to reporters.

12/6 Firm founded by Melania Trump’s friend and adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff receives $26 million for helping plan the inauguration.

2017

1/5 Eric Trump jets to Uruguay to check on an unfinished Trump condo tower. The trip costs taxpayers $97,830.

2/5 Eric Trump spends $200,000 in taxpayer money to jet to the Dominican Republic to push for a Trump-branded project. The deal — which would put Trump’s name on 17 high-rises — violates a Dominican height limit for new resorts. It also breaks Trump’s vow not to seek overseas deals during his presidency. The Dominican president personally approves the high-rises. “Here in the palace, the president’s thoughts are that this U.S. president is angry and we better not get in his way,” a former Dominican ambassador explains. “We don’t want to cross him.”

2/6 Melania’s lawyers, suing a British paper for libel, argue its reporting ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to monetize her position as First Lady by cashing in on “multi-million-dollar business relationships.”

2/9 Kellyanne Conway offers “free commercial” for Ivanka’s clothing line on Fox News: “Go buy it today, everybody.” Trump refuses to discipline her, defying recommendation of his own ethics agency.

2/18 Taxpayers pay $16,000 to provide security for Eric Trump and Donald Jr. during their trip to open a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai. The event is invitation-only.

3/3 Jared Kushner meets with the CEO of Citigroup, which is lobbying to loosen financial regulations. Citigroup subsequently lends Kushner’s company $325 million to develop a group of office buildings in Brooklyn.

3/9 Kushner fails to disclose his ownership of Cadre, a real-estate start-up. The firm’s value shot up by millions of dollars after he entered the White House.

/20 Eric’s wife posts a photo on Instagram of the family’s weeklong ski vacation in Aspen. Taxpayers were charged $330,000 for security details and another $200,000 for luxury lodgings.

3/20 Ivanka, refusing to place her assets in a blind trust, sets up shop in the West Wing.

4/24 Kushner’s family tries to broker funding for his real-estate ventures with Qatar’s finance minister. The minister declines. A month later, Kushner supports diplomatic actions against Qatar.

5/4 State Department and Voice of America promote Ivanka’s book Women Who Work.

5/5 Trump extends fast-track visas for foreigners who invest $500,000 in U.S. properties. The next day, Kushner’s sister promises visas to Chinese investors if they put $500,000 into the family’s properties in New Jersey.

5/17 Kushner’s company is subpoenaed by federal prosecutors and the SEC for its promotion of the investment-for-visa program.

7/21 CNN finds that even after his family business apologizes for name-dropping Kushner at a marketing event in Beijing, it highlights his White House role in an online sales pitch to Chinese investors.

10/3 Kushner fined $200 for missing a disclosure deadline. To date, he has been forced to change his disclosure form 39 times for failing to mention potential conflicts of interest.

10/4 ProPublica investigation reveals that after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance dropped a criminal investigation against Donald Jr. and Ivanka, their attorney arranged a fund-raiser on Vance’s behalf, donating $32,000 himself and raising at least $9,000 more.

11/1 Apollo Global Management lends Kushner’s real-estate company $184 million — triple the size of its average loan — after meeting with him in the White House. Six weeks later, the SEC drops investigation into Apollo’s finances.

12/3 Kushner is exposed for failing to disclose that his family’s foundation — which he led for nine years — funded an illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank. Just before Trump took office, Kushner tried to sway a U.N. vote against an anti-settlement resolution.

2018

2/20 Donald Jr. tours India to sell Trump-branded homes; several newspapers run an ad promising a “conversation and dinner” with him — for an additional fee of $30,000.

Officials & Their Pals

“We are going to send the special interests packing.” —Donald Trump

2017

1/19 During his confirmation as Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin fails to disclose a hedge fund he registered in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying federal taxes — the very thing he is supposed to collect as Treasury secretary.

1/24 During his confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price fails to disclose an insider deal he got on $520,000 in stock in a biotech company. As secretary, he will be in a position to approve a drug the company has developed.

2/9 Reports reveal that a top White House aide, Chris Liddell, participated in meetings between Trump and the CEOs of 18 companies in which he held large amounts of stock — a possible criminal offense. The companies included Lockheed Martin, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, and Dow Chemical.

3/16 Congressional investigators reveal that Trump’s former national-security adviser Michael Flynn — who wanted to “rip up” American sanctions on Russia — failed to report $45,000 in fees he received from the Russian state media outlet RT.

4/14 The White House stops releasing logs of visitors, concealing trips made by lobbyists and corporate executives. In Trump’s first two months alone, by one estimate, more than 500 executives and foreign leaders made unrecorded visits to the White House.

6/29 HUD Secretary Ben Carson tours Baltimore — accompanied by prospective business associates being courted by his son. One administrator on the tour later offers Carson’s daughter-in-law a contract worth $500,000.

11/5 New reports reveal that during his confirmation hearings, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross failed to disclose that a shipping firm he owns a stake in has close ties to Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law. His new job puts him in charge of American trade policy with Russia.

12/18 Under pressure from watchdogs, EPA chief Scott Pruitt terminates a $120,000 contract for a firm he has worked with in the past to dig up information on EPA staffers who had criticized him or his policies.

12/22 “You all just got a lot richer,” Trump tells wealthy patrons at Mar-a-Lago hours after signing a massive tax giveway to the superrich. The bill saved Trump $15 million in taxes and Jared Kushner $12 milion. It also enriched much of Trump’s inner circle — including Linda McMahon, Betsy DeVos, Steven Mnuchin, and Rex Tillerson.

2018

1/12 Performant Financial is one of only two companies awarded $400 million in contracts from the Education Department to collect on defaulted student loans. One notable former investor in Performant: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

1/31 CDC chief Brenda Fitzgerald is forced to resign over her purchase of stock in one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. She bought the shares a month after taking over the agency tasked with reducing tobacco use.

2/1 William Emanuel, a Trump appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, is investigated for a possible ethics violation after he votes on a case involving his former law firm. His tie-breaking vote would have made it harder for employees at franchises like McDonald’s to hold their parent companies accountable for labor-law violations, but the decision is thrown out because of his conflict of interest.

3/29 ABC News reports that EPA chief Pruitt spent much of his first year in Washington living in a townhouse co-owned by the wife of J. Steven Hart, a top energy lobbyist. Hart lobbied the EPA on several policies last year, including coal regulations and limits on air pollution.

Lobbyist & Other Sleaze

“We’re going to end the government corruption, and we’re going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” —Donald Trump

2017

1/17 Scott Mason, a key member of Trump’s transition team, returns to lobbying — one of nine transition-team members to violate Trump’s pledge that he would bar such revolving-door moves for at least six months. One of Mason’s clients, Peabody Energy, later helps dream up a coal-industry bailout pomoted by Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

1/23 Trump appoints Jeffrey Wood, a lobbyist for a coal polluter, to prosecute environmental crimes like coal pollution.

2/6 Lauren Maddox, who guided Betsy DeVos through her confirmation process for Education secretary, is hired by a for-profit law school to help restore its access to federal student loans. After paying $130,000 in lobbying fees, the school gets its wish: The Education Department agrees to reconsider its eligiblity for millions in loans.

2/27 Billionaire Carl Icahn, an unpaid adviser to Trump, submits a regulatory proposal that would raise the value of his investment in an oil refinery. During Trump’s first six weeks in office, Icahn makes an extra $60 million on the deal.

4/12 Marcus Peacock, a policy expert in Trump’s budget office, takes a job lobbying the budget office for the Business Roundtable, which represents 200 of America’s largest corporations. Trump makes no move to enforce the five-year moratorium he vowed to place on such revolving-door moves.

5/19 Trump nominates K. T. McFarland, adviser who once siphoned off $14,000 in campaign funds for “personal use,” as ambassador to Singapore.

8/1 A top aide to EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who oversees federal grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars, receives permission to work as a consultant for private clients. Despite his influence over public policy, the identities of his clients will be kept secret.

8/15 Two Trump campaign operatives register a new lobbying firm, Turnberry Solutions, named after the Scottish town where Trump owns a golf club. Its first client, Elio Motors, hires it to help obtain government handouts.

10/17 Whitefish Energy, a Montana firm that employed the son of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, is awarded $300 million in a no-bid federal contract to restore storm-battered Puerto Rico.

10/26 Trump nominates J. Steven Gardner, a coal-industry consultant, to oversee enforcement of strip-mining regulations. The Senate winds up rejecting the nomination.

11/8 Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s pick to head the Department of Homeland Security, was guided through her confirmation by a lobbyist whose clients compete for DHS contracts. Privatizing the “sherpa” role in confirmations — work long performed by government staffers — opens up a brazen new frontier in corruption. The lobbyist, Thad Bingel, oversaw the drafting of official policy memos and was included on emails between the DHS and the White House, enabling him to exploit internal information for private gain. Among Bingel’s clients is an Israeli defense contractor being paid $145 million by DHS to build part of Trump’s “virtual wall” along the Mexican border.

12/6 A photographer at the Department of Energy is fired after leaking a photo that shows Rick Perry receiving a confidential “action plan” from a coal magnate in March. The plan is a blueprint for the coal-industry bailout that Perry announced in September

2018

1/12 Trump gives Kenneth Allen, a former mining executive who still profits from coal sales to the Tennessee Valley Authority, a seat on the TVA board.

1/29 Alex Azar, a former lobbyist who worked his way up to the presidency of a drug company, is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services. Azar, whose company hiked the price of insulin and other drugs under his watch, is now in charge of making drugs more affordable.

2/12 Carl Icahn, who served as an unpaid adviser to Trump, sells $30 million in steel stocks just before Trump announces tariffs on steel imports.

2/18 Dina Powell, who advised Trump on foreign policy, returns to Goldman Sachs only two months after leaving the White House. At Goldman, she will focus on “enhancing the firm’s relationships” with some of the same foreign governments she advised Trump on.

3/2 Trump nominates Peter Wright, an attorney for Dow Chemical, to lead the EPA’s regulation of chemical spills. Dow has 100 polluted sites that Wright would be in charge of cleaning up.

Petty Graft

“We are going to ask every department head to provide a list of wasteful spending projects we can eliminate.” —Donald Trump

2017

2/28 The State Department spends $15,000 in taxpayer money for the grand opening of a Trump hotel in Vancouver, an event attended by Eric, Tiffany, and Donald Jr.

4/14 Trump jets to Mar-a-Lago via Air Force One at a cost to taxpayers of $142,380 per hour. For years, Trump heckled President Obama for taking vacations and golfing trips at government expense. If elected, he vowed, he would “rarely leave the White House, because there’s so much work to be done.” In fact, during his first three months in office, Trump’s taxpayer-funded flights to his private properties exceeded $20 million — on track to quickly surpass the amount Obama spent on travel during his eight years in office. Trump made more than 90 visits to his golf courses and played almost twice as much golf as Obama. His family joined in, requiring Secret Service agents to rack up an extra 4,054 days of taxpayer-funded travel to keep up.

5/16 Rick Perry and his staffers take a private jet to a small-business forum in Kansas City, at a cost to taxpayers of $35,000, rather than taking a nonstop flight to the airport 45 minutes away from the event.

6/2 David Shulkin’s chief of staff falsifies an email to suggest that the VA secretary needed to travel to Europe to receive an award. Shulkin’s 11-day trip with his wife, most of which was devoted to sightseeing, cost taxpayers $122,344.

6/7 Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief, spends $36,000 in taxpayer money to take a military plane to New York.

6/24 Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin marries Louise Linton and requests a military plane for their honeymoon to Europe — at a cost to taxpayers of $25,000 per hour.

6/26 Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spends $12,375 in taxpayer money to fly home aboard a private flight from Las Vegas, where he hung out with a hockey team owned by his biggest campaign donor.

7/7 Zinke uses $6,250 in taxpayer money for a helicopter flight from Virginia to Washington, D.C. — a three-hour car ride — for a horse-riding date with Mike Pence.

8/4 HHS Secretary Tom Price takes a private jet at taxpayer expense to St. Simons Island, an exclusive resort where he owns land. The trip, like many of the 26 flights Price took on corporate jets, could have been accomplished with a routine commercial flight.

8/21 Mnuchin and his wife travel to Kentucky aboard a government plane, at a cost to taxpayers of $33,000, to watch the solar eclipse.

8/30 EPA chief Pruitt spends $43,000 to build a soundproof phone booth in his office, enabling him to hold secret conversations with lobbyists and corporate executives. The Government Accountability Office is investigating whether the move violated agency spending rules.

9/29 HHS Secretary Price is forced to resign over the nearly $1 million in taxpayer money he spent taking military planes and private jets, often to visit family and friends.

2018

2/27 HUD Secretary Ben Carson spends $196,000 on a dinette set and lounge furniture, exceeding the $5,000 legal limit for office improvements.

3/7 Zinke spends $139,000 to renovate his office doors at Interior.

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

November 10, 2018

by Dr. Peter Janney

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.

Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..

A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.

Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks,”: Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.

Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas  in 1993  when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publications.

 

Conversation No. 115

Date: Wednesday , December 10, 1997

Commenced: 3:05 PM CST

Concluded: 3:30 PM CST

 

RTC: How are you today, Gregory? Getting ready for Christmas?

GD: Just another day, Robert. A bit quieter. I’m sure the business people regret that they have to shut up on Christmas because they might make a few more dollars. Just a commercial venture these days. Did you ever hear ‘Green Christmas’ ? The song?

RTC: I can’t say that I have.

GD: A pointed satire in the manifest and bald-faced greed of the season, Robert. Thanksgiving is nothing but the Massacre of the Turkeys but Christmas is highlighted by the figurative ringing of the cash register bells and the crisp crackle of greenbacks. And many lovely and totally innocent trees are sacrificed for what was always a Roman pagan holiday.

RTC: Indeed?

GD: The Saturnalia. End of the year celebration to take up the extra days. Evergreens in abundance. Presents given and received.

RTC: No star in the sky?

GD: None that I have read about. And no three wise men from some unspecified place bearing gifts. The whole scene was lifted from the Romans and the Ascension of Christ taken directly from the cult of Isis which was very popular in Rome at the time.

RTC: Then you reject the historical accuracy of the New Testament?

GD: Entirely. After the fact fiction almost entirely and historically totally inaccurate. The Gospels came from a source document written about 45-50 AD and were constantly being cleaned up to reflect the changes of the day. None of them written closer to the events chronicled than about a hundred years. And the Revelations book was written by a lunatic confined on the island of Patmos which was a Roman nut house colony and about 96 AD. John was supposed to be living there with the Virgin Mary so you figure it out.

RTC: Aren’t there historical references to Jesus?

GD: None. The writings of Flavius Josephus, a renegade Jew of the time, had an inserted reference to Jesus but it has long been known as a gross ex post facto insertion by pious Christians in the second century. All fake, Robert, like the so-called Shroud of Turin. That dates to 1300.

RTC: How did the image get on it?

GD: Painted a naked model with egg tempera paint and pushed the cloth down over the body. That simple. Of course, the Vatican knows it’s a fake but they don’t discuss it because it is a big drawer for the pious of soul and incredulous of belief. In Vienna, in the cathedral of St. Stephan, we find the skull of that saint but at St. Polten, the skull of St. Stephan as a fifteen year old boy.

RTC: You’re putting me on.

GD: (Laughter) No, I’m not. And the sacred bones of St. Agnes turned out to be part of the spine of a goat. I wonder how Michelangelo would have depicted that one? With lots of muscle and a small penis. A wonderful artist but gay as a goose. And that brings me to yet another interesting aspect of the whole business. If you really look into the Gospels and try to discern the teachings of Jesus, you will realize that Jesus was an Essene. Now our modern theologians can discuss Jesus in detail and the Essenes in equal detail but never, ever at the same time. That’s would not be correct.

RTC: And why is that, pray tell?

GD: Well, because the Essenes were an all-male organization. They were communistic in their community activities with shared purses and so on and hated women. They bred with them and if the babies were male, all well and good but if female, both mother and child were expelled. They boys they kept.

RTC: There seem to be sinister overtones here, Gregory. Are you saying….?

GD: Yes, I am saying. Like the Spartans and Zulus, the Essenes were homosexuals.

RTC: Now, Jesus H. Christ, Gregory, by implication, by what you are saying and assuming you are accurate, was Jesus a fairy?

GD: It’s ‘gay’ now, but yes, that’s the way it appears. Don’t forget James the Beloved of Christ.

RTC: Are you certain about the facts…never mind your warped conclusions…the facts?

GD: Always. Yes, look it all up. None of it is connected but study the Essene cult. They were eventually shut down but it’s all there for you to find. But there never has been made a connection between Jesus and that group. Yet study the preachings of Jesus, or at least what the Gospels claim are the preachings, and then study the Essene dogmas and you at once see very clear and unmistakable parallels.

RTC: I could look all of this up but you seem to know your history. Of course you can’t say such things because you can never get it public. You do like to get involved in useless quests.

GD: No, but I like facts, not fictions. And I find it very, very entertaining that our evangelical Christians loathe and want to kill off any homosexual they can find. I doubt if any of them would even bother to do the research on the subject because a closed mind is a wonderful thing to behold.  And as another interesting fact, the so-called ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ are Essene writings. Consider that the scholars have been pouring over these for years and yet only a few garbled passages have been released to the public. Why? Because the writings bear out what I just told you and our Jewish chums have agreed to shut up about it. I suppose they get more cluster bombs and nerve gas from Washington with which to civilize the Palestinians in return for said silence. I’m not joking about this, Robert.

RTC: Sadly, probably not. Jim was so determined to serve Tel Aviv’s interests that I’m afraid he has set this country up for future decades of Muslim hatred. Well, I doubt if I’ll see the results of this pandering in my lifetime.

GD: Yes, you’re no doubt right but the wheel always turns, Robert. And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children.

RTC: More biblical exhortations, Gregory?

GD: The Devil can cite scripture, Robert, and your chums down in the Gerbil Palace consider me to be, at the least, a minor devil. Know the truth, Robert, and the truth shall set you free. More likely get you ten to twenty for having a kilo of smack in your glove compartment. Of course you never put it there but the alternative would be a dead baby suddenly being found in your suitcase at the airport. Societies or their control groups have a way with such things. The prisons are full of dissenters and more than a few have been gassed, electrocuted or hanged. Justice is depicted with a blindfold but I think she would be more appropriate wearing a gas mask to avoid the stench of the rotting bodies of the innocent dead sacrificed in her name.

(Concluded at 3:30 P.M. CST)

 

Trump’s acting attorney general involved in firm that scammed veterans out of life savings

  • Matthew Whitaker was paid advisory board member for WPM
  • Veteran: ‘I spent the money on a dream. I lost everything’

November 9, 2018

by Jon Swaine in New York

The Guardian

Donald Trump’s new acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, was involved in a company that scammed US military veterans out of their life savings, according to court filings and interviews.

Whitaker, a former US attorney in Iowa, was paid to work as an advisory board member for World Patent Marketing (WPM), a Florida-based company accused by the US government of tricking aspiring inventors out of millions of dollars. Earlier this year, it was ordered to pay authorities $26m.

Several veterans, two of them with disabilities, said they lost tens of thousands of dollars in the WPM scam, having been enticed into paying for patenting and licensing services by the impressive credentials of Whitaker and his fellow advisers. None said they dealt with Whitaker directly.

“World Patent Marketing has devastated me emotionally, mentally and financially,” Melvin Kiaaina, of Hawaii, told a federal court last year, adding that he trusted the firm with his life savings in part because it “had respected people on the board of directors”.

The 60-year-old said he was a disabled veteran US army paratrooper and paid the company in 2015 and 2016 to patent and promote his ideas for fishing equipment.

“I received nothing for the $14,085 I paid to the company, other than a bad quality drawing and logo that my grandson could have made,” he said.

Kiaaina and other WPM customers described their experiences in declarations to court written under penalty of perjury, as part of a civil lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against WPM and its chief executive, Scott Cooper. Emails filed as evidence to the case showed desperate customers begging Cooper and his team for their money back.

“You have caused me tremendous grief, I can’t sleep, my stress level is at an all-time high and the last of my savings has been stolen with nothing to show for it,” one unemployed widow, who lost $8,000, wrote to Cooper in December 2016. Another inventor who paid $12,000 said he was left with “a stress related condition that is eating away at my hair

In particular, WPM promoted itself as a champion of those who served in the military. “Not only do we honor the veterans and soldiers of our armed forces but we are also celebrating what they are protecting – the American dream,” it said in a statement timed for Veterans Day 2014, which highlighted Whitaker’s role at the firm. WPM claimed to have made an unspecified donation to the Wounded Warrior Project nonprofit, which did not respond to an email seeking confirmation of the payment.

Whitaker publicly vouched for WPM, claiming in a December 2014 statement it went “beyond making statements about doing business ‘ethically’ and translate[d] those words into action”.

He said: “I would only align myself with a first-class organisation.”

But customers reported to authorities that they had been treated unethically by a company that, beneath its glossy marketing pamphlets, was a shabby operation.

Dennis Artman, a 24-year veteran of the army and air force reserves from Washington state, took $25,000 from his retirement savings account in 2015 to pay WPM to patent and promote a wearable device his then-wife had created to jolt sleepy drivers awake and guide them to accommodation.

“He said, ‘I know it’s a lot of money but I believe in it and I believe in you,’” his ex-wife, Gwendolyn Artman, 58, said in an interview. Gwendolyn Artman said she received approximately 25 emails from WPM that touted the backgrounds of Whitaker and other board members.

In late 2015, Artman said, WPM stopped returning her calls and emails. Only after she complained to the office of Florida’s attorney general did Cooper call – pleading with her to withdraw the complaint and promising to make amends. Again, nothing materialised.

The Artmans divorced this year after more than 10 years of marriage. Gwendolyn, who runs a nonprofit treatment center for people suffering from opioid addiction, said the WPM saga was partly to blame.

“I think he lost faith in me,” she said. “It was a lot of money, and he blamed me for losing it.”

A justice department spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said in an email: “Acting attorney general Matt Whitaker has said he was not aware of any fraudulent activity. Any stories suggesting otherwise are false.”

Attorneys for Cooper did not respond to emails seeking comment. Cooper denied wrongdoing in the FTC case. He was ultimately ordered to pay $1m and surrender any proceeds from selling his $3.5m mansion in Miami, in return for the rest of the $26m judgment being suspended.

Some veterans who gave money to WPM said they were impressed by the inclusion on the advisory board of Congressman Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who lost both his legs in a September 2010 bombing while serving with the army in Afghanistan.

One of these veterans, identified in court filings and company materials as “John D”, complained to Cooper that WPM had deserted him after using his status as a veteran to promote his idea for a new type of umbrella.

“I’m sure he’ll be your best supporter,” John D wrote of Mast in a September 2016 email, “but what about my product?”

Mast, who was re-elected this week, said in a declaration to court that Cooper appointed him to the advisory board without his consent after the two met twice in February 2016, at an event and then at WPM’s offices in Miami. Last year he returned $5,400 in campaign donations given to him by Cooper.

Another WPM client, Ryan Masti, who served in the navy and suffers from dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), said a WPM representative boasted of the company’s connections to Whitaker and Mast in a promotional telephone call that persuaded him to hand over money.

Masti told the court he lost more than $75,000 after paying WPM to register, develop and promote his idea for “Socially Accepted”, a social network aimed at people with disabilities. He said that in return he received only a press release, a logo and a shoddy website template.

“I spent the money on a dream to help people,” Masti said in an interview on Friday. “And I lost everything.”

Masti, a 26-year-old farmer from upstate New York, borrowed $50,000 from his father’s retirement account, took out a commercial loan for about $20,000 and used another $7,000 he had inherited from his late grandfather, a veteran of the second world war. A WPM executive told him he “could make a million in sales” as a minimum, he said.

Having voted for Trump enthusiastically in 2016, Masti said on Friday he would soon be changing his party affiliation to Democratic, following the president’s elevation of Whitaker.

“It’s totally ridiculous,” said Masti. “It makes the whole Republican party look so bad. How could a president appoint someone like this? And then not have a problem about it when it comes out? He should be taking care of the victims.”

 

 

No responses yet

Leave a Reply