Trump 54: A Grand Jury Has Been Called For The Former Guy!

[smittykins]

They probably also have “The Art of the Deal.”

Edited June 14, 2021 by smittykins

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

Nicely done

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Frank Bruni: "Donald Trump Is Starving"

Quote

In an excellent portrait of Donald Trump’s post-presidential days by the journalist Joshua Green, Trump loyalists vouch for what a fantabulous exile he’s having. There are anecdotes of Trump being not only “bathed in adulation,” to quote Green, but also perfumed with it. One voter’s despot is another voter’s dreamboat. Trump still makes many Americans’ hearts go pitter-patter.

But that wasn’t my main impression or the moral I took away from the story, which was published in Bloomberg. I stopped at, and dwelled on, this passage: “He’ll show up to anything. In recent weeks, Trump has popped into engagement parties and memorial services. A Mar-a-Lago member who recently attended a club gathering for a deceased friend was surprised when Trump sauntered in to deliver remarks and then hung around.”

Sounds to me like a man with an underfed appetite for attention. Sounds like a glutton yanked away from the buffet.

American presidents are all parables — they either come that way, which explains our fascination with them, or we turn them into archetypes, avatars and allegories. We need that from our highest-ranking political figures. We don’t have a royal family.

And Trump’s is a tale of how much a man will do to be noticed, how much he can do with that notice and — the current chapter — what happens when that notice ebbs. Yes, he personifies the American obsessions with wealth and with power. But more than that, he personifies the American obsession with fame.

It’s an obsession now starved. Facebook revoked Trump’s access. Twitter, too. He no longer leads the news every hour on CNN and MSNBC, and there are now newspaper front pages aplenty without his name in any headline.

So he sates himself with funerals. And he fumes.

Much of the coverage of Trump lately casts him as the protagonist in a political melodrama — or, rather, horror story. It asks if his control over the Republican Party will endure into the next presidential contest, whether he himself will run in 2024, and what in Beelzebub’s name that would look like.

But there’s a personal psychodrama going on as well. It will determine the answers to those questions, and it’s a spectacle all its own. Just as Trump’s presidency was like none before it, his ex-presidency is a singular production.

Other presidents left the White House and, for a short or long while, savored the disappearance of the press corps and the dimming of the spotlight. Maybe right away, maybe later, they burnished their legacies with philanthropic deeds. Meanwhile, they issued pro forma statements of support for their successors or, in accordance with longstanding etiquette, zipped their lips. They behaved.

Trump hasn’t. And — let’s be honest — he won’t. His response to his altered reality is to insist even more than before on an alternative reality, one in which he’ll be reinstated as president, and his sycophants are willing to support his delusions of omnipotence by establishing a zone of affirmation around him. From Green’s article:

When Trump ventured south, a stream of family members (literal and figurative) followed. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner bought a $32 million waterfront lot in Miami from the Latin crooner Julio Iglesias and enrolled their kids at a nearby Jewish day school. Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, bought a $9.7 million mansion in Jupiter, Fla. In December, Sean Hannity sold his penthouse not far from former House speaker — and Trump critic — John Boehner’s place along the Gulf of Mexico and bought a $5.3 million seaside home two miles from Mar-a-Lago, symbolically swapping the Boehner Coast for the Trump Coast. Hannity’s Fox News colleague Neil Cavuto joined him, buying a $7.5 million place nearby. “Think about how utterly bizarre that is,” says Eddie Vale, a Democratic strategist. “It’s like if Rachel Maddow and the ‘Pod Save America’ guys all bought condos in Chicago because they wanted to be close to Barack Obama.”

The only one missing is MyPillow’s Mike Lindell, the bedding magnate turned Trump comforter.

And Trump is not comforted enough.

That was obvious in both his commencement of a blog (“From the Desk of Donald J. Trump”) in May and his termination of it less than a month later, after it failed to attract any readership remotely commensurate with the audience for his past tweets. Trump, onetime monarch of social media, had to grovel for clicks. What an astonishing reversal of fortune. But it’s consistent with other glimmers of desperation.

According to an article in The Times by Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman, he has taken to announcing the states he plans to visit before the actual venues and dates have been arranged. In his head he can probably already hear that magic MAGA applause. It’s stuck there like the chorus of a Top 40 song, but he wants it performed live, in an arena as mammoth as his neediness.

The substitute for that applause? Deference. He demands it every bit as much as he ever did and arguably grows more furious than before when he’s denied it. That’s where the personal and political narratives intersect. His demonization of Liz Cheney for crossing him, his denunciation of Paul Ryan for dissing him and his savaging of any Republican who challenges the Big Lie reflect a ruinous petulance that is bound to wax, not wane, as his exile grinds on. As Jennifer Senior wrote in a column in The Times in January about repudiated narcissists, they “lurch between the role of victim and tormentor,” “howl on and on about betrayal” and “lash out with a mighty vindictiveness.”

Trump is lurching and howling and lashing, to a point where Jeb Bush’s son George P. Bush has been terrified into abject genuflection. The props for George P.’s campaign for Texas attorney general include beer koozies with an image of him and Trump shaking hands and a quote from Trump saying that George P. “is the only Bush that likes me! This is the Bush that got it right. I like him.” I’m sure “low energy” Jeb, as Trump mockingly dismissed him, is suffused with paternal pride.

Green’s portrait of Trump on the far side of the White House mentions that he’s “taken to wearing the same outfit for days on end.” It’s red (a MAGA hat), white (a golf shirt) and blue (slacks), and its redundancy is open to interpretation. Has he settled comfortably into a routine? Or has he sunk uncomfortably into a rut?

I lean toward the latter, which is as dangerous for us as it is for him. No good comes of an ego as ravenous as his. He will make a meal of the Republican Party — and of American democracy itself — if he can.

 

[47of74]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

TFG got to yammer on his buddy Shamity's show last night:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, stupid people...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rambling about the same old shit:

 

[47of74]

Poor baby golden shower fornicate 

Quote

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN on Thursday that former President Donald Trump seems to be finally accepting that he's no longer president six months after leaving office.

In particular, Haberman said that Trump and his allies came to grips with this fact while watching President Joe Biden meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland this week.

"This is the event that underscored for people around Trump and the former president himself the fact that he's not president anymore," she said. "This was the kind of event on the world stage, getting enormous attention, that he really enjoyed, that he saw as one of the trappings of the office that he thought spoke to a sense of power and strength... it was the real moment of, 'Oh, someone else is president and not Donald Trump.'"

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is good:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good interview where Cohen really rips the former guy. He talks about which of the kids would get thrown under the bus first (spoiler, it's Failson1) at 40:31:

 

[Howl]

Lots and lots of speculation currently among talking heads re: Allen Weisselberg flipping and spilling the tea on all of the corruption (tax and otherwise) in the Trump Org.  Michael Cohen is certain that Weisselberg will flip not only to save himself but also his sons. 

Weisselberg's ex daughter in law -- a ballet dancer with a math degree who understands the Trump Org business pretty well and turned over all of the financial paperwork from her divorce  -- is also certain that Allen Weisselberg is cooperating. 

@GreyhoundFan, thanks for those pics of Trump.  He looks to be in a serious decline. 

[GreyhoundFan]

So true:

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

So true:

Quite the achievement for somebody who doesn't even know the meaning of those words.

[Cartmann99]

 

[fraurosena]

Trump’s Father’s Day statement is exactly what you’d expect.

[Dandruff]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Trump’s Father’s Day statement is exactly what you’d expect.

I see he hasn't lost his diplomatic flair.

[GreyhoundFan]

No thank you:

[Cartmann99]

1 minute ago, GreyhoundFan said:

No thank you:

Trump doesn't have a doormat, he wipes his feet on his fans.

[Cartmann99]

 

[Howl]

Apparently Wisselberg and Trump are in contact on a daily basis, including in person meetings.  Upthread I posted some takes that of course Allen Wisselberg will flip.  Eric Garland has a much different take. 

Eric's take is that Trump is in debt to some very bad people, like the worst bad people. Like Russian mobster bad people.   Here's the cruz paragraph from Eric Garlands tweet thread: The question is *whose money is laundered through Trump's buildings.* And we mostly know who. THAT'S why they won't flip. 

Unroll of Eric Garland's twitter thread: 

Quote

It shocks me how one can write these articles without the words "foreign," "organized crime," or "money laundering" even once. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/21/trump-investigation-weisselberg/

…If you write something like "Some people familiar with financial issue prosecutions say many suspects do not want to go to prison," that's not helpful.

The question is *whose money is laundered through Trump's buildings.* And we mostly know who. THAT'S why they won't flip.

Trump is in debt to people who will bury your grandkids in the concrete foundation of a new construction project. THAT is the is issue here. The Mob. And that we let a full-on Mobster into the Oval Office.

We still haven't unpacked the danger from that. Not really. And one of the reasons a foreign-owned Mobster ended up in the White House is that the U.S. media kept reframing every story so that the foreign intelligence and transnational organized crime were cropped out. Well. It's still the real story. Some of us will tell it.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

5 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

 

So true:

[WiseGirl]

17 hours ago, Howl said:

Trump is in debt to people who will bury your grandkids in the concrete foundation of a new construction project. THAT is the is issue here. The Mob. And that we let a full-on Mobster into the Oval Office.

Thanks for the information. Eric Garland makes a lot of sense.

This is one of many things that still concerns me. Who else is indebted to The Mob? Looking at you McTurtle, Graham, Cruz... I believe The Mob has the goods on all these guys and that is why they suck up to OFM. Or at least one reason they do.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm guessing this is just a distraction. "Trump firm sues New York to regain control of Bronx golf course"

Quote

Former president Donald Trump’s company sued the city of New York on Monday, seeking to reverse the cancellation of Trump’s contract to run a city-owned golf course in the Bronx.

Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) terminated Trump’s contract to run the Ferry Point golf course in January, citing Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The city said that Trump had tarnished his brand name such that he could never operate a “first class, tournament quality course” as the city wanted, according to court papers.

In the lawsuit, Trump said the course had done nothing to break its contract with the city. Instead, he said, de Blasio disliked Trump because of his politics and used the Capitol insurrection “as a pretext” to carry out a political vendetta.

City officials “were biased in that they have animosity against President Trump, and they prejudged this case,” Trump’s company said in the lawsuit.

The company asks a New York state judge to reverse de Blasio’s decision and allow Trump to continue operating the city-owned course beyond its scheduled closure in November. The suit was first reported Monday by ABC News.

Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department, said that the city believed its actions were proper, and that it still intended to select a new operator for the course.

“The actions of Mr. Trump to incite a deadly riot at the Capitol on January 6th caused a breach of the Ferry Point contract by eliminating options for hosting championship events,” Paolucci said in a written statement. “We will vigorously defend the City’s decision to terminate the contract.”

While he was president, Trump gave control of his business to his sons and executive Allen Weisselberg. It’s unclear how much control Trump has retaken now that he has left office. Monday’s lawsuit was signed by an underling, Ron Lieberman. The company’s official statement was sent out by Trump’s chief legal officer, Alan Garten.

“The City has no right to terminate our contract,” the statement said. “Mayor de Blasio’s actions are purely politically motivated, have no legal merit, and are yet another example of the mayor’s efforts to advance his own partisan agenda and interfere with free enterprise.”

Before Jan. 6, Trump ran three businesses in city parks: a carousel and ice rinks in Central Park and the Ferry Point course in the Bronx. All three contracts were signed before Trump entered politics. Together, the three operations produced between $11 million and $17 million per year in revenue, according to financial disclosures Trump filed as president.

After Jan. 6, de Blasio said he was canceling all three.

“The President incited a rebellion against the United States government that killed five people and threatened to derail the constitutional transfer of power,” de Blasio said then. “The City of New York will not be associated with those unforgivable acts in any shape, way or form.”

In two of the three cases, the real-world impact of de Blasio’s decision was minimal.

Trump’s contracts to run the ice rinks and the carousel were about to expire this year anyway. But the Ferry Point contract was supposed to last into the 2030s.

The course overlooking the East River produced a steady stream of revenue — between $6 million and $8 million a year, although the profits were much less. The Trump Organization had just finished upgrading it, adding a clubhouse, restaurant and large pro shop.

The city said Trump had violated his obligation to run a “tournament-quality course” after his actions on Jan. 6 — which included telling supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn an election he had “won in a landslide” — caused the organizers of both the PGA Championship and the British Open golf tournaments to say they would not hold events at Trump clubs.

“The obligation to operate a course capable of attracting professional tournament quality events by the PGA or similar organizations has been breached,” the city said, according to Trump’s lawsuit.

Trump is disputing that finding, saying that the tournament-quality standard was meant to describe the course itself, not his brand name. To counter the city’s allegations, Trump’s lawsuit includes testimonials from several pro golfers and golf magazines, praising the course as a place to play.

In the suit, Trump concedes the city does have a right to terminate the contract “at will,” without proving that he breached the contract. But that option would be a costly one for the city. If the city wants to kick Trump out that way, the lawsuit says, it would owe his company $30 million to reimburse it for the improvements made to the course.

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm guessing this is just a distraction. "Trump firm sues New York to regain control of Bronx golf course"

 

A distraction, yes. But also, I think, a dire measure to regain an avenue of income. Covid and his tarnished name have dried up many of the necessary revenues from most, if not all, of his properties. And he desperately, desperately needs money. Not just because he is looking forward lots of costs for defense attorneys for all those suits against him, but more so because of all the debts that are due, or soon to be due, amounting to an estimated total $900 million. He's somehow managed to remortgage Trump Tower in Manhattan earlier this year, but he's also got debts out on Doral, his tower in Chicago, and quite a few other properties. Banks are not willing to do business with him, and even Deutsche Bank won't to come to his rescue anymore. So any source of income is welcome right now.