Prosecutor Turns Focus On Donald Trump As Company’s Tax Fraud Trial Ends
NEW YORK – Donald Trump’s namesake real estate company engaged in tax fraud and the former U.S. president knew it was going on, a prosecutor said in closing arguments in the Trump Organization’s criminal trial on Friday, countering defense assertions that Trump was unaware of the scheme.
In his final day of closing arguments, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said Trump authorized an array of perks and payments for top executives, including apartment rent and Christmas bonuses, that cheated tax authorities by being either unreported or misreported as non-employee compensation.
“The whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real,” Steinglass told the 12-person jury in a New York state court.
Trump, he said, was “very hands on when it came to compensating his top people.”
The Trump Organization has pleaded not guilty to charges it engaged in a 15-year tax fraud by covering executives’ personal expenses, reducing salaries to account for the expenses, and paying employees as though they were independent contractors.
Its lawyers have said the fraud was the work of a rogue employee, longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, looking out for himself.
Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August and testified, at times appearing conflicted, for the prosecution.
“Their own witnesses…testified time and again that President Trump did not know anything of Weisselberg’s tax scheme,” defense lawyer Susan Necheles said in her closing argument on Thursday.
Four Years In Office Have Only Convinced More Americans That The Trump Might Not Be A Stable Genius
A WashingtonPostABC News poll taken the last week of May 2020 asked Americans,Do you think Trump has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively aspresident? Fifty-two percent of respondents said no, with only 46 percentsaying yes.
One might see this solid majority response as the weary, off-the-cuff judgment of an American public worn down by Trumps barrage of outlandishclaims about coronavirus treatments, or fantasized accounts of legions of violentantifa leaders orchestrating the present nationwide protests over the policekilling of George Floyd. But in truth, this was far from the first poll tofind that a substantial number of Americans see Trump as not very bright. An Economist/YouGovpoll in 2019 asked, Compared to other presidents since World War II, wouldyou say that Trump is more or less intelligent? Forty-seven percent said thathe is less intelligent, 22 percent said he has about the same intelligence, andjust 21 percent thought he is more intelligent.
Closely related to doubts about Trumps intelligence is thequestion of whether he is too ignorant to do his job. In 2016 and 2017, the FoxNews poll asked people, Do you think Trump has the knowledge to serveeffectively as president? In the five times the question was asked, 60 percentof people said no and just 40 percent or fewer said yes.
Donald Trump Is A Showman The Mask Is The Man
Donald Trump is a larger-than-life figure. He always has been. Hes less a businessman than a lifestyle brand his wealth comes not from the buildings he actually built during his early career in Manhattan, but from licensing agreements to put his name on other buildings as well as ties, sheets, vodka, steaks, books, etc.
Hes a showman. Hes a reality TV star.
And at this point, Americans, generally, understand that the drama of reality TV is largely faked.
Its hard to look at someone as self-consciously over-the-top as Donald Trump a man whose persona is associated with excessive gilding and pink marble and not assume that theres a different person behind the mask.
The dramaturgy of a presidential election tends to revolve around questions of whether a politician is authentic and sincere in Trumps case, its assumed that he isnt he cant be and the question is what kind of person he is instead. What kind of person he is in private, with his family and friends, when the cameras arent on him.
With Trump, though, the showmanship is all weve got.
The line between public and private is more arbitrary than people tend to remember. In any interaction with others, you have an audience. And the preponderance of the evidence suggests that Donald Trump is always playing to his audience, no matter how small.
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Stateside: Trumps A Jerk A Bully And A Creep But For His Base Of Supporters Hes Their Jerk
President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate Tuesday, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio.
With CHARLIE HARPER
Anne was worried sick. She was sitting on her neighbour Helens brick patio, socially distanced, mask waiting in her purse in case it was needed. Some half-empty glasses of white wine sat on the round wrought iron table. Anne settled herself and took another sip of her wine.
These debates scare me to death, she said with a heavy sigh. The rest of this Trump presidency scares me to death. Im afraid Trump will somehow provoke Biden to lose his composure or make some horrible gaffe or stumble around trying to refute the Presidents lies, vitriol and general snark.
Helen unfolded the newspaper that lay on an empty chair. The polls all give Biden an eight to ten-point lead. States like Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Arizona might be in play this year. Rust-belt states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan all look like they are going to vote Democratic. Trump is behind in Minnesota. Ohio and Florida are toss-ups.
The revelations about Trump are coming out like regular pails of water that will drown his presidency, Helen continued. Look at what we are learning. First, we get Bob Woodward and his account that Trump knew in January how bad the coronavirus was and lied to the American people. 200,000 people are already dead, and millions more have been sickened.
Did you watch? asked Helen.
Things Donald Trump Did In His First Year As The Most Consequential Former President Ever
In ways both absurd and serious, the 45th president refused to let go of the spotlight or his party and redefined what it means to be a former leader of the free world.
Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer at POLITICO and POLITICO Magazine.
Donald Trump started his time as an utterly unprecedented former president before he was even technically a former president.
On the morning of his last day in office, in the hours before the inauguration of Joe Biden, Trump left the White House and Washington, becoming the first president in 152 years to shun the swearing in of his successor, opting instead at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for a militaristic send-off that included a 21-gun salute and a poke-in-the-eye playing of Frank Sinatras My Way. He made it clear in his remarks to a few hundred people from a stage on the wind-whipped tarmac that this was no goodbye for good.
We will be back, he promised, in some form.
Its been a year now.
And in these past 365 days, in ways that were totally predictable and in ways that were also absolutely unforeseeable, and in ways that have run the gamut from the gravely serious to the thoroughly absurd, a one-term, twice-impeached president who two weeks before the end of his tenure instigated a deadly insurrection at the citadel of American democracy has obliterated the long-agreed-upon parameters of the post-presidency just as he did with the presidency itself.
And still is.
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I Do Buy That Democrats Should Be Worried About Virginia Gubernatorial Race: Silver
Whats the right balance for Sinema or any senator, really to strike between concern for the primary and concern for the general? It may depend on the partisanship of their state. The table below lists all the elected incumbent senators who have lost reelection since 2000 in either a primary or general election. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all the incumbents who lost primaries represented states that leaned toward their party . All the incumbents who lost reelection on the opposite partys home turf did so in the general.
Senators who lost primaries werent in unsafe seats
Elected incumbent senators who have lost either primaries or general elections since 2000, plus Kyrsten Sinema, and the FiveThirtyEight partisan lean* of their state at the time
| Incumbent | |
|---|---|
| General | -31 |
*Partisan lean is the average margin difference between how a state or district votes and how the country votes overall. This version of partisan lean, meant to be used for congressional and gubernatorial elections, is calculated as 50 percent the state or districts lean relative to the nation in the most recent presidential election, 25 percent its relative lean in the second-most-recent presidential election and 25 percent a custom state-legislative lean. In this case, positive numbers are toward the senators party.
Arizonas partisan lean for 2024 is not yet available this is the lean for 2022.
De Niro Tears Into Trump: ‘this F*cking Idiot Is The Presidentthe Jerkoff
Welcome to New York.
Robert De Niro is a native New Yorker, and like most New Yorkers, he’s known the truth about Donald Trump for a very long time. Before Trump was a “top T.V. star,” the Enormously Consensual President was a demi-celebrity real estate heir fielding accusations of race discrimination and calling up the New York Post posing as his own publicist to share sordid details of his love life. Perhaps that’s some small part of why in November, just 17 percent of New York City residents approved of the job he’s doing as president. And perhaps that has something to do with why De Niro, while introducing Meryl Streep at the National Board of Review gala, tore into Trump with Raging Bull intensity:
This brings to mind what the two-time Oscar winnerwho’s currently set to star in a Martin Scorcese-directed New York mob flick opposite Al Pacinohad to say about Trump in a video released during the campaign:
Over the past eight years, the administration has prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists.
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Ivana Trump’s Ex Calls Don Jr Ivanka And Eric ‘disgusting’ And ‘scum’
Tell us how you really feel.
Rossano Rubicondi, the former husband of Donald Trumps first wife, said he remains friendly with Ivana Trump, but doesnt have the same warm feelings toward her offspring with the president.
In fact, Rubicondi told Page Six this week that he thought Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump were disgusting and described them as scum.
Whatever the 47-year-old Italian actors abilities as a judge of character, its possible his opinion is affected by his latest breakup with Ivana.
Rubicondi was briefly married to Ivana from 2008 to 2009 some 17 years after her divorce from The Donald dominated tabloid headlines. After their own divorce, Ivana and Rubicondi decided to date.
Recently, however, Ivana, 70, said shed turned the on-again, off-again relationship off for good, telling Page Six: I am once again a single woman. I have the freedom to do what I want, with whomever I want to, and I can afford my lifestyle.
Page Six diligently contacted Rubicondi for his side and he confirmed the breakup, adding that he had good respect for his ex.
As for Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric? Not so much.
In regards for the rest of the family, I am not big a fan of it. They have been rude to me, he said.
Rubicondi insisted that he never touched a dime of the Trump fortune but added, These people are all about money. They dont have a heart. They are garbage.
HuffPost reached out to the three Trump siblings, none of whom immediately responded.
How Strong Is Trump A Look At The Indiana And Ohio Primaries
Editor’s Note:
Party primaries are now the most consequential elections in American politics. For many years they have been the ugly stepchild of American politics ignored by journalists and snubbed by political scientists. All that is changing as the trend towards more and more safe seats appears to be continuing. With more and more states and congressional districts becoming dominated by one party or the other, the most consequential choices for voters come in party primaries. At the Brookings Primary Project, we are studying all the candidates in congressional primaries. This is the second piece in Brookings Primaries Project. The first one dealt with the Texas Primaries in March.Special thanks to Andy Cerda, Jordan Muchnick, Sylvia Garrett and John Hudak for their work on the 2022 Primaries Project.
Conventional wisdom paints former president Donald Trump as the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. Is this true or is it a case of media exaggeration? Lets have a careful look at the two large states that held their primaries on May 3Indiana and Ohio.
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Prosecuting Trump: Being A Jerk Isnt Criminal
SECVNDINVS CACOR. When those words were found recently on an ancient stone in Northumberland, England, there was great excitement about what might be revealed about Roman life in the 3rd Century. As it turned out, the painstakingly chiseled words simply said that a guy named Secundinus was well human fecal matter.
The stone was an impressive effort just to establish for all posterity that Secundinus was a jerk.
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot is an equally impressive effort to painstakingly debunk election fraud claims and to show how former President Donald Trump refused to accept his electoral defeat. If the purpose were to proclaim TRUMPUS CACOR, it would likely get little argument, given the testimony about elected officials and election workers hiding out in their homes after being called out by name by the then-president.
The hearings have created a lasting, damning record leading up to Jan. 6. Yet, some members of the select committee have claimed they have established clear evidence of criminal acts by Trump. It has to be more than Rep. Liz Cheneys insistence that the evidence would show Trump was not an honorable man on Jan. 6 an assertion that even some Trump supporters might endorse.
The fact is that this evidence is important for Americans to hear and see. Yet, the claims of established crimes this week seemed to run from the visceral to the recreational.
Conspiracy to obstruct Congress
Conspiracy to defraud
What About The Democrats
On May 3, the Democratic side lacked a big national race like the Ohio Republican Senate contest that pitted Trumps choice, J.D. Vance, against a field of more established Republican candidates. Congressman Tim Ryan easily won the Democratic nomination for the Senate race. The only race with some national significance was the re-match between Rep. Shontel Brown and Nina Turner in OH-11. Turner is a very close ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders and a powerhouse on the left-wing of the Democratic party. She lost to Brown in 2020 and this time she was badly outspent and lost again.
Neither Indiana nor Ohio was very fertile ground for the left-wing of the Democratic party. In Indiana, only five candidates ran as progressives and one as a Democratic Socialist out of 22 Democratic candidates. Only incumbent Rep. Andre Carson won his race. In Ohio, there were seven progressive candidates and one Democratic Socialist running. Only Amy Rippel-Elton and Shontel Brown won their races.
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Its The Winning State And Not Just For The White House
Everyone in Washington knows Donald Trump cannot be re-elected unless he carries the state of Florida. Long-time political bellwether Ohio has definitively been replaced by the Sunshine State, which figures to be at the centre of the American political calculus for the next month.
But who figured that Florida would also be at the centre of the sports universe at the same time? Miami and Tampa both have big stakes in the pro baseball, hockey and basketball playoffs.
You could have made a lot of money betting before this short 60-game baseball season that the Miami Marlins would be in the playoffs, yet there they are after a second- place finish in their division. The Marlins, who won the World Series on the only two previous occasions when they have reached MLBs postseason, face the 2016 champion and homestanding Chicago Cubs in their first-round match-up.
Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays dominated their division and rolled to the top seed in the American League.
Their first post-season action will come in Tampa against the Toronto Blue Jays. A preseason bet on the Rays wouldnt have paid off as handsomely as one on the Marlins, but few expected them to finish ahead of the New York Yankees. But they did, and it wasnt that close.
It was their first title since 2004 and the second championship in the teams history.
If you want to win, youre going to have to go through LeBron James, Butler told reporters. Youre going to get that same test over and over, until you pass.
Donald Trump Jr Is An Idiot Of Towering Proportions
It must be weird to be Donald Trump Jr. Like, if you asked me what I did this weekend, I would say, “Oh, not much. Just hung out with my girlfriend and dog. Did a little work. Saw Spider-Man.” Not too exciting but nice. Now, if I asked Donald Trump Jr. how his was, he’d have to say something like, “Oh, you know. The New York Times reported about how I met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who was promising me damaging information on Hillary Clinton, which certainly looks bad considering the investigation into collusion between my dad’s campaign and Russia… Also, I had a nice brunch.” And what’s even weirder still is that the above would be Donnie Jr. telling the version of the weekend that made him look the best. In reality, Donnie took a bad situation for him and his father and made it so much worse.
You see, in that New York Times piece, Trump Jr. gave the following statement:
Pay attention to the end of Trump Jr.’s statement. By acknowledging that “claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Trump is saying that he took the meeting because he had, in fact, been promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton from a Russian source, but that it was no big deal because the lawyer didn’t deliver. Interesting way of thinking about it, Don. Let’s ask anyone who appeared on To Catch a Predator how that argument holds up in court. Oh, sorry. They’re not answering the phone. Because they’re probably in jail now.
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