Tag: what is Trump hiding?

Trump’s Bank Was Subpoenaed by N.Y. Prosecutors in Criminal Inquiry

New York Times logoThe subpoena, sent to Deutsche Bank, suggests that the inquiry into President Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The New York prosecutors who are seeking President Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, a sign that their criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office issued the subpoena last year to Deutsche Bank, which has been Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, seeking financial records that he and his company provided to the bank, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.

The criminal investigation initially appeared to be focused on hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who have said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Continue reading.

Foreign policy experts struggle to explain Trump’s devotion to Vladimir Putin

AlterNet logoAmericans who are old enough to remember the Cold War find it ironic that President Donald Trump has such a favorable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s relationship with Putin is the focus of an op-ed that Jim Sciutto, CNN’s chief national security correspondent, wrote for its website — and according to Sciutto, their relationship is one that foreign policy experts and former members of Trump’s administration have a hard time explaining.

“When interviewing current and former Trump administration officials for my upcoming book, ‘The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World,’ I found that explaining Trump’s deference to Russia was one of the most difficult questions for them to answer,” Sciutto explains. “And even they acknowledged the record fails to back up the president.”

Sciutto asked Susan Gordon, former principal deputy director of national intelligence, what Trump believes he needs Putin for — and she responded, “To not be an adversary. To not drive up (Trump’s) need to respond militarily. To not force (him) to spend money in places (he doesn’t) want to. To not have someone who (he) won’t deal with. To not create another front where (he has) to engage militarily. (Russia) are so powerful that to have them as an enemy is not in (the) best interest of what he’s trying to achieve globally, and from a U.S. perspective.” Continue reading.

D.A. Is Investigating Trump and His Company Over Fraud, Filing Suggests

New York Times logoThe office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., made the disclosure in a new court filing arguing Mr. Trump’s accountants should turn over his tax returns.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office suggested on Monday that it had been investigating President Trump and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a significantly broader inquiry than the prosecutors have acknowledged in the past.

The suggestion by the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., came in a new federal court filing arguing that Mr. Trump’s accountants should have to comply with a grand jury subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns. Mr. Trump has asked a judge to declare the subpoena invalid.

Until now, the district attorney’s inquiry had appeared largely focused on hush-money payments made in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election to two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Continue reading.

Manhattan DA filings indicate Trump is being investigated for possible fraud and ‘protracted criminal conduct’: report

AlterNet logoIn New York City, new court filings by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, according to the New York Times, indicate that President Donald Trump may be under investigation for possible fraud.

According to Times reporters William K. Rashbaum and Benjamin Weiser, the filings indicate a “significantly broader inquiry than the prosecutors have acknowledged in the past.” And in the filings, Vance’s office argues that Trump should have to comply with subpoenas that demanded eight years of the president’s financial and tax documents.

Rashbaum and Weiser explain, “The reports, including investigations into the president’s wealth and an article on the congressional testimony of his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, said that the president may have illegally inflated his net worth and the value of his properties to lenders and insurer.” Continue reading.

Prosecutors hint at probe into ‘possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization’

The Hill logoThe Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday hinted that its subpoena for President Trump‘s tax returns is part of an investigation into “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization,” including potential fraud allegations detailed in media reports in recent years.

In response to the latest legal challenge by Trump’s attorneys, New York County prosecutors said that news reports about the president’s financial history provide sufficient justification for requesting the extensive amount of information from the accounting firm Mazars in their grand jury investigation.

“In light of these public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization, there was nothing facially improper (or even particularly unusual) about the Mazars Subpoena, which [was] issued in connection with a complex financial investigation, requesting eight years of records from an accounting firm,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing submitted Monday.nContinue reading. Continue reading.

Lt. Col. Vindman accuses Trump of ‘bullying and intimidation’ in scathing WaPo op-ed

AlterNet logoOn Saturday, writing for The Washington Post, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, one of the key witnesses in the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, slammed the president and stood up for his principles.

“After 21 years, six months and 10 days of active military service, I am now a civilian. I made the difficult decision to retire because a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by President Trump and his allies forever limited the progression of my military career,” wrote Vindman. “At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment. Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.”

Since his testimony, Vindman was denied a routine promotion through the military ranks after White House officials dug up dirt on him and passed it along to the Pentagon. Vindman decided to retire from service, with his lawyer citing a culture of retaliation. Continue reading.

Trump Still Defers to Putin, Even as He Dismisses U.S. Intelligence and the Allies

New York Times logoSay this about President Trump’s approach to Moscow: It’s been consistent.

WASHINGTON — On the eve of accepting the Republican nomination for president four years ago, Donald J. Trump declared that he would pull out of NATO if American allies did not pay more for their defense, waving away the thought that it would play into the hands of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has spent his career trying to dismantle the Western alliance.

Asked about his deference to the Kremlin leader, Mr. Trump responded, “He’s been complimentary of me.”

This week, as his renomination nears, Mr. Trump announced that he was pulling a third of American troops from Germany. He declared in recent days that he had never raised with Mr. Putin, during a recent phone conversation, American intelligence indicating that Russia was paying a bounty to the Taliban for the killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan, because he distrusted the information from his own intelligence agencies. Nor has he issued warnings about what price, if any, Mr. Putin would pay for seeking to influence the 2020 election or pushing disinformation about the coronavirus. American intelligence agencies say Russia is trying both. Continue reading.

Trump’s Four-Pinocchio interview on Russian bounties

Washington Post logoTrump rarely gets fact-checked on camera, but here we have a good example of an interviewer pressing and prodding on a sensitive topic.

The president has been dismissive of U.S. intelligence reports that Russia offered bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (A “hoax” or “fake news,” Trump says.)

Follow-up questions in a one-on-one setting can expose the strength or weakness of a claim. When asked about reports that he was briefed on the intelligence, and why he didn’t raise the bounties in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump started dissembling in response. Continue reading.

Ex-CIA director Brennan writes in upcoming memoir that Trump blocked access to records and notes

Washington Post logoIn the fall of 2018, when former CIA director John Brennan decided to write his memoir, he asked the agency for his official records, including his notes and any documents that he had reviewed and signed that were classified. The CIA, where Brennan had worked for nearly 30 years, said no.

It was a break with decades of tradition. The CIA routinely lets former directors review classified files when writing books about their careers. Their manuscripts are scrutinized to ensure they don’t expose any national secrets.

After months of “haggling,” Brennan learned that the CIA was following the orders of the man he had spent the previous two years publicly excoriating — President Trump, who in August 2018 “had issued a directive . . . that purportedly forbids anyone in the intelligence community from sharing classified information with me.” Continue reading.

Trump’s lawyers say subpoena for his tax records is ‘wildly overbroad,’ amounts to ‘harassment’

Washington Post logoNEW YORK — President Trump’s lawyers are pushing to kill a grand jury subpoena for his tax records by arguing that the Manhattan district attorney’s order to produce documents is “wildly overbroad” and tantamount to “harassment,” according to an amended lawsuit filed in federal court here on Monday.

The president’s latest attempt to shield his financial records comes as Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. seeks to accelerate his investigation into hush-money payments made to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign. It follows a major Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that found Trump’s status as a sitting president does not make him immune to investigation by local authorities.

Trump’s civil complaint seeks to block Vance from obtaining Trump’s records through a subpoena to his accounting firm, Mazars USA. His lawyers, barred by the Supreme Court’s 7-to-2 ruling from arguing presidential immunity, are focused now on challenging the subpoena’s legality. Continue reading.