Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg Will Implicate Trump Companies in Guilty Plea

The Trump Organization’s money man has agreed that, if called, he’ll testify against Trump’s companies



Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s finance chief, will say in Manhattan court Thursday that he conspired with several of the ex-president’s companies when he pleads guilty to state tax crimes, two sources familiar with the case tell Rolling Stone.

As part of Weisselberg’s plea deal, he has agreed to testify against The Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation at trial, which is scheduled for October.

If called to the witness stand during trial, Weisselberg will provide testimony that is the same as what he admits to in court this week, the source said. One of the sources said that while Weisselberg is agreeing to testify, that does not mean he necessarily will; it depends on whether prosecutors decide to call him. The New York Times first reported that Weisselberg was expected to plead guilty, and CNN reported he would testify if called.

Weisselberg will not go beyond his testimony to help the criminal probe, one of the sources said. Still, his potential testimony could pose a severe threat to Trump’s companies. This possible testimony, which allegedly implicates Trump’s businesses, could be key to prosecutors’ securing a guilty verdict against these companies. When a company is found to have engaged in criminal conduct, significant fines can pile up quickly — potentially leading to its demise.

Weisselberg’s expected guilty plea stems from an indictment last year from the Manhattan district attorney’s office accusing him and several of Trump’s companies of tax crimes in a “sweeping and audacious illegal payment scheme.” These financial offenses related to the lavish perks that came with being CFO of Donald Trump’s real estate empire. (The Trump Organization has maintained its not guilty plea, so his namesake business, and several related entities, remain under indictment.)

Starting in 2005, Weisselberg, a Trump family employee of some five decades, lived gratis in an apartment on Manhattan’s Riverside Boulevard. The Trump Corporation, which leased the apartment, was covering his rent — along with Weisselberg’s utilities and parking fees, the indictment charged. The Trump Organization also allegedly made sure his longtime moneyman rode in style. From 2005 to 2017, the ex-president’s company paid the leases on two Mercedes Benzes that Weisselberg and his wife used as their personal cars. Trump’s company gave Weisselberg cash around Christmastime so he could pay “personal holiday gratuities,” prosecutors alleged.

Weisselberg’s family was also well taken care of, prosecutors said. The company covered Weisselberg’s personal expenses “for his homes and for an apartment maintained by one of his children,” according to the indictment. Among these requests were items such as “new beds, flat-screen televisions, the installation of carpeting, and furniture for Weisselberg’s home in Florida.” Weisselberg’s grandchildren benefited from this arrangement, too, with the Trump Corporation footing the bill for private school tuition, per the charging papers. Prosecutors alleged that Weisselberg didn’t declare these benefits on his taxes, meaning he purportedly received $1.7 million in unlawful payments.

A lawyer for Trump’s companies declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Manhattan D.A.’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Speaking generally about how a Weisselberg guilty plea could impact Trump, Rebecca Roiphe, New York Law School professor, tells Rolling Stone: “It is another Trump person being convicted of something, and it also reflects on him more than just the company he keeps. This is obviously conduct that occurred separately from his presidency and has to do with how he conducted his businesses. Whether or not he was directly involved in these actions, or knew about them or was criminally liable for them, it’s serious and significant.”

"It should — and does — bear upon his reputation as a businessperson in New York. Assuming they can convict the organization as well, it can have direct consequences on his business and his work and his business’s ability to continue in New York,” Roiphe said.  “Criminal liability is usually a pretty big deal for a corporation— it’s often a death sentence. The penalties could be so significant that the organization cannot survive past it. The penalties can be so high the company just doesn’t exist, and it could ultimately end in the dissolution of the company.”

The potential of criminal liability for Trump was greater in the Georgia election meddling case and South Florida federal records inquiry.  “There’s a parallel civil and criminal investigation in New York [and] while we don’t know where it will ultimately lead, there have certainly been signs that show the [New York] criminal investigation has been lagging,” Roiphe said.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/allen-weisselberg-guilty-plea-trump-organizations-criminal-trial-1398303/

[Rick Plant]

Breaking news just coming out: Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg expected to plead GUILTY on Thursday and admit to 15 felonies. As part of the deal, he has reportedly agreed to testify against Donald Trump's companies.

We also can't forget about this:

Donald Trump Jr. swore that he, Eric Trump, and Allen Weisselberg were RUNNING THE TRUMP Org’s finances during a deposition related to the Presidential Inauguration Committee’s finances.

[Rick Plant]

Court can't release the FBI affidavit because the witnesses it exposes could be killed by Trump supporters: legal expert



On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "The ReidOut," former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade outlined the clear danger posed by former President Donald Trump's demand for federal officials to unseal the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

The key problem, she pointed out, is that it could expose witnesses — whose lives would then be in danger.

"Why would Trump want this unsealed?" asked anchor Tiffany Cross. "Do you think this is his way of figuring out who the informants are? Again, it feels like thinks a crime syndicate, not a former president."

"You're absolutely right, Tiffany," said McQuade. "I think part of this is his public relations bid. He wants to frame himself as somehow being a victim, and being targeted, and being treated unfairly, so this is something he can argue about, but I think there's zero percent chance the judge will release the search warrant affidavit at this time because as you said, the Justice Department said it would compromise the identities of witnesses, as well as reveal grand jury material that by law cannot be released. So I think there's no chance."

The real danger is not Trump himself, clarified McQuade, but his supporters.

"Imagine not what Trump, but his followers might do to a witness who gets identified and outed by this affidavit," said McQuade. "We saw that attack on the Cincinnati FBI field office last week. One could just imagine what may happen to this person, whoever it may be, who is identified in this affidavit."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Former CIA director warns GOP is the most ‘dangerous and contemptible’ political force on earth



Experts are warning of the danger poised by the Republican Party as Trump supporters escalate their violent rhetoric as his legal woes mount as he faces investigations in Florida, Georgia, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Edward Luce, an editor at the Financial Times, tweeted, "I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career."

"Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible than today’s Republicans," Luce wrote. "Nothing close."

His analysis was retweeted by former CIA Director Michael Hayden.

"I agree," Hayden wrote. "And I was CIA director."

Trump may also be losing political support.

"This afternoon, Alex Jones turned on Trump and said he would support Ron DeSantis in 2024. 'I am supporting DeSantis,' Jones said of the Florida governor while taking issue with Trump pushing the Covid-19 vaccine during his administration," Daily Beast correspondent Zachary Petrizzo reported Wednesday.

Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann had questions about Attorney General Merrick Garland's Department of Justice following news about Trump Organization CEO Allen Weisselberg's guilty plea.

"The Weisselberg upcoming plea is fascinating; it gives the DA various new tools with respect to Trump Org and Trump," Weissmann wrote. "But it also caps jail time for the defendant, without full cooperation. But notably some cooperation at the upcoming trial."

Weissmann followed up with a "key question."

"Why is DOJ not investigating Trump, Weisselberg, and Trump Org for federal tax fraud?" Weissman asked. "The Weisselberg state indictment, to which Weisselberg will plead guilty tomorrow, explicitly states that the scheme involved state AND federal tax fraud."

He also had questions about reporting that it was only in May that the DOJ subpoenaed the National Archives for the documents they had provided the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"Very glad DOJ eventually issued this [grand jury] subpoena, but the timing and 'me too' nature of it (e.g. 'give me what they asked for') does not inspire confidence that DOJ had done much beforehand on the broader J6 investigation," Weissman wrote.

But Trump was also facing his investigation in Georgia by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who blasted as a lawyer for GOP Gov. Brian Kemp as "wrong and confused."

Watergate figure John Dean said, "Fani is proceeding without fear or favor! This letter tells us much about her: strong and fair."

With so much news, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance described it as that feeling when "you can't keep all the active criminal investigations looking into the former president straight."

Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly struggling to hire defense attorneys:


Edward Luce @EdwardGLuce

I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.

https://twitter.com/EdwardGLuce/status/1557984573354565633


Gen Michael Hayden @GenMhayden

I agree. And I was the CIA Director

https://twitter.com/GenMhayden/status/1560027626626072577


'Comply don't die': MSNBC anchor slams GOP for attacking FBI after 'smug' defense of police brutality



On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," anchor Ari Melber slammed what he called the "double standard" of Republicans outraged that Trump was subject to an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago after months of refusing to comply with requests to return classified documents — when "they should have just complied" is the go-to defense Republican commentators use to defend police officers who injure or kill Black suspects with excessive force.

"It is a standard piece of conservative refrain," said Melber. "In these clashes over law enforcement and policing, including when people are documented as innocent or did nothing wrong or are facing very aggressive or illegal police treatment, the line we hear over and over is, just follow the officer's commands and comply no matter what." He then showed several clips of right-wing commentators saying this.

"If, in fact, the police officer gives you a command, please exit the car, you should say, yes, officer, no, officer, okay, officer," said Sean Hannity in one clip. "Bad decisions by a cop, but those decisions wouldn't have been made if the perp didn't run away," said Eric Bolling in another. "Just comply. Please, listen," said Kimberly Guilfoyle in yet another.

"Just comply," said Melber. "This frequent conservative claim goes well beyond complying with lawful police requests. The demand is comply first, fully, no matter what. Yes, officer. Make any objections that may come up, presumably, later. And this logic, this argument, this talking point has come from conservatives over and over. So I'm showing you stuff that's on air, but this is in communities around America. Minnesota has a police union representative who in that Daunte Wright case, mistakenly drawing a gun, said they should have complied. And he argued it was the noncompliance that set off the chain of events that led to the death. Houston Police has a union, and they had a similar take when they said, quote, 'Comply don't die. Live to have your day in court.' Those are real examples. And that includes times where police were later found to make mistakes or used excessive force, even on tape."

"But that loud stubborn and often smug lecture comes from national political elites on the right and MAGA leaders and Trump allies all the way down to the police unions: comply," said Melber. "That's when innocent people were beaten or killed. That's the context for the recent legal problems for Trump because, again, this sometimes gets pushed out. There's so much going on and that's why it's our special report right now because I want everyone to understand Donald Trump was given months to comply. But he didn't. And Trump aides who have been given special elite treatment when asked to follow the law and testify have benefitted from that whole different approach. There are Trump officials who partially resisted and there are others, especially for the January 6th Committee, who fully resisted. No compliance."

"I want to be clear," said Melber. "We're talking about Donald Trump and other powerful, well-connected white people, who have acted like they are above the law and their own past demands are really not about the rules. They are just telling others to comply. And many of those other cases involve regular citizens who don't have political connections, and who are Back and Brown people in America. So this is a documented double standard. Lawless resistance for Trump elites, compliance or violence for regular citizens, and especially regular citizens who are Black and brown.

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

If you were on Twitter yesterday, then you noticed that the top trending hashtag for most of the day was #LockTrumpUp.

This was the new video that was featured and massively retweeted yesterday. Take a look.


KARMA: Trump MAKES THE CASE for his own IMPRISONMENT

When it comes to Donald Trump, every single speech is a confession. For a long time, the twice-impeached, disgraced former president has made strong statements regarding the mishandling of classified information. Now, his words are coming back to haunt him, as he was caught red-handed stealing some of our nation's most sensitive materials. The new MeidasTouch ad 'Lock Trump Up' uses Trump's own words against him and makes the powerful case that it is time to lock Trump up once and for all.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

The CIA had to come up with clever ideas to keep Trump from putting classified info in his pockets: report



It has been a little over a week since the FBI executed a search warrant on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

Douglas London, a former senior CIA Operations Officer, who worked with intelligence briefers for the president, explained that they were forced to use "unorthodox" methods for Trump to ensure he didn't put classified documents in his pockets.

"As you know, intelligence briefings for the president have to range a wide array of complex issues," said London. "The key is getting the president's attention. You have to adopt a style that will secure the president's interest and have him focus on the matter. It was hard to do that with President Trump, particularly without trying to compromise the integrity of the product itself. We found he responded very well to images, pictures, videos, that sort of thing."

He explained that the counter to that is that the former president would get "too interested" in the briefing and how he might respond.

"We try to impart those things and sometimes had to use a very catchy-headline approach, which is not really orthodox for us, to get him to focus without him wanting to pull products, such as images, which we would try to include on a tablet, so it was not something he could take — or on large poster size documents, that, again, are hard to put in your pocket."

They would also give briefers some of the questions they thought would be asked and sometimes the questions they'd anticipated Trump would ask would be, "wow, can I have this?"

"But often enough, it was really keeping him on target. There was one particular briefing we had on a sensitive terrorism issue where the president would ride off on a tangent and talk about ordering food or milkshakes in this meeting. So, sometimes the briefers would leverage the conversation to move him off of that, or promised the president we would follow up with him and address his questions," he continued.

He also confirmed previous reports that Trump had an obsession with Osama bin Laden's son, "who wasn't really a target," but was someone Trump recognized, and thus wanted to capture or kill over more serious terrorists. London noted there were also problems with Iran and counterterrorism issues coming from Iran that Trump would latch onto because he was trying to vilify the country.

"But some of his comments to support his vilification would tread closely to information we knew that we didn't want the Iranians to realize we had access to," he concluded.

Watch video in link:

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-picket-classified-info/

[Rick Plant]

Morning Joe calls out GOP senators for provoking the next Timothy McVeigh with lies about IRS agents

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough blasted Republican lawmakers for putting a target on IRS agents' backs with incendiary rhetoric.

The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act allocates nearly $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service, and some leading Republicans have spread false claims that 87,000 armed agents will be hired target middle-class taxpayers -- and the "Morning Joe" host called out their lies as dangerous.

"If you are an IRS agent, you're far less safe today than you were a couple days ago," Scarborough said. "[Sen.] Chuck Grassley went on 'Fox and Friends' and suggested IRS agents would come with AR-15s loaded to people's homes in Iowa. It's extraordinarily reckless. Kevin McCarthy, the head of the Republican Party in the House, is saying the same thing, spreading the conspiracy theories."

"This is -- you know, this sort of talk is what led to Oklahoma City," Scarborough added. "It's what led to Timothy McVeigh. After it happens, it's too late to pull back and say, 'Oh, let's be responsible,' after it happens."

Scarborough said that sort of talk had already motivated an Ohio man to attack an FBI field office near Cincinnati, which led to his fatal shooting hours later by police, in response to the search warrant executed at Donald Trump's private Mar-A-Lago resort.

"This is, again, this is what we were warming about the inflammatory rhetoric about the search, the legal search," Scarborough said. "We kept warning. Sure enough, a guy tries to break into an FBI office, field office in Ohio, break through the glass with a nail gun, shatter the glass, then go in and slaughter FBI agents with his AR-15. It's too late, Republicans, after the next Oklahoma City happens. That's why I had said, Chuck Grassley, I mean, somebody, maybe Mitch [McConnell] can't say something to Chuck Grassley about this, but somebody in the Republican Party needs to pull back on this, just like Mike Pence pulled back on the radical, reckless talk regarding FBI agents and defunding the FBI and calling them the gestapo."

"Again, I've just got to say this, this doesn't happen just online, contained online with some crackpots," he added. "I've got mainstream Americans, two in the same day, talking about civil war and revolution and overthrowing the U.S. government because IRS agents are coming to their house with AR-15s. i mean, this is the stakes."

Watch the video below:

[Rick Plant]

Manhattan DA may have ‘the sleeper case’ against Trump after CFO’s guilty plea: fraud prosecutor

The lead prosecutor for special counsel Robert Muller's investigation offered an analysis on MSNBC after Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to fifteen charges on Thursday as part of a plea agreement that will result in a five-month sentence to Rikers Island Prison Complex.

MSNBC's Katy Tur interviewed NYU Law professor Andrew Weissmann, who served as chief of the fraud section at the Department of Justice prior to his appointment to Mueller's team. He had also previously served as general counsel for the FBI.

Weissmann noted Georgetown Law professor Paul Butler had listed the state and federal investigations Trump is known to be facing.

Weissmann said, "I think the sleeper case here is the Manhattan D.A.'s office. You know, I think that it isn't getting enough attention and there are a lot of telltale signs in that case that the Manhattan D.A.'s office is not done with Weisselberg or Donald Trump in the way that it's particularly crafted."

Tur asked Weissmann to, "expand on why you think that this is so intriguing."

Weissmann noted that Weisselberg will have to testify at the Oct. 24th trial of the Trump Organization.

"It seems very, very hard to testify truthfully in that case and not implicate Donald Trump," the former prosecutor explained. "We're not talking about a huge company like Exxon or JPMorgan, we're talking about a small family-owned company and the scheme was so rampant with signatures by Donald Trump himself, I think that he has very reputable lawyers who are going to tell him if you want your five-month deal, you have to be truthful in front of the judge who is ultimately going to sentence you."

"So i think it would be very hard not to implicate Donald Trump," Weissmann continued. "But the second thing that I found really telling is there was no coverage provision here. And what i mean by that is a typical defendant asked the government I will plea to x, y and z but I need to know this is it, I'm not going to get charged again. So what you normally see is the defendant pleading but the government putting on the record that this covers a whole host of potential crimes. In this case what you would have expected to see is something that said that this covers any and all crimes that Allen Weisselberg may have committed as part of the Trump Organization. That was not in there."

"That is not something that — these are such good lawyers that he has, we're not dealing with sort of the run-of-the-mill people that you see in sort of Trump world, these are really first-rate lawyers — they clearly had to have asked of that," he continued. "To me, that is a tell that there is more that the Manhattan D.A.'s office has up their sleeve."

"Time will tell whether I'm right, but it is striking to me that there wasn't that coverage language," Weissmann concluded.

Watch: