Trump 55: The Bronze Baron Of Bedminster Wants Back On Twitter And the Forbes 400

[Xan]

3 hours ago, Xan said:

Trump has announced through his mouthpiece on Twitter, Liz Harrington, that he's sent his "envoy ambassador" Ric Grenell to the Servia/Kosovo region.

Hate to quote myself but it's too late to edit.  That, of course, should be Serbia -- not "Servia".

I was just reading an article that said perhaps Trump's usual tactic of delaying through the courts might not be working any more.  The latest ruling on release of documents was handled very quickly and the date for the appeal is in barely over two weeks.  This is not ordinary.  Maybe they know that he's just trying to stall until the midterms when he might have a more Republican-heavy Congress to squash things.  If his lawsuits get handled speedily, it's not good new for him.

For the record, I think that's what happened in the suit that was just dropped by Summer Zervos.  He's been dragging his feet and recently served her notice of some countersuits.  I think the legal expenses got to be too much and she's dropped the defamation suit although she states that everything she said is still true.  I hope there's another tell-all book or big article about it since I think she's now released from any NDAs.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

It will be nice to wash the orange stains off the beautiful Old Post Building: "Trump’s company to sell D.C. hotel lease for $375 million, report says"

Quote

Former president Donald Trump’s real estate company plans to sell the federal lease to its luxury D.C. hotel to Miami-based CGI Merchant Group, according to a report Sunday in the Wall Street Journal.

The Trump Organization, which leased the Old Post Office property beginning in 2013, has been in discussions with CGI Merchant about selling the lease, according to two people who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the discussions. CGI Merchant signed a contract to buy the lease for $375 million, according to the Journal, citing anonymous sources.

Representatives for the Trump Organization and the General Services Administration, which manages the lease, did not immediately return requests for comment. The Post could not immediately confirm that the companies had signed a contract.

An investment firm whose investors include former Major League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez, CGI Merchant announced a fund last year through which it acquires hotels and partners with McLean, Va.-based Hilton Worldwide to operate them.

Hilton attempted to win the Old Post Office deal originally, partnering with a different investment group to turn the building into a Waldorf Astoria, but lost out when the GSA selected the Trump bid. Hilton did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday evening.

Trump’s company beat out other competitors to win the lease by offering to spend more than $200 million to redevelop the building, transforming it from federal offices and a food court into a 263-room luxury hotel with one of the largest ballrooms in the city. Trump, then two years from entering the 2016 presidential race, oversaw the development along with his daughter Ivanka Trump.

At the time, the project symbolized the ambitions of Trump’s small luxury hotel chain. The Trump Organization scoffed at rivals who said it paid too much and would never make money.

“I mean, we are paying too much for the Old Post Office,” Trump told The Post in 2012. “But we will make that so amazing that at some point in the future it’ll be very nice.”

After Trump won the presidency, however, the property almost immediately became a lightning rod for controversy and litigation. Foreign leaders, Republican groups and companies seeking government approvals spent millions there, and ethics experts and Democrats repeatedly sued the company, alleging it was violating the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which bars the president from accepting gifts or payments from foreign leaders. None of the cases produced a ruling against Trump or his company.

Despite the property’s popularity with Republicans holding fundraisers and other conservative clients, so many other potential clients stayed away that the hotel lost $71 million during the years Trump was in office, according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee.

Trump’s company tried to sell the lease for the hotel in 2019, as soon as its contract with the GSA allowed. But when the coronavirus pandemic struck, crushing the hotel business for months, the company pulled the hotel off the market.

Though the agreement allows Trump to sell the lease, the sale requires the approval of the GSA, which receives $3 million in base rent annually, plus increases tied to inflation. The GSA could also be entitled to a cut of profits, depending on how much the lease sells for, according to the lease terms.

Trump’s company remains under investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). A grand jury — convened this spring in Manhattan — returned felony indictments against two Trump companies and Trump’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, charging them with tax evasion. Weisselberg and the companies pleaded not guilty.

Vance’s office recently convened a second grand jury to hear evidence about the Trump Organization’s financial practices and potentially to vote on criminal charges. The seating of the new grand jury does not signal that any other Trump entities or executives will be charged. The second grand jury could end its term without indicting anyone.

Members of the Trump family say that the investigations are politically motivated and that the company has not committed any violations.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Who else is totally not surprised by this? "A newly disclosed memo reveals Trump’s plot to turn the military into his personal goon squad"

Quote

I want to apologize to Mark T. Esper, former president Donald Trump’s fourth and second-to-last defense secretary. I may have been too harsh on the man who became known as “Yesper” for accommodating Trump. As I noted in March: “He did not vocally protest pardons for war criminals, the use of the defense budget to build a border wall or the withdrawal of troops from Germany.” But now that we have seen fresh evidence of how much Trump and his henchmen loathed Esper, he is rising in my estimation.

That evidence comes courtesy of ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, who has unearthed a memorandum from Johnny McEntee, Trump’s director of presidential personnel, listing 14 reasons for ousting Esper. That document was dated Oct. 19, 2020. Three weeks later Esper was fired by a Trump tweet.

The very premise of McEntee’s memo was both sinister and ludicrous — a 30-year-old of no professional or intellectual distinction, whose path to power was carrying Trump’s bags, was making the case for getting rid of a senior Cabinet officer for insufficient loyalty to the president. This revealing and chilling document deserves to be read not as a historical curiosity but as a terrible portent of what could be in store if Trump wins another term. He appears determined to turn the military into his personal goon squad.

One of McEntee’s first complaints was that Esper had “approved the promotion of Lt. Col. [Alexander] Vindman, the start [sic] witness in the sham impeachment inquiry, who told Congress that the President’s call with Ukraine ‘undermined U.S. national security.’” No one has challenged the veracity of Vindman’s testimony, which was delivered under oath. Yet Trump, acting through McEntee, seemed intent on carrying out what Vindman described in a Post op-ed as “a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation” for daring to tell the truth.

The next item in the indictment of Esper: “Publicly opposed the President’s direction to utilize American force to put down riots just outside the White House.” This was a reference to Esper’s brave decision in June 2020 to resist Trump’s desires to deploy active-duty troops to suppress Black Lives Matter protests.

Esper acted after he and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been lured by Trump into a bizarre photo op in Lafayette Square, which been cleared by force of peaceful protesters. Milley subsequently apologized and reminded military personnel that they are pledged to defend the Constitution, including “the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.” This was presumably what sparked another of McEntee’s grievances against Esper: “Has failed to exercise oversight of the Joint Staff.”

McEntee further indicted Esper for acting to remove a symbol of racism and sedition — the Confederate flag — from military installations. He was upset, moreover, that the defense secretary had ruled out attacks “on cultural sites in Iran if the conflict escalated, despite the President wanting to keep that option open.” Attacking cultural sites would have been a war crime — but, according to McEntee, Esper should have been willing to commit a war crime at Trump’s direction.

McEntee also criticized Esper for spending too much time focused on competition with Russia. Left unstated was that Trump seems to hero-worship Russian President Vladimir Putin, who helped him win the 2016 election. Esper’s other transgressions of Trumpism included insufficient support for Trump’s capricious and discriminatory “transgender ban”; contradicting “the President in SEAL Eddie Gallagher’s case” (Trump reversed Gallagher’s demotion despite accusations he had committed war crimes); and dissenting from “the President’s decision to withdraw troops from Germany.” (McEntee gave a new Pentagon appointee working for Esper’s replacement, Christopher Miller, an isolationist to-do list that consisted of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Germany.)

The most damning and telling grievance against Esper was near the bottom of this pathetic document: “When he assumed his role, he vowed to be apolitical.” Normally being apolitical is a sine qua non for leading the armed forces. That’s why President Biden chose retired Gen. Lloyd Austin as defense secretary and President Barack Obama decided to keep Republican Robert M. Gates in the post. But Trump tried to destroy the professional, apolitical ethos of the armed forces — and if given the opportunity, he will almost certainly do so again.

Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker recounted in their book “I Alone Can Fix It” Milley’s well-grounded worries after the election about Trump’s mounting a coup. “They may try, but they’re not going to f---ing succeed,” the general reportedly told a friend. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”

Well, the next time around, Trump would want to ensure that the “guys with guns” are on his side. If he wins a second term, Trump’s next defense secretary (Johnny McEntee perhaps?) would almost certainly be somebody more devoted to him than to the Constitution. For anyone concerned about the future of U.S. democracy, that should be a cause of considerable alarm at a time when Trump and Biden are running almost neck and neck in polling matchups.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good riddance!

 

If I had to drive by that sign daily, I'd sprain both middle fingers.

[47of74]

Loser probably did give him COVID if he's calling to ask Christie where he got it from.

Quote

Chris Christie says that when he was hospitalized with COVID-19 in October 2020, President Donald Trump called to make sure Christie wouldn't blame him for the infection, according to The New York Times, which obtained an excerpt of Christie's new book.

Trump made the call while he was hospitalized at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, the excerpt cited in The Times said. Trump became infected with the virus during a White House coronavirus outbreak that resulted in at least 48 staff members testing positive for the coronavirus.

Trump was admitted to Walter Reed on October 2, and Christie checked himself into the Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey the next day.

"Are you going to say you got it from me?" Christie recalled Trump asking him.

 

[47of74]

And a couple of fuck knob’s groupies thought of ousting him. 

Quote

Steve Mnuchin and Mike Pompeodiscussed a plan to remove Trump from office after the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to Jonathan Karl’s new book Betrayal, which chronicles the final days of the former president’s time in office.

Then-Treasury Secretary Mnuchin reportedly called then-Secretary of State Pompeo on the evening of Jan. 6 to suggest using the 25th Amendment, which outlines the protocols for how to replace the president or vice president in the event of their death, removal from office, resignation, or incapacitation. “I learned that Mnuchin had several conversations about the 25th Amendment and, further, that Mike Pompeo actually asked for a legal analysis of the 25th Amendment and how it would work,” Karl said during an appearance on MSNBC Monday morning.

According to Karl, the idea was “quickly jettisoned” the next day as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao resigned, leaving Mnuchin to realize that using the Constitution to push Trump out of office would take too much time and would almost certainly face legal challenges. Mnuchin, however, did not resign.

“It would not be quick enough and it would be subject to legal challenges,” Karl said, explaining why the plan was abandoned. “But in the hours after the riot, there were high-level conversations about this.”

 

[Becky]

It is mind-boggling to me how many high-level administration officials and advisors evidently knew Trump was outrageously inadequate and dangerous as President of the US, but, right up to the end, were willing to hitch their stars to him.  Ambition, money, greed, power, whatever - - they just rode it out.  Even Chao and DeVos resigned at the 11th hour, too little too late.  And most of them remain silent on it today.  It is so disheartening.  

I'm on the library wait list for Karl's book, it's going to be 6 months before I get it, though.  

[apple1]

More mind-boggling to me is the extent of the support that Trump still seems to have. (I do live in a very red county in what used to be a swing state). It's rather terrifying if I think about the future direction of this nation. I used to think it wasn't possible that Trump could be anything more than a flash in the pan, once-elected president. Now I am worried and trying not to think too much about it.

[47of74]

3 hours ago, apple1 said:

More mind-boggling to me is the extent of the support that Trump still seems to have. (I do live in a very red county in what used to be a swing state). It's rather terrifying if I think about the future direction of this nation. I used to think it wasn't possible that Trump could be anything more than a flash in the pan, once-elected president. Now I am worried and trying not to think too much about it.

Last weekend when I went into town on my bike I was passed by a truck with a fuck face window decal and a fuck face bumper sticker.  It was the BT’s business truck and had his business name and number on the side.  I just remember thinking dude way to shoot yourself in the foot. I wouldn’t hire the guy to shovel shit in any state, let alone Louisiana. (HT Gen Patton).  

[PinkGreyBrown]

Johnny McEntee has been with Trump since the '16 campaign. He got on my radar cuz he's yucky. He had a checkered path under Trump, but Trump put him back in to do the work for which only a hard-core Trump loyalist could be counted on.

[Audrey2]

7 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Last weekend when I went into town on my bike I was passed by a truck with a fuck face window decal and a fuck face bumper sticker.  It was the BT’s business truck and had his business name and number on the side.  I just remember thinking dude way to shoot yourself in the foot. I wouldn’t hire the guy to shovel shit in any state, let alone Louisiana. (HT Gen Patton).  

The scary thing is, for some of these people seeing the idiots face on the truck would be a sign that they should hire the service of that truck.

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

14 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

The scary thing is, for some of these people seeing the idiots face on the truck would be a sign that they should hire the service of that truck.

Yep.  It's the same group of people who will hire a business that advertises themselves as a "Christian based business".  I have tried to explain to family and friends several times that anyone aside from a church and maybe a Christian bookstore who uses Jesus as a marketing tool is really not paying attention to the Bible.  It's been especially rewarding when, after having had the conversation multiple times, the same businesses get hired by the very people I have warned (because of their claims of being a Christian based business) and turn out to be all sorts of incompetent and/or shady.  When I hear the lament "but they said they were CHRISTIANS!" I just smile and point out that Jesus was a Jew- and still had to learn his skills even though he was the Son of God.  If anyone chooses to hire someone because of politics, I would greatly enjoy pointing out Trump's abject failures in both business and politics. 

[church_of_dog]

 

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by church_of_dog

[Xan]

11 minutes ago, church_of_dog said:

 

 

You've got to love this part:  "It has since been confirmed that the allegations were false and I have been exonerated of these charges."  Um... no.  You weren't exonerated, Donny.  And, although they found some troubling bits, in the main everything they found was true.    He's hoping to nullify the entirety of the Steele Dossier which makes me believe that his connection with Russia is what he fears most being revealed. 

I think Putin has been pulling his strings for quite some time.  My personal belief is that Russia hacked the 2016 election just enough to get him the electoral win.  We're never had exit polls be that wrong before 2016.  I'm not sure why no one raised alarms about it.  One reason he's so pissed off now is that he was sure that they'd monkeyed enough with the 2020 election to have him win that too.  Alas, they didn't count on the huge turnout and all those paper ballots.

[Cartmann99]

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

In what I can only describe as Beansie coming out of his can and spreading his rays of sunshine on that FJ community-if this post doesn’t belong here and needs posting elsewhere please let me know. The (barely) adult son of the pastor of my in-laws’ church just bravely came out. He trusted me a few years ago but I kept my mouth shut as I really believe it is up to the individual how & when to announce. His family has right now not one but THREE different “Christian based” companies doing work on their home and rentals. Son has already told them they are being overcharged for substandard work but he was told his “f-g” opinion wasn’t welcome. His half brothers are trying to be supportive but are also afraid of alienating Dad and losing any inheritance. I am ready to just give up and give nothing. You seem to get NOTHING?; my choice was nothing we do. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s latest media appearance? A 30-minute chat/pillow ad."

Quote

So there’s Donald Trump, sitting on an uncomfortable-looking chair in an ornate but empty ballroom, decked out in a tuxedo as a rainstorm battered Mar-a-Lago. And across from him in another uncomfortable-looking chair, the pillow guy, Mike Lindell. For more than half an hour, the two discussed their shared, wildly incorrect understanding of American politics in a video that Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, later posted to his sort-of social media site Frank Speech. Every so often, a snippet of text would pop up as the men chatted: Use this special promotional code to save on a new MyPillow!

The encounter was not notable because it revealed some new truths. In introducing the discussion, Lindell promised that he would ask a lot of questions that the former president had not previously faced. So, right out of the gates, he dealt Trump a high fastball: “I want to ask you a question that you probably haven’t been asked, and that was: Was running the country what you expected it to be, or was it like when you were running your business?”

Hard as it may be to believe, Trump wriggled out of Lindell’s cunning trap. His response was pretty much what you would have expected it to be: The media was mean, the Democrats were mean, President Biden is terrible. Lindell, sitting giddily on the edge of his chair, interjected to offer agreement and praise.

Lindell was correct when he began the conversation by pointing out that he’s used to being the subject of interviews and not the conductor of them. But that’s changing. Over the past year, Lindell’s breathless effort to prove his unprovable argument that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump has generated a second career: media magnate. The fortune he accrued from his pillow sales has been deployed to create not only Frank Speech — a platform dedicated to free speech that hasn’t yet launched and that bans swearing — but a streaming platform called Lindell TV. He’s made various films detailing what he claims to be evidence of rampant fraud in the 2020 election, evidence that was quickly debunked. He has become a one-man conglomerate focused on a single goal: defending the indefensible election claims made by Trump, whom he described in introducing the conversation as “our real president.”

By now, you’re likely familiar with the Trump-Lindell universe of conspiracy theorizing, but it’s worth stepping back and considering what this discussion represents. This is the former president of the United States, a position of enormous historic gravitas, appearing in a video that serves as a lengthy commercial for a pillow company. And in that commercial, the former president continues to make false claims about the election results and the integrity of the country. For Lindell, his star turn as a Trump defender has unquestionably helped offset the losses MyPillow has faced after being rejected by major retailers and even, for a bit, taking his ads out of their heavy rotation on Fox News. During Lindell’s “cybersymposium” this summer at which he tried and failed to prove fraud, there were similarly numerous plugs for MyPillow. Nearly every media outlet is a conduit from advertisers to audience, but there’s an important line between interview and infomercial.

Fringe politics as sales mechanism — both the context for the Trump-Lindell chat and some of its content. Trump at one point complained about the media having suggested there was something untoward about “somebody from Saudi Arabia stay[ing] at a suite one night” at a Trump hotel. The reality, as The Washington Post reported in 2018, was that lobbyists for Saudi Arabia spent more than $270,000 to reserve about 500 nights at Trump’s D.C. hotel. A subtle distinction.

But, then, we’re the hated media, the recurring target of the Trump-Lindell chat. This is the other remarkable aspect of Trump and Lindell talking: Trump has given no live interviews to serious journalists since he left office. He’s spoken with a number of book authors who’ve challenged him on his ongoing dishonesty about the election, but otherwise he’s given a little more than a dozen interviews since Jan. 20 in which the subject is either ignored or treated as legitimate. He’s had at least eight interviews with the far-right networks One America News and Newsmax and at least half a dozen with Fox News — but generally with the network’s more combustible hosts such as Dan Bongino and Jeanine Pirro. Trump has intentionally avoided serious, real-time scrutiny of his views, almost certainly because he understands how quickly they might be exposed as flimsy. (It brings to mind his interaction with Bill O’Reilly in 2017, shortly after taking office. O’Reilly pressed him on his nonsensical claims about fraud in California, and an annoyed Trump told him to “forget” it.) Few former presidents demand as much scrutiny as Trump, and few have been so pointed about avoiding it.

Instead, Trump uses fake media outlets to attack real ones. He told Lindell, for example, that the media was involved in “collusion” because it rejected his obviously false claims about fraud.

“They don’t let you get an honest word out,” Trump said. “They’ll take what you say, and they’ll make it, like, totally different. You wouldn’t even recognize.”

He lamented that even the outlets “that are supposedly on our side” weren’t elevating his false claims. (After his interview with Bongino, Fox News stripped his dishonest fraud claims out in a video posted on YouTube, sparking a brouhaha on the right.) Lindell, of course, agreed.

“People have to realize out there,” Lindell said at one point. “I’ve told journalists out there, don’t you care about your country? But their bosses’ bosses, whatever, they can’t even print something good if they wanted to. And that’s so hard getting around.”

“You almost got to use the bad media to even get the word out,” Lindell continued, speaking as he sat across from the former president recording a conversation for the media site he created to spread false information about voter fraud.

Trump then transitioned into another riff about how the election was stolen, which it wasn’t.

 

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

[Audrey2]

At this point I would kind of like to see DeSantis run. I know that it's terrifying that he would have a strong chance of winning but at least it's just a scary a******* and not a guano crazy a*******.

[Cartmann99]

Donald Trump Endorses Rep. Paul Gosar One Day After House Censure

Quote

Trump, in a statement, hailed Gosar as “a loyal supporter of our America First agenda” and “highly respected in Arizona,” and said he “has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” The statement made no mention of the House’s rare rebuke — just the fourth in nearly 40 years — which also stripped Gosar of his two committee assignments, on the Natural Resources and the Oversight and Reform panels.

 

[onekidanddone]

4 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I’ve believe I’ve posted this before. 
If my dad were alive he would rub his hands together in evil glee and say “Fight boys fight. Don’t play nice, just go on outside and fight”.

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

Trump seeks to oust GOP governor over canceled MAGA rally: report

Quote

Former president Donald Trump reportedly wants to oust Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey because he blames her for the cancellation of a MAGA rally that had been planned for July.

Trump recently met with Lynda Blanchard, a former ambassador in his administration, to discuss a possible endorsement if she abandons her Senate campaign and instead challenges Ivey in the 2022 GOP primary, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

"Mr. Trump has privately blamed Ms. Ivey for a state commission decision to block the former president from holding a rally in July at USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, which includes a World War II battleship and other historic military aircraft," the newspaper reports. "A spokeswoman for Ms. Ivey had said the governor played no role in that decision."

Commissioners at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park said they canceled the Trump rally because the facility can't be used for partisan political events, the local NBC affiliate reported at the time. They made the decision to cancel the rally after seeking an opinion from the state's Republican attorney general.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Shaking my head: "RNC agrees to pay some of Trump’s legal bills in N.Y. criminal investigation"

Quote

The Republican National Committee is paying some personal legal bills for former president Donald Trump, spending party funds to pay a lawyer representing Trump in investigations into his financial practices in New York, a party spokeswoman said Monday.

In October, the RNC made two payments totaling $121,670 to the law firm of Ronald Fischetti, a veteran defense attorney whom Trump hired in April. According to a person with direct knowledge of the payments, the requests came earlier this summer but were voted on by the party’s executive committee only in recent weeks.

Fischetti has been representing Trump as he faces investigations by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). There has been no indication that either investigation involves Trump’s time as president or any of his political campaigns.

A person familiar with the RNC’s decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations said the organization was willing to foot the bills because James has made comments indicating she wanted to go after Trump. James in 2018 told supporters that she intended to investigate Trump, noting that “I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.” James has said her investigation is following the law and not guided by politics.

The RNC is not paying some of the president’s other bills, such as those for his court battles over the House Jan. 6 committee’s requests, said the person familiar with the RNC’s decision.

“As a leader of our party, defending President Trump and his record of achievement is critical to the GOP,” the party said in a written statement. “It is entirely appropriate for the RNC to continue assisting in fighting back against the Democrats’ never ending witch hunt and attacks on him.”

Trump is a wealthy businessman with dozens of properties, and he has built an independent political operation, which at last count had more than $100 million on hand.

“The RNC is our important partner in advancing America First policies and fighting back against the endless witch hunts,” Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesman, said in a statement. “The Democrats have become obsessed with weaponizing their offices against President Trump, which is a complete abandonment of their Constitutional obligations.”

Fischetti’s firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Neither James nor Vance has formally accused Trump of any wrongdoing. The former president has called the investigations politically motivated.

This summer, Vance’s office indicted Trump’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and two Trump corporate entities on charges of felony tax fraud. Weisselberg and the two companies have pleaded not guilty.

More recently, investigators have sought information about instances in which Trump’s company gave vastly different valuations of the same properties to lenders and tax authorities. Vance recently convened a new grand jury to hear evidence and potentially consider charges in the case. James — who is now a candidate for governor — has said she is also considering a lawsuit.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has come under pressure from some members to show more independence from Trump, but the majority of her 168 members continue to support the former president, party officials say. The party held a fundraiser in the spring at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where Trump spoke, paying the club almost $200,000. McDaniel has stayed in regular touch with Trump. Her allies say that Trump remains the biggest fundraising draw for the party, and it is important to stay in his good graces.

It’s not the first time the RNC has covered Trump’s legal fees. While he was president, it paid for lawyers to represent Trump and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., during investigations of his 2016 campaign and his alleged connections to Russia.

This fall, the Federal Election Commission faulted the RNC for paying for those lawyers out of an account devoted to recounts and other election-related proceedings. The FEC stopped short of exacting penalties, saying it had yet to “provide guidance” on rules for the segregated account.

In this case, the payment to Fischetti’s firm came from a different pot of money, the RNC’s general account, according to FEC records.

Because of that, the payments to Fischetti are unlikely to run afoul of federal campaign finance law, said Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center. That’s because the ban on the personal use of funds from campaign committees does not apply to spending by party committees, he said.

But Craig Engle, head of the political law group at the law firm Arent Fox, said party committees have often avoided paying for personal expenses for another reason — fear that they might lose their tax-exempt status, for appearing to use nonprofit funds for their leaders’ personal benefit.

Engle said the RNC’s spending related to the Russia investigations was clearly connected to the then-president’s campaign and position in office. “It’s hard to quarrel with that,” Engle said.

But in this case, Fischer said, the idea that the investigations in New York are connected to Trump’s campaign or position in the party “seems like a real stretch.”

There was no sign that the RNC was paying legal bills for Trump’s companies or for any Trump Organization employees. One person familiar with the company said the Trump Organization itself — which is owned by Trump — was paying legal fees for Weisselberg. Weisselberg’s attorney, Mary Mulligan, declined to comment.

 

[Alisamer]

Here, a tarot reading for the entire Republican Party.

Spoiler