Donald Trump
Trump set to undergo questioning in July in NY civil probe
Former President Donald Trump, his namesake son and his daughter Ivanka have agreed to answer questions under oath next month in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into his business practices, unless their lawyers persuade the state’s highest court to step in.
A Manhattan judge signed off Wednesday on an agreement that calls for the Trumps to give depositions — a legal term for sworn, pretrial testimony out of court — starting July 15.
Messages seeking comment were sent to the ex-president’s attorneys. State Attorney General Letitia James’ office declined to comment, as did the younger Trumps’ attorney, Alan Futerfas.
Another Trump son, Eric Trump, gave a deposition in 2020 but declined to answer some questions.
The new agreement comes after a series of setbacks for Donald Trump’s efforts to block James’ 3-year-long investigation.
James has said the probe has uncovered evidence that Trump’s company exaggerated the value of assets such as skyscrapers, golf courses and even his Manhattan penthouse to get loans, insurance and tax breaks for land donations. A lawyer for her office told a judge last month that evidence could support legal action against the former president, his company or both, though the attorney said no decision had been made.
Trump has decried the investigation as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
A New York state appeals court ruled May 26 that Trump had to undergo a deposition, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the attorney general had “the clear right” to question Trump and certain other principals in his company.
Read: Trump wins acquittal, but Ukraine saga far from over
Then, on May 27, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that Trump had filed to seek a court order stopping James from investigating him.
The suit claimed that James, a Democrat, targeted the Republican ex-president because of political animus and violated his free speech and due process rights. A lawyer for Trump said at the time that the dismissal would be appealed.
James, meanwhile, said Trump had lobbed “baseless legal challenges” at her investigation and vowed it would continue.
Wednesday’s agreement acknowledges that the Trumps can appeal to New York’s top court, called the Court of Appeals, to try to overturn the decision that requires their depositions.
The former president had plenty of experience with such questioning during his business career, and he gave a deposition just this past October in a lawsuit filed by protesters who said his security team roughed them up during his first presidential campaign.
James’ office started investigating Trump in 2019, after his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the businessperson-turned-politician had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits.
James’ office also has been involved in a parallel, but separate, investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Mar-a-Lago-trespasser deported to China 2 years later
A Chinese businesswoman convicted of trespassing at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and lying to Secret Service agents was deported over the weekend, federal authorities said, more than two years after serving her sentence.
Yujing Zhang was turned over to immigration officials in December 2019 after serving her eight-month sentence. But she was held at the Glades County Detention Center for three times as long as her prison term mainly because of deportation delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration authorities told the Miami Herald.
READ: Trump asks US judge to force Twitter to restore his account
At the time of her sentencing, the then 33-year-old Zhang went to Mar-a-Lago “to meet the president and family and just make friends.” When an incredulous judge questioned her about whether she thought she could really meet the Trumps, Zhang laughed loudly and said she hoped to meet other people, too.
Zhang then told U.S. District Judge Roy Altman that the president told reporters that he had invited Zhang to Mar-a-Lago. But Altman said that was another lie.
It's unclear what Zhang's motives were, but the judge said it was clearly about more than getting a photo opportunity.
After serving her sentence and while still detained by U.S. immigration officials, Zhang grew desperate to expedite her return to China. The newspaper reported she filed a petition in December 2020 to speed up the process, but was not successful.
READ: Biden backs Trump rejection of China’s South China Sea claim
Zhang wrote in English that she had been held at the Glades County Detention Center, had no money to call her family in China, and needed an attorney to gain her freedom and go home, according to court documents.
More issues, less Trump: GOP sees model after Virginia win
Since the day he rode down a golden escalator and announced his candidacy for president, Republicans have struggled with how to deal with Donald Trump.
But after Glenn Youngkin's stunning victory in the Virginia governor's race — a state President Joe Biden won last year by 10 percentage points — and a strong GOP showing in deep-blue New Jersey's, party leaders believe they have a model that can deliver them big wins in next year's midterm elections.
By tapping into culture war fights over issues like school curricula, the GOP can energize Trump's loyal base. But party leaders believe this week's results demonstrate they can also win back suburbanites who abandoned the GOP during the Trump era by talking about local issues like taxes and keeping the former president at arm's length.
“Clearly Youngkin's win was a boost to Republicans and gives us momentum going into next year," said Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, who has not ruled out a run for president in 2024. That, combined with the surprisingly competitive race for governor in New Jersey, “showed that a Republican in this environment, talking about state issues, talking about education, talking about the future, can even win suburban votes and can win the middle.”
As the full extent of Tuesday's voting became clear, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is focused on retaking control of the House, named 13 more Democratic seats it hoped to flip. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, meanwhile, noted next year's map is weighted heavily toward swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia, which Biden won by far slimmer margins than he won Virginia and New Jersey.
Read:Glenn Youngkin wins in Virginia, dead heat in New Jersey
Other states where Democrats have eyed Senate seats, such as North Carolina and Florida, were carried by Trump in 2020.
“It completely changes the dynamics of the map," NRSC spokesman Chris Hartline said.
The results emboldened some Trump critics like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who swept his own blue state and has long stressed the party's need to win back the swing voters and moderates whom Trump alienated.
”That’s the way we’re going to win," Hogan said. "It’s a great road map. You can't double down on failure," he said, arguing that voters “want to hear what you’ll do for them, not for Trump.”
Of course, it remains unclear heading into the midterms whether Republicans will nominate the kind of candidates with the same appeal as Youngkin.
Many GOP primary contests, from Ohio to North Carolina, have been dominated by contenders who have tried to out-Trump one another, including parroting his lies about a stolen election. And the former president has been wading into races, aiming to crown candidates who have faced serious allegations as he has tried to exact revenge on those who crossed him by voting in favor of his impeachment or opposing his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
One example is Sean Parnell, who is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania with Trump's backing. Parnell's estranged wife this week testified under oath that she had endured years of rage and abuse from him, including being choked until she had to bite him, a newspaper reported. Parnell had emphatically denied her claims.
And while Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for governor in New Jersey who lost a close vote, made a clear break with Trump, Youngkin did not. Instead, the Virginia Republican deftly handled the former president, persuading him to steer clear of the state, while nonetheless maintaining his support.
Trump endorsed Youngkin and praised him in the race's final stretch, but his involvement in the campaign was limited, including holding a “tele-rally” on election eve in which he spoke for less than 10 minutes. Trump's allies nonetheless made clear to his supporters that there was minimal daylight between the two men when it came to the issues.
John Fredericks, who served as Trump’s campaign chair in the state in 2016 and 2020, hosted Trump on his radio show, and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon appeared at a rally to signal Youngkin’s MAGA bona fides. One GOP strategist noted how Trump had developed a system of code words — like “America first” — that candidates like Youngkin could pick up as a means of signaling to Trump’s base that he was speaking their language.
Read:Virginia governor race emerges as test of Biden popularity
Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, meanwhile, flooded the airwaves with ads portraying Youngkin as a Trump acolyte, reminding Republicans that he was one of them.
“Thank you, Terry McAuliffe, for spending the money to help me get out our vote in massive numbers,” Fredericks said. “He got our vote out. We didn't have to."
Beyond Trump, Youngkin tapped into an issue set that appealed both to rural voters in deeply Republican swaths of southwestern Virginia as well as those in the suburbs who agreed with Trump on the economy and other kitchen table issues but were turned off by his tone. He presented himself in chipper campaign ads as a genial, suburban dad in a sweater vest who could appeal to parents.
In particular, he seized on frustrations of parents, many of whom grew incensed over their children’s schools’ refusal to resume in-person classes during the pandemic, and subsequent mask mandates and attendance policies.
But as he promised to increase teacher pay and school budgets, Youngkin also didn’t shy away from the culture war issues that Trump heralded in an effort to portray Democrats as out of the mainstream.
Youngkin sounded the alarm over transgender rights and critical race theory, an academic framework that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people. In recent months, it has become a catch-all political buzzword for any teaching in schools about race and American history. Indeed, he went so far as to release an ad featuring a mother expressing outrage that her child had been assigned to read “Beloved,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Toni Morrison.
Fredericks credited Trump for Youngkin's victory, insisting the Republican wouldn't have won without Trump's base.
“Glenn Youngkin did nothing but embrace our core policies and voters from Day One. So he did nothing to alienate us," he said. “He put together a very simple coalition: Trump voters and angry parents.”
Trump predictably agreed.
“Without that movement, that race wouldn’t have even been close," he said on Fredericks' radio show Wednesday.
Trump asks US judge to force Twitter to restore his account
Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to restore his account, which the company suspended in January following the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Trump’s attorneys on Friday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Miami seeking a preliminary injunction against Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey. They argue that Twitter is censoring Trump in violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the motion.
Read:Trump aides aim to build GOP opposition to Afghan refugees
Twitter declined to comment Saturday on Trump’s filing.
The company permanently banned Trump from its platform days after his followers violently stormed the Capitol building to try to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win. Twitter cited concerns that Trump would incite further violence. Prior to the ban, Trump had roughly 89 million followers on Twitter.
Trump was also suspended from Facebook and Google’s YouTube over similar concerns that he would provoke violence. Facebook’s ban will last two years, until Jan. 7, 2023, after which the company will review his suspension. YouTube’s ban is indefinite.
Read: Biden backs Trump rejection of China’s South China Sea claim
In July, Trump filed lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against all three tech companies and their CEOs, claiming that he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored. The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed as part of Trump’s case against Twitter.
Biden aims to enlist allies in tackling climate, COVID, more
President Joe Biden planned to use his first address before the U.N. General Assembly to reassure other nations of American leadership on the global stage and call on allies to move quickly and cooperatively to address the festering issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and human rights abuses.
Biden, who arrived in New York on Monday evening to meet with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ahead of Tuesday’s address, offered a full-throated endorsement of the body’s relevance and ambition at a difficult moment in history.
The president, in brief remarks at the start of his meeting with Guterres, returned to his mantra that “America is back” — a phrase that’s become presidential shorthand meant to encapsulate his promise to take a dramatically different tack with allies than predecessor Donald Trump.
“The vision of the United Nations has never been short on ambition, any more than our Constitution,” Biden said.
Read:US easing virus restrictions for foreign flights to America
But the president was facing a healthy measure of skepticism from allies during his week of high-level diplomacy. The opening months of his presidency have included a series of difficult moments with friendly nations that were expecting greater cooperation from Biden following four years of Trump’s “America first” approach to foreign policy.
Eight months into his presidency, Biden has been out of sync with allies on the chaotic ending to the U.S. war in Afghanistan. He has faced differences over how to go about sharing coronavirus vaccines with the developing world and over pandemic travel restrictions. And there are questions about the best way to respond to military and economic moves by China.
Biden also finds himself in the midst of a fresh diplomatic spat with France, the United States’ oldest ally, after announcing plans — along with Britain — to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. The move is expected to give Australia improved capabilities to patrol the Pacific amid growing concern about the Chinese military’s increasingly aggressive tactics, but it upended a French defense contract worth at least $66 billion to sell diesel-powered submarines to Australia.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday there was a “crisis of trust” with the U.S. as a result of the episode.
Ahead of Biden’s arrival, EU Council President Charles Michel strongly criticized the Biden administration for leaving Europe “out of the game in the Indo-Pacific region” and ignoring the underlying elements of the trans-Atlantic alliance — transparency and loyalty — in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the announcement of the U.S.-U.K.-Australia alliance.
Read: Out West, Biden points to wildfires to push for big rebuild
Despite such differences, Biden hoped to use his Tuesday address to the General Assembly as well as a series of one-on-one and larger meetings with world leaders this week to make the case for American leadership on the world stage.
“There are points of disagreement, including when we have disagreed with the decisions other countries are making, the decision points of when countries have disagreed with the decisions we’re making,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “But the larger point here ... is that we are committed to those alliances, and that always requires work from every president, from every global leader.”
In an interview ahead of his meeting with Biden, Guterres told The Associated Press that he was concerned about the “completely dysfunctional” U.S.-China relationship and that it could lead to a new cold war. Psaki said the administration disagreed with the assessment, adding that the U.S.-China relationship was “one not of conflict but of competition.”
In his address Tuesday, Biden planned to put a heavy emphasis on the need for world leaders to work together on the COVID-19 pandemic, meet past obligations to address climate change, head off emerging technology issues and firm up trade rules, White House officials said.
Biden was expected to release new plans to assist the global vaccination effort and to talk about the U.S. plan to meet its part of financial commitments that the U.S. and other developed nations made in 2009 to help poorer nations adopt clean energy technology, assistance that was due to kick in annually last year, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the president’s remarks.
Read: Biden’s vaccine rules ignite instant, hot GOP opposition
Ahead of his departure, the Biden administration announced plans to ease foreign travel restrictions to the U.S. beginning in November. The U.S. has largely restricted travel by non-U.S. citizens coming from Europe since the start of the pandemic, an issue that had become a point of contention in trans-Atlantic relations.
The new rules will allow foreigners in if they have proof of vaccination and a negative COVID-19 test, the White House said Monday.
Biden planned to limit his time at the United Nations due to coronavirus concerns. He was to meet with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison while in New York before shifting the rest of the week’s diplomacy to virtual and Washington settings.
At a virtual COVID-19 summit Biden is hosting Wednesday, leaders will be urged to step up vaccine-sharing commitments, address oxygen shortages around the globe and deal with other critical pandemic-related issues.
The president is also scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday at the White House, and invited the prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan — part of a Pacific alliance known as “the Quad” — to Washington on Friday. In addition to the gathering of Quad leaders, Biden will sit down for one-on-one meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
Trump aides aim to build GOP opposition to Afghan refugees
As tens of thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban arrive in the U.S., a handful of former Trump administration officials are working to turn Republicans against them.
The former officials are writing position papers, appearing on conservative television outlets and meeting privately with GOP lawmakers — all in an effort to turn the collapse of Afghanistan into another opportunity to push a hard-line immigration agenda.
“It is a collaboration based on mutual conviction,” said Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s most conservative immigration policies and among those engaged on the issue. “My emphasis has been in talking to members of Congress to build support for opposing the Biden administration’s overall refugee plans.”
The approach isn’t embraced by all Republican leaders, with some calling it mean-spirited and at odds with Christian teachings that are important to the white evangelicals who play a critical role in the party’s base. The strategy relies on tactics that were commonplace during Trump’s tenure and that turned off many voters, including racist tropes, fear-mongering and false allegations.
And the hard-liners pay little heed to the human reality unfolding in Afghanistan, where those who worked with Americans during the war are desperate to flee for fear they could be killed by the new Taliban regime.
Read:California governor seeks $16.7M in aid for Afghan refugees
But the Republicans pushing the issue are betting they can open a new front in the culture wars they have been fighting since President Joe Biden’s election by combining the anti-immigrant sentiment that helped fuel Trump’s political rise with widespread dissatisfaction with the Afghan withdrawal. That, they hope, could keep GOP voters motivated heading into next year’s midterms, when control of Congress is at stake.
“From a political standpoint, cultural issues are the most important issues that are on the mind of the American people,” said Russ Vought, Trump’s former budget chief and president of the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit group that has been working on building opposition to Afghan refugee settlement in the U.S. along with other hot-button issues, like critical race theory, which considers American history through the lens of racism.
His group is working, he said, to “kind of punch through this unanimity that has existed” that the withdrawal was chaotic, but that Afghan refugees deserve to come to the U.S.
Officials insist that every Afghan headed for the country is subject to extensive vetting that includes thorough biometric and biographic screenings conducted by intelligence, law enforcement and counterterrorism personnel. At a pair of hearings this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said those “rigorous security checks” begin in transit countries before refugees arrive in the U.S. and continue at U.S. military bases before anyone is resettled. Checks then continue as refugees await further processing.
But Trump and his allies, who worked to sharply curtain refugee admissions while they were in office, insist the refugees pose a threat.
“Who are all of the people coming into our Country?” Trump asked in a recent statement. “How many terrorists are among them?”
With the U.S. confronting a host of challenges, it’s unclear whether voters will consider immigration a leading priority next year. It was a key motivator for voters in the 2018 midterm elections, with 4 in 10 Republicans identifying it as the top issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast data. But it became far less salient two years later, when only 3% of 2020 voters — including 5% of Republicans — named it as the No. 1 issue facing the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic woes.
Read: GOP rift widens amid growing hostility to Afghan refugees
When it comes to refugees, 68% of Americans say they support the U.S. taking in those fleeing Afghanistan after security screening, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll in late August and early September. That includes a majority — 56% — of Republicans.
The party’s leaders are far from united. Dozens of Republican lawmakers and their offices have been working tirelessly to try to help Afghans flee the country. And some, like Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., have admonished those in his party who have suggested the Afghans pose a security risk.
Some of the skepticism voiced by the right has been exacerbated by the Biden administration’s refusal to date to provide an accounting of who was able to leave Afghanistan during the U.S.’s chaotic evacuation campaign from Kabul’s airport.
The State Department has said that more than 23,800 Afghans arrived in the U.S. between Aug. 17-31. Thousands more remain at U.S. military sites overseas for screening and other processing. But officials have said they are still working to compile the breakdown of how many are applicants to the Special Immigrant Visa program designed to help Afghan interpreters and others who served side-by-side with Americans, how many are considered other “Afghans at risk,” like journalists and human rights workers, and how many fall into other categories.
The organization War Time Allies estimates as many as 20,000 special visa applicants remain in the country, not counting their families and others eligible to come to the U.S.
Ken Cuccinelli, who served as Trump’s acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and is now a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, says he doesn’t believe the refugees have faced sufficient review.
“It’s unachievable as a simple administrative matter,” he said of the process. While Cuccinelli, like Miller, believes that SIVs should be allowed to come to the U.S., he argues that the other refugees should be resettled in the region, closer to home.
Read: Afghan refugees tell UN: 'We need peace, land to go home'
The “mass importation of potentially hundreds of thousands of people who do not share American cultural, political, or ideological commonalities poses serious risks to both national security and broader social cohesion,” he wrote in a recent position paper on the group’s website that cites Pew Research Center polling on beliefs about Sharia law and suicide bombings.
Other former administration officials strongly disagree with such inflammatory language.
“Some of the people who’ve always been immigration hard-liners are seeing this wrongly as an opportunity ahead of the midterms to, lack a better term, stoke fear of, ‘I don’t want these people in my country,’” said Alyssa Farah, a former Pentagon press secretary who also served as White House communications director under Trump.
Farah said she has been working to “politely shift Republican sentiment” away from arguments that she sees as both factually false and politically questionable. The Republican Party, she noted, includes a majority of veterans — many of whom worked closely alongside Afghans on the ground and have led the push to help their former colleagues escape — as well as evangelical Christians, who have historically welcomed refugees with open arms.
“It’s totally misreading public sentiment to think that Republicans should not be for relocating Afghan refugees who served along side the U.S.,” she said. “The Christian community is there. The veterans community is for it.”
Pentagon cancels disputed JEDI cloud contract with Microsoft
The Pentagon said it canceled a disputed cloud-computing contract with Microsoft that could eventually have been worth $10 billion. It will instead pursue a deal with both Microsoft and Amazon and possibly other cloud service providers.
“With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI Cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the DoD’s capability gaps,” the Pentagon said in a statement Tuesday.
The statement did not directly mention that the Pentagon faced extended legal challenges by Amazon to the original $1 million contract awarded to Microsoft. Amazon argued that the Microsoft award was tainted by politics, particularly then-President Donald Trump’s antagonism toward Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who stepped down Monday as the company’s chief executive officer. Bezos owns The Washington Post, a newspaper often criticized by Trump.
The Pentagon’s chief information officer, John Sherman, told reporters Tuesday that during the lengthy legal fight with Amazon, “the landscape has evolved” with new possibilities for large-scale cloud computing services. Thus it was decided, he said, to start over and seek multiple vendors.
Read:Microsoft unveils Windows 11 operating system
Sherman said JEDI will be replaced by a new program called Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, and that both Amazon and Microsoft “likely” will be awarded parts of the business, although neither is guaranteed. Sherman said the three other large cloud service providers — Google, IBM and Oracle — might qualify, too.
Microsoft said in response to the Pentagon announcement, “We understand the DoD s rationale, and we support them and every military member who needs the mission-critical 21st century technology JEDI would have provided. The DoD faced a difficult choice: Continue with what could be a years-long litigation battle or find another path forward.”
Amazon said it understands and agrees with the Pentagon’s decision. In a statement, the company reiterated its view that the 2019 contract award was not based on the merits of the competing proposals “and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement.”
Oracle, which had earlier sought the JEDI contact but didn’t make it to the final round, declined comment Tuesday. In separate statements, IBM said it was evaluating the new Pentagon approach and Google said it looked forward to discussing it with Pentagon officials.
Read: Sanctioned Russian IT firm was partner with Microsoft, IBM
The JEDI project began with the $1 million contract award for Microsoft, meant as an initial step in a 10-year deal that could have reached $10 billion in value. The project that will replace it is a five-year program; Sherman said no exact contract value has been set but that it will be “in the billions.” Sherman said the government will negotiate the amount Microsoft will be paid for having its 2019 deal terminated.
Amazon Web Services, a market leader in providing cloud computing services, had long been considered a leading candidate to run the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, known as JEDI. The project was meant to store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to improve communications with soldiers on the battlefield and use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.
The JEDI contract became mired in legal challenges almost as soon as it was awarded to Microsoft in October 2019. The losing bidder, Amazon Web Services, went to court arguing that the Pentagon’s process was flawed and unfair, including that it was improperly influenced by politics.
This year the Pentagon had been hinting that it might scrap the contract, saying in May that it felt compelled to reconsider its options after a federal judge in April rejected a Pentagon move to have key parts of Amazon’s lawsuit dismissed.
Read:Microsoft buying speech recognition firm Nuance in $16B deal
The JEDI saga has been unusual for the political dimension linked to Trump. In April 2020, the Defense Department inspector general’s office concluded that the contracting process was in line with legal and government purchasing standards. The inspector general found no evidence of White House interference in the contract award process, but that review also said investigators could not fully review the matter because the White House would not allow unfettered access to witnesses.
Five months later, the Pentagon reaffirmed Microsoft as winner of the contract, but work remained stalled by Amazon’s legal challenge.
In its April 2020 report, the inspector general’s office did not draw a conclusion about whether the Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp. was appropriately declared the winner. Rather, it looked at whether the decision-making process was proper and legal. It also examined allegations of unethical behavior by Pentagon officials involved in the matter and generally determined that any ethical lapses did not influence the outcome.
That review did not find evidence of White House pressure for the Pentagon to favor the Microsoft bid, but it also said it could not definitely determine the full extent of White House interactions with the Pentagon’s decision makers.
Trump Organization, CFO indicted on tax fraud charges
Donald Trump’s company and its longtime finance chief were charged Thursday in what prosecutors called a “sweeping and audacious” tax fraud scheme in which the executive collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, including apartment rent, car payments and school tuition.
Trump himself was not charged with any wrongdoing, but prosecutors noted he signed some of the checks at the center of the case. And one top prosecutor said the 15-year scheme was “orchestrated by the most senior executives” at the Trump Organization.
It is the first criminal case to come out New York authorities’ two-year investigation into the former president’s business dealings.
Also read: Trump targeting GOP impeachment voter at Ohio revenge rally
According to the indictment, from 2005 through this year, the Trump Organization and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg cheated tax authorities by conspiring to pay senior executives off the books by way of lucrative fringe benefits and other means.
Weisselberg alone was accused of defrauding the federal government, state and city out of more than $900,000 in unpaid taxes and undeserved tax refunds.
The most serious charge against Weisselberg, grand larceny, carries five to 15 years in prison. The tax fraud charges against the company are punishable by a fine of double the amount of unpaid taxes, or $250,000, whichever is larger.
The 73-year-old Weisselberg has intimate knowledge of the Trump Organization’s financial dealings from nearly five decades at the company. The charges against him could enable prosecutors to pressure him to cooperate with the investigation and tell them what he knows.
Both Weisselberg and lawyers for the Trump Organization pleaded not guilty. Weisselberg was ordered to surrender his passport and was released without bail, leaving the courthouse without comment.
In a statement, Trump condemned the case as a “political Witch Hunt by the Radical Left Democrats.” Weisselberg’s lawyers said he will “fight these charges.”
The case is being led by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both Democrats.
Vance has been investigating a wide range of matters involving Trump and the Trump Organization, such as hush-money payments made to women on Trump’s behalf and whether the company falsified the value of its properties to obtain loans or reduce its tax bills.
The news comes as Trump has been more seriously discussing a possible comeback run for president in 2024. He has ramped up his public appearances, including holding his first rallies since leaving the White House.
In announcing the grand jury indictment, Carey Dunne, a top deputy in Vance’s office, said: “Politics has no role in the jury chamber, and I can assure you it had no role here.”
The Trump Organization is the entity through which the former president manages his many ventures, including his investments in office towers, hotels and golf courses, his many marketing deals and his TV pursuits. Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric have been in charge of day-to-day operations since he became president.
In addition to exposing the Trump Organizations to fines, the criminal case could make it more difficult for the business to secure bank loans or strike deals — a hit that comes at a particularly bad time, with the company already reeling from lost business because of the coronavirus and the backlash over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“Companies that are being indicted, whether they are private or public, big or small, face serious collateral consequences,” said Daniel Horwitz, a white-collar defense attorney. “Companies in the financial services industry are reluctant to do business with them. Their access to capital is limited or cut off.”
Weisselberg came under scrutiny in part because of questions about his son’s use of a Trump apartment at little or no cost.
Weisselberg’s son Barry — who managed a Trump-operated ice rink in Central Park — paid no reported rent while living in a Trump-owned apartment in 2018, and he was charged just $1,000 per month — far below typical Manhattan prices — while living in a Trump apartment from 2005 to 2012, the indictment said.
Allen Weisselberg himself, an intensely private man who lived for years in a modest home on Long Island, continued to claim residency there despite living in a company-paid Manhattan apartment, prosecutors said.
Also read: Seized House records show just how far Trump admin would go
By doing so, Weisselberg concealed that he was a New York City resident, and he avoided paying hundreds of thousands in federal, state and city income taxes while collecting about $133,000 in refunds to which he was not entitled, prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, Weisselberg paid rent on his Manhattan apartment with company checks and directed the company to pay for his utility bills and parking, too.
The company also paid for private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandchildren with checks bearing Trump’s signature, as well as for Mercedes cars driven by Weisselberg and his wife, and gave him cash to hand out tips around Christmas.
Such perks were listed on internal Trump company documents as being part of Weisselberg’s compensation but were not included on his W-2 forms or otherwise reported, and the company did not withhold taxes on their value, prosecutors said.
Trump’s company also issued checks, at Weisselberg’s request, to pay for personal expenses and upgrades to his homes and an apartment used by one of his sons, such as new beds, flat-screen TVs, carpeting and furniture, prosecutors said.
Barry Weisselberg’s ex-wife has been cooperating with investigators and given them reams of tax records and other documents.
Two other Trump executives who were not identified by name also received substantial under-the-table compensation, including lodging and the payment of automobile leases, the indictment said.
Weisselberg has a reputation as a workaholic utterly devoted to Trump’s interests. So far, there is no sign that he is about to turn on the former president.
“I think it’s possible that Weisselberg would reconsider. Seeing the charges spelled out in this much detail, and seeing that the alleged federal tax loss is included, could in theory change his mind,” said Daniel R. Alonso, former chief assistant district attorney. “On the other hand, he is a loyal Trump soldier, which obviously argues against his cooperation.”
Trump has said his company’s actions were standard practice in the business and in no way a crime. The Trump Organization accused the district attorney’s office of using Weisselberg as “a pawn in a scorched-earth attempt to harm the former president.” It said the DA’s office and the IRS have never before brought criminal charges against a company over employee benefits.
Vance fought a long battle to get Trump’s tax records and has been subpoenaing documents and interviewing company executives and other Trump insiders.
James Repetti, a tax lawyer and professor at Boston College Law School, said a company like the Trump Organization would generally have a responsibility to withhold taxes not just on salary but on other forms of compensation.
Another prominent New York City real estate figure, the late Leona Helmsley, was convicted of tax fraud in a federal case that arose from her company paying to remodel her home without her reporting that as income.
“The IRS routinely looks for abuse of fringe benefits when auditing closely held businesses,” Repetti said.
Also read: Mourinho accepts guilty plea for tax fraud in Spain
Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who has been cooperating with Vance’s investigation, wrote in his book “Disloyal” that Trump and Weisselberg were “masters at allocating expenses that related to non-business matters and finding a way to categorize them so they weren’t taxed.”
Weisselberg first started working for Trump’s real estate-developer father, Fred, after answering a newspaper ad for a staff accountant in 1973, and rose in the organization.
Keeping a low profile — aside from a 2004 appearance as a judge on Trump’s reality TV show “The Apprentice” — Weisselberg was barely mentioned in news articles before Trump started running for president and questions arose about the boss’ finances and charity.
Cohen said Weisselberg was the one who decided how to secretly reimburse him for a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who said she had sex with Trump.
Trump targeting GOP impeachment voter at Ohio revenge rally
Former President Donald Trump will return to the rally stage this weekend, holding his first campaign-style event since leaving the White House as he makes good on his pledge to exact revenge on those who voted for his historic second impeachment.
Trump’s event at Ohio’s Lorain County Fairgrounds, not far from Cleveland, will be held Saturday to support Max Miller, a former White House aide who is challenging Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez for his congressional seat. Gonzalez was one of 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol building.
Trump wants them to pay.
The rally, held five months after Trump left office under a cloud of violence, marks the beginning of a new, more public phase of his post-presidency. After spending much of his time behind closed doors building a political operation and fuming about the last election, Trump is planning a flurry of public appearances in the coming weeks. He’ll hold another rally in Florida over the July Fourth weekend unattached to a midterm candidate and will travel to the southern border next week to protest President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
The rally also comes as Trump is facing immediate legal jeopardy. Manhattan prosecutors informed his company Thursday that it could soon face criminal charges stemming from a wide-ranging investigation into the former president’s business dealings. The New York Times, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that charges could be filed against the Trump Organization as early as next week. Trump has denounced the investigations as nothing more than a “witch hunt” aimed as damaging him politically.
Although Trump remains a deeply polarizing figure, he is extremely popular with the Republican base, and candidates have flocked to his homes in Florida and New Jersey seeking his endorsement as he has tried to positioned himself as his party’s kingmaker.
Trump has said he is committed to helping Republicans regain control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. But his efforts to support — and recruit — candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans who have crossed him put him at odds with other Republican leaders who have been trying to unify the party after a brutal year in which they lost control of the White House and failed to gain control of either chamber of Congress.
READ: ‘Fire and Fury’ author writes new Trump book ‘Landslide’
So far, nine of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment have drawn primary challengers. And Trump has offered to support anyone who steps forward to challenge the remaining candidate, Rep. John Katko of New York, syracuse.com reported.
“We’re giving tremendous endorsements,” Trump boasted Friday morning as he called into the conservative Newsmax channel and explained his endorsement rationale.
“Fake Republicans, anybody that voted for the impeachment doesn’t get it,” he said. “But there weren’t too many of them. And I think most of them are being, if not all, are being primaried right now, so that’s good. I’ll be helping their opponent.”
Gonzalez, a former college and professional football player, has stood by his impeachment vote in the face of fierce criticism from his party’s conservative wing, including his censure by the Ohio Republican Party.
At the same time, Trump continues to obsess over his ongoing efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he insists he won, even though top election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
On Monday, he told the conservative Real America’s Voice that he had never conceded the race or admitted defeat. And he publicly entertained the idea that he could somehow be reinstated into office, even though no legal or constitutional basis for doing so exists.
At the same time, he continues to tease the possibility that he will mount a comeback run for the White House in 2024. Aides say Trump, who was banned from Twitter and Facebook after Jan. 6, will make a decision after the midterms next fall.
Trump’s rallies have been an instrumental part of his political brand since he launched his 2016 campaign. The former reality star is energized by performing in front of his audiences and often test-drives new material and talking points to see how they resonate with the crowd. His political operation also uses the events to collect critical voter contact information from attendees and as fundraising tools.
READ: Seized House records show just how far Trump admin would go
And they have spawned a group of hardcore fans who traveled the country, attending dozens of rallies, often camping out overnight to snag prime spots. Some of those supporters began lining up outside the venue days early this week as they reunited for the event.
Biden and Congress face a summer grind to create legislation
Until recently, the act of governing seemed to happen at the speed of presidential tweets. But now President Joe Biden is settling in for what appears will be a long, summer slog of legislating.
Congress is hunkered down, the House and Senate grinding through a monthslong stretch, lawmakers trying to draft Biden’s big infrastructure ideas into bills that could actually be signed into law. Perhaps not since the drafting of the Affordable Care Act more than a decade ago has Washington tried a legislative lift as heavy.
It’s going to take a while.
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“Passing legislation is not a made-for-TV movie,” said Phil Schiliro, a former legislative affairs director at the Obama White House and veteran of congressional battles, including over the health care law.
Biden appears comfortable in this space, embarked on an agenda in Congress that’s rooted in his top legislative priority — the $4 trillion “build back better” investments now being shaped as his American Jobs and American Families plans.
To land the bills on his desk, the president is relying on an old-school legislative process that can feel out of step with today’s fast-moving political cycles and hopes for quick payoffs. Democrats are anxious it is taking too long and he is wasting precious time negotiating with Republicans, but Biden seems to like the laborious art of legislating.
On Monday, Biden is expected to launch another week of engagement with members of both parties, and the White House is likely at some point to hear from a bipartisan group of senators working on a scaled-back $1 trillion plan as an alternative.
At the same time, the administration is pushing ahead with the president’s own, more sweeping proposals being developed in the House and Senate budget committees, tallying as much as $6 trillion, under a process that could enable Democrats to pass it on their own. Initial votes are being eyed for late July.
“This is how negotiations work,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said during last week’s twists and turns of the infrastructure negotiations.
“We continue to work closely with Democrats of all views — as well as Republicans — on the path forward. There are many possible avenues to getting this done, and we are optimistic about our chances,” Bates said.
During his administration, President Donald Trump had the full sweep of Republican control of the House and Senate for the first two years of his tenure, but the limits of legislating quickly became clear.
Trump tended to govern by tweet, rather than the more traditional legislative process, bursting out with policy ideas and official administrative positions often at odds with his party in Congress.
Read:Biden trip takeaways: Respect, optimism, some skepticism
The Trump-era results were mixed, and Republicans were unable to clinch their top legislative priority, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. But they went on to secure a sizable achievement when Trump signed the GOP tax cuts into law at the end of 2017.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who is a leader of today’s bipartisan negotiations, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump, too, proposed an infrastructure package. If Biden sticks with the bipartisan talks he could not only fulfill a campaign promise but “keep his pledge of doing things across the aisle and getting something done,” Portman said.
“Everybody wants to do infrastructure,” he said.
Even as Biden reaches for a bipartisan deal, skeptical Democrats are wary of a repeat of 2009, when Barack Obama was president and they spent months negotiating the details of the Affordable Care Act with Republicans. Eventually Democrats passed the package that became known as “Obamacare” on their own.
Lawmakers also have been energized by the speed at which Congress was able to approve COVID-19 relief — the massive CARES Act at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and more recently Biden’s American Rescue Plan in February. They are eager for swift action on these next proposals.
Biden’s strategy this time is a two-part approach. He is trying to secure a bipartisan deal on roads, bridges and broadband — the more traditional types of infrastructure — while also pursuing the broader Democratic priorities package.
The budget committees are preparing some $6 trillion in spending on what the White House calls the human infrastructure of Americans’ lives with child care centers, community colleges and elder care in Biden’s plans, adding in Democrats’ other long-running ideas. Among them, expanding Medicare for seniors with vision, hearing and dental services, and lowering the eligibility age to 60.
Regardless of whether Biden succeeds or fails in the on-again-off-again talks with Republicans, Democrats will press on with their own massive package, the president at least having showed he tried.
“There are two kinds of negotiation,” said Democrat Barney Frank, the former congressman and committee chairman from Massachusetts who was central to many Obama-era legislative battles. “One that will be successful and give you a good bill,” he said, and the other that will be unsuccessful, but will at least “take away any stigma of being partisan.”
Read:Biden abroad: Pitching America to welcoming if wary allies
Congress is eyeing an end-of-summer deadline to launch the budget reconciliation process, which would allow passage of the bills on majority votes, notably in the now split 50-50 Senate where 60 votes are typically required to advance legislation.
After that, the House and Senate would prepare the actual packages for votes in fall.
As the process drags on, it’s a reminder that it took more than a year in Congress to pass Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in spring 2010.
“Tweets are so easy,” Schiliro said. “Legislating is different from that, so to develop good legislation takes time.”