Charges

[Shirley]

Forced into hiding due to threats because she dared to break with Trump and his "conservative" republican personality cult? In the United States of America? No Way!

CBS Sunday Morning interview this morning:

Cassidy Hutchinson on fallout from her Trump testimony

The former Trump loyalist and senior advisor to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said she was "disgusted" upon witnessing the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters over the lie of election fraud. But after testifying to the January 6 Committee, Cassidy Hutchinson was forced into hiding. In her first TV interview she talks with correspondent Tracy Smith about the price of telling the truth, as detailed in her new book, "Enough."

She will be interviewed tomorrow night, Monday 9/25, on the Rachel Maddow Show.

[jfish26]

Forced into hiding due to threats because she dared to break with Trump and his "conservative" republican personality cult? In the United States of America? No Way!

CBS Sunday Morning interview this morning:

Cassidy Hutchinson on fallout from her Trump testimony

The former Trump loyalist and senior advisor to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said she was "disgusted" upon witnessing the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters over the lie of election fraud. But after testifying to the January 6 Committee, Cassidy Hutchinson was forced into hiding. In her first TV interview she talks with correspondent Tracy Smith about the price of telling the truth, as detailed in her new book, "Enough."

She will be interviewed tomorrow night, Monday 9/25, on the Rachel Maddow Show.

If she wears a somewhat low-cut top MICH might take her side.

[Shirley]

Today In: Self-owns by everyone's favorite "stable genius"! Or,

Trump begins the process of an insanity defense?

Having gone on MTP a week ago and totally sabotaging his potential line of defense in the election obstruction case: "My lawyers made me to do it", i.e., "I was following my lawyer's advice":

...Trump told Welker it was his decision — and not that of his lawyers — to challenge the 2020 election result.

“Were you calling the shots, though, Mr. President, ultimately?” Welker asked Trump. The ex-president replied: “As to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Oh, sure … it was my decision..."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, meanwhile, told Psaki it was actually a “twofer” admission from the former president because Trump also admitted to Welker that he’d demanded the votes stop being counted.

“He just said it on air to NBC, ‘Stop counting the votes.’ Well, that’s not allowed,” Weissmann said.

Joe Walsh, former republican, former rep to US congress
@WalshFreedom

The authoritarian promises that if elected he’ll go after private media companies and have his government restrict what they say. If you support him, you’re supporting authoritarianism. And authoritarianism is anathema to America.



And to bolster his potential insanity defense, in addition to all the lies in this post, including that he had no warning from the FBI before they searched, i.e., "raided", according to Trump, his Mar a Lago property, Trump calls on all Senate democrats to resign.

Sounds reasonable, and just what Americans are looking for in their president.

[defixione]

Did anybody else hear about this? What are the ramifications?

Trump's spokesperson is backtracking after he unknowingly revealed his criminally indicted boss committed a federal crime by purchasing a firearm in South Carolina.


https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/ ... wDXCQ&s=19

[DCHawk1]

As I understand it, gun crimes for presidents and their families are NBD.

[Shirley]

Did anybody else hear about this? What are the ramifications?

Trump's spokesperson is backtracking after he unknowingly revealed his criminally indicted boss committed a federal crime by purchasing a firearm in South Carolina.


https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/ ... wDXCQ&s=19

Can't wait to see how republicans minimize this, in light of their multi-year pursuit of Hunter Biden.

[defixione]

Wait a minute . . .

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/stat ... jqY0A&s=19

[Shirley]

The Rachel Maddow interview of Cassidy Hutchinson tonight on MSNBC was very interesting. Just as she seemed in her testimony to the Jan 6th Committee, she is not lacking in composure, or an ability to judiciously convey her, (now revealed), strongly held opinions, which she was not reticent to share. Being so frank despite what she's already been through as a result of being disloyal to her tribe*, speaks very highly of her.

What a woman, what an American hero.

Trump once said to her, apropos to nothing, "you should put blond highlights in your hair", and that night, along with another women who worked in the white house, they put blond highlights in their hair. (Trump wanted every woman around him to have hair like Hope Hicks, apparently.)


*My words, not hers. She considers herself a "Mitt Romney, Ronald Reagan republican".
She could do worse, much worse.

[Shirley]

Cassidy Hutchinson: One of the more dangerous things about Trump, his need for attention

Matt Gates tweeted during the interview that he and Cassidy had dated.

Cassidy: I have much higher standards in men.

[jhawks99]

Cassidy Hutchinson: One of the more dangerous things about Trump, his need for attention

Matt Gates tweeted during the interview that he and Cassidy had dated.

Cassidy: I have much higher standards in men.

"I have higher standards in men."
Classic

[Shirley]

Cassidy Hutchinson: One of the more dangerous things about Trump, his need for attention

Matt Gates tweeted during the interview that he and Cassidy had dated.

Cassidy: I have much higher standards in men.

"I have higher standards in men."
Classic

^^^

When the shade is from someone who comes across as composed as Cassidy, it move up a level.

[Shirley]

A judge just found Donald Trump committed fraud for years and canceled all his business certificates in New York, including the Trump Organization!

New York State Court Judge Engoron has granted partial summary judgment to the New York attorney general, finding that Donald J. Trump is liable on top fraud count of NYAG business fraud lawsuit.

[Shirley]

In addition to finding that Trump committed fraud, the judge canceled the certificates of various Trump businesses, appointed a former judge as an independent monitor of the Trump Organization, and will appoint receivers to manage the canceled LLCs.

This is a pretty big deal.

[KUTradition]

In addition to finding that Trump committed fraud, the judge canceled the certificates of various Trump businesses, appointed a former judge as an independent monitor of the Trump Organization, and will appoint receivers to manage the canceled LLCs.

This is a pretty big deal.

the judge also said that trump and the other defendants have a “propensity to engage in persistent fraud ”

only the best, decent people

[zsn]

The Rachel Maddow interview of Cassidy Hutchinson tonight on MSNBC was very interesting. Just as she seemed in her testimony to the Jan 6th Committee, she is not lacking in composure, or an ability to judiciously convey her, (now revealed), strongly held opinions, which she was not reticent to share. Being so frank despite what she's already been through as a result of being disloyal to her tribe*, speaks very highly of her.

What a woman, what an American hero.

Trump once said to her, apropos to nothing, "you should put blond highlights in your hair", and that night, along with another women who worked in the white house, they put blond highlights in their hair. (Trump wanted every woman around him to have hair like Hope Hicks, apparently.)


*My words, not hers. She considers herself a "Mitt Romney, Ronald Reagan republican".
She could do worse, much worse.

She put Meadows and his henchmen on notice with one sentence (paraphrasing): if they don’t agree with me then let them testify under oath.

Put up or shut up, insurrectionistas.

[Shirley]

Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani over alleged data access violations and computer fraud

The lawsuit accuses Giuliani and his former lawyer of "hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data" allegedly taken from Hunter Biden's devices or storage platforms.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, alleges that the defendants are among those primarily responsible "for what has been described as 'the total annihilation'" of Hunter Biden's digital privacy and data.

For years, the lawsuit alleges, the defendants have "dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given." The suit claims the data was taken or stolen from Hunter Biden's "devices or storage platforms."

The president's son's legal team claimed that his data was “manipulated, altered, and damaged” before it was sent to Giuliani, who is former President Donald Trump's onetime lawyer, and Costello and that the pair then were involved in illegal hacking and tampering involving "further alterations and damage to the data to a degree that is presently unknown to Plaintiff."

[...]

[Sparko]

It was always an appalling info op. The Russians hacked his iphone, backed it up on an external drive, manipulated some files, exploited images. Most Americans would have a hard time understanding the chain of custody issues, let alone the brazen fake laptop repair con. Hunter Biden should win big, but Rudy will be in hiding soon.

[jfish26]

Judge Gives Trump Organization the Corporate Death Penalty

https://www.dcreport.org/2023/09/26/don ... for-fraud/

Donald Trump is no longer in business.

Worse, the self-proclaimed multibillionaire may soon be personally bankrupt as a result, stripped of just about everything because for years he engaged in calculated bank fraud and insurance fraud by inflating the value of his properties, a judge ruled Tuesday.

His gaudy Trump Tower apartment, his golf courses, his Boeing 757 jet and even Mar-a-Lago could all be disposed of by a court-appointed monitor, leaving Trump with not much more than his pensions as a one term president and a television performer.

A New York State judge on Tuesday cancelled all of the business licenses for the Trump Organization and its 500 or so subsidiary companies and partnerships after finding that Trump used them to, along with his older two sons, commit fraud.

Under the New York General Business Law you can only do business in your own name as a sole proprietor or with a business license, which the state calls a “business certificate.” All of Trump’s businesses were corporations or partnerships that require business certificates.

The civil fraud case was brought by Letitia James, the elected attorney general of New York State.

The evidence and the issues were so clear cut, Judge Arthur F. Engoron ruled on Tuesday, that there was no reason to waste the court’s time trying them.

In a 35-page decision, Judge Engoron also excoriated Trump and his lawyers for making nonsense arguments, so badly misquoting legal cases that they turned the law upside down, and other legal misconduct.

Five Trump lawyers were each fined $7,500 for making “frivolous” arguments.

A judge calling a lawyer’s argument “frivolous” is the equivalent of saying it is no better than nonsense from a drunk in a bar, as I teach my Syracuse University College of Law students.

Those lawyers may well find it wise to hire their own lawyers as Judge Engoron’s findings could form the basis of disbarment proceedings, something already underway against Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, the former federal prosecutor, and John Eastman, a former dean of the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif.

In 2015 Trump claimed his net worth was north of $10 billion. When he became president, he asked if he could file his federally required financial disclosure statements without signing them under penalty of perjury. That request was denied. The statement Trump then filed, by my counting, showed a net worth of not much more than $1 billion, but was based on fantastical assertions of value.

News organizations, except DCReport, told their audiences next to nothing about how from June 2015 to January 2017 Trump’s claimed net worth fell by roughly 90 percent.

Trump will, of course, appeal. He is already suing the judge, so far without success.

I give Trump’s chances of prevailing on appeal at somewhere between zero and nothing except perhaps on some minor procedural point, which you can be sure Trump will describe as complete vindication.

The summary judgement decision Tuesday was partial, however.

A non-jury trial before Judge Engoron next week will determine how much Trump will be fined for his years of bank fraud and insurance fraud.

Barring a highly unlikely reversal by an appeals court, Trump’s business assets eventually will be liquidated since he cannot operate them without a business license. Retired Judge Barbara Jones was appointed to monitor the assets, an arrangement not unlike the court-supervised liquidation of a bankrupt company or the assets of a drug lord.

Creditors, any fines due the state because of the fraud, and taxes will be paid first from sales of Trump properties.

The various properties are likely to be sold at fire sale prices and certainly not for top dollar when liquidation begins, probably after all appeals are exhausted.

Among these properties is the portion of Trump Tower that Trump still owns and leases to businesses as office and retail space; his own triplex apartment there; his golf courses; and Mar-a-Lago, the Florida mansion he bought in a corrupt mortgage deal decades ago. He also has deals to license his name on buildings and businesses, which similarly he can no longer operate and whose profits he must give up.

The fact that Trump assigned values two, four, ten times and more above their actual values indicates that once all of the priority bills are paid there will be little to nothing left for Trump.

Trump, for example, has claimed that his Westchester County mansion north of Manhattan was worth close to $300 million, ten times the highest valuation by appraisers and bankers. Even those valuations may be inflated because of restrictions on developing the 30-acre property with more mansions.

Trump asserted in annual financial summaries that his gaudy Trump Tower triplex was about 30,000 square feet when it is closer to 10,000 square feet, testimony showed. He also valued the residence at as much as $200 million more than its highest appraised value.

The judge noted that these were not small differences that might be due to an apartment having, for example, an odd shape.

Trump of course will appeal. Trump always insists he has done nothing wrong and in this civil matter is the victim of a judge who doesn’t know the law. It’s a laughable argument.

Trump, in his own mind, can do and never has done anything wrong. Indeed, in 2016 he told a radio show host that as a Christian he has never asked for godly forgiveness because he has never done anything in his life that would require seeking forgiveness. No actual Christian would say that, nor would a Christian say, as Trump has many times, that his life philosophy is a single word: revenge.

When Trump was deposed by the state attorney general’s litigators, he cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination hundreds of times.

He also asserted that his annual financial statements were meaningless and everyone in the banking and insurance fields knew to pay them no heed so the judge shouldn’t either.

Judge Engoron rejected the idea that one can put out financial statements that are meaningless. As Judge Engoron wrote about the fantastical financial valuations and bizarre and baseless arguments Trump made in court:

“In defendants’ world rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air. That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”

The carefully written 35-page decision by Judge Engoron is known as a partial summary judgment. The judge found that on most of the civil fraud case brought by Letitia James, the state attorney general, there were no issues in dispute because James got the law and the facts exactly right and Trump had nothing but distortions, lies and baseless denials.

The principal issue to be decided at a trial scheduled to start Monday, Oct. 2, is how much Trump will be fined.

Trump also argued that since he paid his bank loans and insurance premiums on time no one was hurt. He argued against “restitution.”

The judge noted that the case is not about restitution but disgorging ill-got gains.

Here’s the analogy I will teach my students: Suppose your employer is closing for a day and when business is done you swipe $100 from the cash register, go to the racetrack, make a winning bet and before business resumes you put back $100.

You still committed a crime and if get caught you forfeit the track winnings as the proceeds of your ill-got gain — that’s disgorgement.

Trump also made the ludicrous claim that the state attorney general had no power to sue him, that she lacked what the law calls “standing” to file a case because she was not harmed.

Judge Engoron noted that state law specifically authorizes the attorney general to sue in such cases on behalf of the people of the state.

The fact is that Trump’s bizarre, fact-free, and frivolous arguments may enthrall those who see him as their hero or savior, but in a court of law all Trump could present was distortions, lies, and childish nonsense.

I think this is being underreported to a degree. Not only will this cause a cash crunch, but also (1) presumably the org’s books and records will not be shielded for much longer, and (2) if Trump irrevocably licensed his NIL to one of these entities…not sure how he’ll be able to monetize that now.

And of course the next criminal shoe to drop may well be illicit, fraudulent fundraising (raising money off knowingly-false claims of election fraud). Seems likely those charges would involve seizing his PAC assets.

So if he can’t access the org’s cash, and can’t access the PAC’s cash…then what?

(Also: he has now been adjudged to be a sexual abuser and a fraud. But please, tell me more about Biden being a couple years older.)

[KUTradition]

but he’s a decent guy

or something

[jfish26]

but he’s a decent guy

or something

There’s a reason Trump has fought so bitterly to avoid disclosing tax and financial records. He likely is and likely has long been quite illiquid. And if the credit dries up, AND the underlying assets are frozen…yikes.