Thursday Reads: Snuggling Cats, Dogs, and Bunnies (and the News)

Good Morning!!

On Monday, someone put a bomb in Democratic donor George Soros’ mailbox. Yesterday authorities discovered more mail bombs, and it became clear that someone had attempted to assassinate two former presidents, a former secretary of state, a former vice president, and a former attorney general, and two sitting U.S. Congresswomen, all Democrats and all targets of Trump’s verbal attacks. In addition, a bomb was sent to CNN, addressed to former CIA director John Brennan. Today another bomb was discovered, this one sent to actor and Trump critic Robert De Niro.

FBI Press Release: Statement on the FBI’s Investigation of Suspicious Packages.

Between October 22 and 24, 2018, suspicious packages were received at multiple locations in the New York and Washington, D.C., areas and Florida. The packages are being sent for analysis at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

“This investigation is of the highest priority for the FBI. We have committed the full strength of the FBI’s resources and, together with our partners on our Joint Terrorism Task Forces, we will continue to work to identify and arrest whoever is responsible for sending these packages,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “We ask anyone who may have information to contact the FBI. Do not hesitate to call; no piece of information is too small to help us in this investigation.”

The packages are similar in appearance, as depicted in the below photograph, and contain potentially destructive devices.

[….]

The FBI will continue to work with our federal law enforcement partners at the United States Secret Service, United States Postal Inspection Service, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as well as our state and local law enforcement partners, to identify and arrest the person or people responsible for sending these packages.

It is possible that additional packages were mailed to other locations. The FBI advises the public to remain vigilant and not touch, move or handle any suspicious or unknown packages.

If you have information about these packages, please contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov. If you observe any suspicious activity that requires an immediate response, please call 911 or contact your local law enforcement.

Trump declined to cancel his Hitler rally in Wisconsin last night, and during the rally, he again attacked the “mainstream media.” Before Trump came on stage, the audience chanted “lock her up” as a Republican politician grinned ear to ear. The Cut:

On the same day bombs were discovered in packages addressed to Hillary Clinton and several other top Democrats, supporters of President Donald Trump packed onto the tarmac at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, Wisconsin began shouting “lock her up” at the mention of Clinton’s name….

The rally was part of Trump’s national midterm campaign tour to bolster support for Republican candidates. It was during Senate Republican candidate Leah Vukmir’s address to the crowd, before Trump’s arrival, that the chants began. She paused as the crowd yelled Trump’s infamous line several times, before continuing her speech….

When Trump came onstage, he limited his usual attacks on Democrats, and there were no “lock her up” chants during his remarks. He did not mention senators Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi, nor did he mention Representative Maxine Waters, who was sent three of the seven bombs discovered this week. He instead shaped his speech around what he read from a teleprompter, and asked politicians to “stop treating political opponents as being morally defective.” He also asked the media to help unify people.

“The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories,” said Trump at one point. “They’ve got to stop. Bring people together.”

Trump did not reach out in any way to any of the people who were targeted by mail bombs, and this morning he suggested that the media are responsible for the attacks.

The Washington Post this morning: Trump doubles down on blaming media as suspicious packages continue to surface.

President Trump doubled down Thursday on blaming the media for the nation’s incivility, as suspicious packages sent by a suspected serial bomber continued to target Trump’s outspoken critics.

“A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News,” the president said in a morning tweet. “It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”

Trump’s tweet — which prompted sharp criticism from Democrats — was sent amid television coverage of police in New York swarming a block in Lower Manhattan after receiving reports of a suspicious package at a building where actor Robert De Niro has offices. The package was addressed to De Niro, who attacked Trump in June during a profane presentation at the Tony Awards.

The Post notes that while Trump was “relatively subdued” at last night’s rally, he still attacked the media and Democrats.

During the rally, Trump was relatively subdued as he spoke, interrupted himself several times to point out that he was “trying to be nice” and took no responsibility for his own role in contributing to the country’s degraded civic discourse.

“The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative — and oftentimes, false — attacks and stories,” Trump said at the rally.

In an apparent swipe at Democrats, Trump also denounced those who “carelessly compare political opponents to historical villains” and who “mob people in public places or destroy public property.”

Illustration by Irina Garmashova

Yesterday we learned that Trump is still using unsecured cell phones even though he has been warned that China, Russia, and likely other countries are monitoring his conversations.

The New York Times: When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn.

When President Trump calls old friends on one of his iPhones to gossip, gripe or solicit their latest take on how he is doing, American intelligence reports indicate that Chinese spies are often listening — and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and affect administration policy, current and former American officials said.

Mr. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on the calls, as well. But aides say the voluble president, who has been pressured into using his secure White House landline more often these days, has still refused to give up his iPhones. White House officials say they can only hope he refrains from discussing classified information when he is on them….

American spy agencies, the officials said, had learned that China and Russia were eavesdropping on the president’s cellphone calls from human sources inside foreign governments and intercepting communications between foreign officials….

The current and former officials said they have also determined that China is seeking to use what it is learning from the calls — how Mr. Trump thinks, what arguments tend to sway him and to whom he is inclined to listen — to keep a trade war with the United States from escalating further. In what amounts to a marriage of lobbying and espionage, the Chinese have pieced together a list of the people with whom Mr. Trump regularly speaks in hopes of using them to influence the president, the officials said.

The “good news,” according to these officials is that Trump is a moron who doesn’t really focus on his intelligence briefings–so they can only hope he isn’t giving away state secrets.

Administration officials said Mr. Trump’s longtime paranoia about surveillance — well before coming to the White House he believed that his phone conversations were often being recorded — gave them some comfort that he was not disclosing classified information on the calls. They said they had further confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.

How is this not a crime? Surely any other government official who did this would be investigated.

Sleeping bunnies

Fast Company: Trump’s tapped phone may be the largest White House breach ever: former official.

“This stunning revelation by the NYT is one that has sweeping ramifications for intelligence and the security of the American people,” says former White House chief information officer Theresa Payton in an email to Fast Company.

Trump reportedly has three iPhones, but only two of them are equipped with security features that have been added by the National Security Agency. One of the secure phones is strictly intended for tweeting, and only over Wi-Fi networks.

His third phone is said to be as unsecured as any regular iPhone. Former administration officials said that in spite of their repeated warnings that spies might listen into his calls, Trump refused to give up the phone, and kept using it as usual. The president likes to keep his personal iPhone around reportedly because “he can store his contacts in it.” [….]

“If true, this may be the largest, most significant breach of White House communications in history,” says Payton, who served in the George W. Bush administration and is now CEO of security firm Fortalice Solutions. “America’s most sophisticated peer competitor now has a direct line into the president’s confidential thinking and conversations.”

As the “president” endangers the lives of multiple prominent Americans with his public rhetoric and threats, while blithely ignoring warnings that he’s also endangering national security through his use of unsecured cell phones, Robert Muller is still plugging away on his investigation of Russia’s attack on the 2016 election and possible cooperation by the Trump campaign.

NBC News: Mueller has evidence suggesting Stone associate knew Clinton emails would be leaked.

More snuggling bunnies

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has obtained communications suggesting that a right-wing conspiracy theorist might have had advance knowledge that the emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman had been stolen and handed to WikiLeaks, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

Mueller’s team has spent months investigating whether the conspiracy theorist, Jerome Corsi, learned before the public did that WikiLeaks had obtained emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers — and whether he passed information about the stolen emails to Donald Trump associate Roger Stone, multiple sources said.

Mueller’s investigators have reviewed messages to members of the Trump team in which Stone and Corsi seem to take credit for the release of Democratic emails, said a person with direct knowledge of the emails.

The source and other people familiar with the matter say they have seen no evidence suggesting either man played any role in the hacking or release of the emails. Stone adamantly denies doing anything but passing on information already in the public domain.

One more story: NBC News finally begins to recognize that hiring former Fox News personalities ia a losing proposition. CNN Business: Megyn Kelly is off her 9 a.m. show, and may not be back.

“Megyn Kelly Today” is not over yet. But it’s a matter of when, not if.

Kelly’s exit from the 9 a.m. hour of the “Today” show appears to be imminent, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

Kelly will not be hosting her program on Thursday, and she is unlikely to return later, one of the sources said. Friday episodes of her show are usually pre-taped.

“Given the circumstances, Megyn Kelly Today will be on tape the rest of the week,” an NBC News spokeswoman said Thursday morning.

Another source said that Kelly’s show will be ending, but negotiations about the end date and other details are still underway.

Kelly is under fire for defending the use of blackface in Halloween costumes.

The talks about dropping Kelly’s 9 a.m. show pre-dated this week’s controversy about her offensive comments about blackface Halloween costumes.

NBC News staffers were calling her show a “disaster” well before this latest controversy.

Kelly has been dropped by her talent agency. Hollywood Reporter:

CAA is no longer working with Kelly, The Hollywood Reporter learned on Wednesday. CAA declined to give a reason for the split, but a source says the Megyn Kelly Today host sought new representation because the agency also reps NBC News president Noah Oppenheim.

To replace CAA, UTA co-president Jay Sures had been in talks to sign Kelly and had been courting her before Tuesday’s blackface backlash, in which Kelly said on her 9 a.m. show that she didn’t understand why people couldn’t wear blackface on Halloween. Sures is said to have backed out of representing Kelly on Wednesday amid the controversy. A source close to the situation says Sures’ decision came after he made at least one call to NBC News president Noah Oppenheim and had set a meeting with NBC for Friday on Kelly’s behalf.

Then later on Wednesday, Kelly hired attorney Bryan Freedman, one of Hollywood’s top talent-side litigators. The move is a sign that she is gearing up for a fight with NBC that could lead to her exit. She will not appear on the Thursday or Friday episodes of her show, according to sources.

The drama comes a day after the host of Today’s 9 o’clock hour defended blackface during a segment on Halloween costumes, claiming that the practice, which finds its roots in 19th century racist minstrel shows, was acceptable when she was a kid. Online reaction was swift, with Hollywood figures from many races, including Padma Lakshmi, Patton Oswalt and Roy Wood Jr., criticizing the stance.

A few hours later on Tuesday, Kelly sent an internal e-mail to the company, explaining that she had now learned that “the history of blackface in our culture is abhorrent.” Her NBC colleagues did not shy away from the subject, covering the incident both on NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt and in late night. “Say what you want about Megyn Kelly, but she looks great for being 200 years old,” cracked Late Night host Seth Meyers, while writer Amber Ruffin added, “For someone with a morning show, Megyn Kelly, you sure are late as hell.”

So . . . what stories are you following today?

Lazy Caturday Reads

Young Woman With Cat, by Amy Hill

Good Afternoon!!

Tonight is the 45th anniversary of Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre. I’ll never forget waking up on Sunday morning to the shocking news that Nixon had fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. It was mindblowing.

What was shocking in 1973 seems almost quaint now after two years of Trump as “president.” Back then, we had a Democratic Congress and there were some moderate Republicans who eventually stepped up. Today, we really can’t be sure that today’s Congress will be willing or able to check Trump’s power grabs.

A lot is riding on the midterm elections a little more than two weeks away. But as Dakinikat wrote yesterday voters face election interference from Russia and from Republicans determined to suppress our votes.

For now, we still have Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein. We know Trump will try to get rid of them after the elections. Will democracy survive? Is it even still alive?

Fortunately, Mueller is still keeping busy, even though Republicans thought the investigation should be halted during election season.

The Wall Street Journal: Mueller Probes WikiLeaks’ Contacts With Conservative Activists.

Mr. Mueller’s team has recently questioned witnesses about the activities of longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone, including his contacts with WikiLeaks, and has obtained telephone records, according to the people familiar with the matter.

Carel Willink (1900-1983) — Wilma with the Cat

Investigators also have evidence that the late GOP activist Peter W. Smith may have had advance knowledge of details about the release of emails from a top Hillary Clinton campaign official by WikiLeaks, one person familiar with the matter said. They have questioned Mr. Smith’s associates, the person said.

Right-wing pundit Jerome Corsi was also questioned by investigators about his interactions with Mr. Stone and WikiLeaks before a grand jury in September, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Corsi declined to comment. A lawyer for Mr. Stone said he hasn’t been contacted by the special counsel. Mr. Smith died last year….

Throughout 2016, Messrs. Stone, Smith and Corsi, who long worked on the margins of Republican politics, tried to dig up incriminating information about Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, according to emails and some public comments. A lawyer for President Trump didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign staffer who interacted with Mr. Stone, said he also was questioned by Mr. Mueller’s team about communications he had with Mr. Stone regarding WikiLeaks. New York radio host Randy Credico also said the special counsel asked about his communications with Mr. Stone and WikiLeaks. Mr. Credico interviewed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2016 and has known Mr. Stone for years.

The role WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange played during the 2016 election as the chief publisher of stolen Democratic emails has been of enduring interest to investigators probing Russian election interference in 2016 and whether there was collusion with Trump associates.

Lots more detail at the link. I don’t think the story is behind the firewall; I got in from Memeorandum.

At Politico, Connor O’Brien and Wesley Morgan write about another problem we may face soon: Newest security worry: Trump without Mattis.

National security leaders fear that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is on his way out — and that Donald Trump’s next Pentagon chief will be far more subservient to the president’s unilateral and bombastic whims.

By Dee Nickerson

Mattis was instrumental in pulling back on Trump’s vow to “carpet bomb” ISIS or pull troops from Afghanistan. He moderated the U.S. military response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons and openly opposed Trump’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal.

Now Trump’s reverence for the retired four-star general has worn thin, and Mattis is widely expected to depart his post sometime after the November elections, according to multiple Pentagon and administration officials with knowledge of personnel discussions. And that’s fueling anxiety among officials of both parties who have viewed him for almost two years as a force for stability.

“Secretary Mattis is one of the only reassuring figures in the Trump administration, and I don’t mean that as a Democratic partisan,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a member of the Appropriations Committee’s defense panel. “I mean when our partners and our adversaries think about the United States and the Department of Defense, knowing that Secretary Mattis is there strengthens our hand.”

Current and former government officials say they worry about a repeat of what happened when Trump replaced former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster with leading hawk John Bolton, and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with conservative stalwart Mike Pompeo.

Much more at the link.

Right now, Trump is dealing with an international crisis around the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by making every effort to cover for the Saudi Arabian murderers. To use one of Trump’s favorite words, he is a national disgrace.

Nicholas Kristof: More Insulting Lies From Saudi Arabia. What we face now is a test for President Trump and America itself.

The Saudi government on Friday issued a statement claiming that Jamal was killed when a fistfight went bad in its consulate in Istanbul. Really? This is a fistfight to which the Saudi goons reportedly brought a bone saw so that they could dismember him afterward; by some accounts, they began the dismemberment while he was still alive.

It’s also grotesque for the Saudi authorities to claim that a journalist whose fingers they reportedly amputated as part of their torture somehow managed to engage in a fistfight. Jamal had no fists left….

By Albert Anker, 1831-1910, Swiss painter

Saudi Arabia even announced that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who almost everybody believes must have approved this operation — his initials, M.B.S., are now said to stand for “Mr. Bone Saw” — will lead an investigation into what happened. That’s like appointing O.J. Simpson to investigate the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.

These lies are so blatant and implausible that they underscore how out of touch M.B.S. is, and also suggest M.B.S. believes that he will have the backing of the United States in this cover-up. That’s a good bet, since Trump has lately celebrated the assault on a journalist by a Montana congressman and previously suggested that maybe a rogue killer was responsible for killing Jamal.

But M.B.S. has already gotten away with kidnapping Lebanon’s prime minister and starving eight million Yemenis; if he also gets away with murdering Jamal, who was an American resident and Washington Post columnist, as many believe happened, then that’s a green light to him and any other autocrat who wants to make a troublesome journalist disappear. Journalists and democracy activists all over the world will have targets on their backs.

Here’s what Trump had to say yesterday about this ridiculous explanation from the Saudis, according to The New York Times:

Asked during a visit to an Air Force base in Arizona whether he viewed the Saudi explanation as credible, Mr. Trump said, “I do.” [….]

On Friday evening, the president praised the statement issued by the Saudi government, which confirmed Mr. Khashoggi’s death, as a “good first step” and a “big step.” Earlier, the prince and other senior Saudi officials had denied any role in Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Girl with Cat by Jana Predikantová

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with Prince Mohammed by phone on Friday evening and then briefed Mr. Trump and his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, according to a White House spokesman.

“I think we’re getting close to solving a big problem,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the Luke Air Force Base, where he was shown an Apache helicopter, an F-35 fighter jet and an array of bombs.

Seriously? I don’t think so. For one thing, the CIA has already heard the audiotape of the murder, according to Shane Harris at The Washington Post:

CIA officials have listened to an audio recording that Turkish officials say proves the journalist was killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents inside the consulate, according to people familiar with the matter. If verified, the recording would make it difficult for the White House to accept the Saudi version that Khashoggi’s death was effectively an accident. A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment.

At The Atlantic, Hassan Hassan, Senior research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, wrrites: What’s Missing From the Saudis’ Khashoggi Story.

Seventeen days after the disappearance of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, authorities in Riyadh finally confirmed his death. According to the Saudi version of what happened, Khashoggi died after a fist fight between him and several men at the consulate in Istanbul. Authorities announced the arrest of 18 Saudi nationals, as well as the dismissal of top officials, including an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The gaps in this story are as significant as the announcement itself.

Saudi authorities did not reveal the location of  Khashoggi’s body, which lends credence to the narrative attributed to Turkish officials over the past two weeks. Even before Turkish authorities were allowed to search the consulate and the residence of the consul general, they suggested that Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the consulate. They reached this conclusion based on video footage that showed Khashoggi entered the building but never came out. In an interview with Bloomberg, the crown prince, widely known as MbS, insisted that Khashoggi left the consulate—but if that were true the Saudis could have produced a body.

By Nelly Tsenova (b.1961)

The spontaneous scuffle theory also does not explain the dismissal of the adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, who was perceived as MbS’s right-hand man and thought by some to encourage his worst instincts. Dubbed “the father of electronic flies” by his critics, he’s been accused of using social media bots and trolls to lead smear campaigns against government opponents, especially in the wake of the Qatar crisis. Al-Qahtani oversaw public relations efforts abroad, and was known for combative language online. At the time of this writing, his pinned tweet read: “Some brothers blame me for what they view as harshness. But everything has its time, and talk these days requires such language.”

It’s difficult to understand al-Qahtani’s removal as anything other than a soft rebuke to MbS and his heavy-handedness by King Salman, who stepped in some days ago to manage the fallout from Khashoggi’s murder. A Saudi official told me that the king’s orders could perhaps alter the aggressive way that authorities deal with dissidents.

Turkish investigators say they expect to learn what happened to Kashoggi’s body soon. Reuters:

“We’ll find out what happened to the body before long,” the senior official said. “The DNA is being procured from within Turkey. It seems there will be no need to ask Saudi Arabia at the moment.”

Khashoggi’s killers may have dumped his remains in Belgrad Forest adjacent to Istanbul, and at a rural location near the city of Yalova, a 90-kme (55 mile) drive south of Istanbul, officials told Reuters on Thursday.

Investigators were still focused on the Yalova and Belgrad Forest areas, and were looking at CCTV footage from near Belgrad Forest, the senior official said.

Investigators were also still examining traffic records of every car that went in and out of the Saudi Consulate on Oct.2, the day Khashoggi entered the consulate, the senior official said.

Members of the Saudi royal family are increasingly concerned about whether MBS is competent to lead the kingdom. It’s difficult not to draw parallels between MBS and his American BFF Jared Kushner. A couple articles in this vein:

The New York Times: Uproar Over Dissident Rattles Saudi Royal Family.

Saudi Arabia is facing perhaps its greatest international crisis since the revelation that its citizens planned and carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Robert Braithwaite Martineau – A Girl with a Cat, 1860

Members of the ruling family are increasingly worried about the direction of the country under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 33-year-old favorite son of King Salman and the kingdom’s day-to-day ruler.

But unlike 2001, when the royal family came together to protect its collective interests, this time that may not be possible. Instead, there is deep concern, as royals search, so far in vain, for a way to contain the crown prince, who has consolidated power so completely that nearly everyone else is marginalized.

At The Washington Post, David Von Drehle suggests that MBS “could bring his kingdom crumbling down.”

Among advisers to family-owned businesses there’s a widely known adage : “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” Difficult as it is to build a successful enterprise, it is more difficult to raise children with the ability and desire to keep it going. Producing one grandchild among a potentially rivalrous set of cousins with the right talent and interests and force and tact — is more challenging still.

Observers of Saudi Arabia have been mulling this problem for many years, as the strongest among founding king Abdul Aziz ibn Saud’s 45 sons passed the crown from one to another. Now, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist lured to the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, chillingly tells us that generational succession is no longer a future problem. It is a present crisis.

Admittedly, thanks to the ocean of oil discovered beneath the sands of Saud’s realm, there’s no risk of his grandchildren reverting to the nomadic life from which the kingdom was built nearly a century ago. Instead, the risk is that the third generation — lacking its grandfather’s cunning and the caution of its fathers — will drag the kingdom into a spiral of treachery, backstabbing and recklessness. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has shown himself to be steeped in all three.

Read the rest at the link.

So . . . what stories are you following today? Please share your thoughts and links in the comment thread.

Thursday Reads: The Trump Crime Family

The Basket of Apples, by Paul Cezanne, 1895

Good Afternoon!!

Remember when people used talk about the “Bush crime family?” Well, the Trump crime family makes the Bushes look like pikers.

Just a couple of weeks ago, The New York Times published a stunning 18-month report on Trump’s “dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud.” Of course that story has been buried in the rubble of the Kavanaugh hearings and more Trump criminal behavior, including his current efforts to cover up a murder perpetrated by the Saudis.

Now Trump, Inc. (at ProPublica) has released the results of an 8-month study of the Trump Organization’s business model, Pump and Trump.

Since Donald Trump’s fortunes came surging back with the success of “The Apprentice” 14 years ago, his deals have often been scrutinized for the large number of his partners who have ventured to the very edges of the law, and sometimes beyond. Those associates have included accused money launderers, alleged funders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and a felon who slashed someone in the face with a broken margarita glass.

Trump and his company have typically countered by saying they were merely licensing his name on these real estate projects in exchange for a fee. They weren’t the developers or in any way responsible.

But an eight-month investigation by ProPublica and WNYC reveals that the post-millennium Trump business model is different from what has been previously reported. The Trumps were typically way more than mere licensors or bystanders in their often-troubled deals. They were deeply involved in these projects. They helped mislead investors and buyers — and they profited handsomely from it.

Autumn Patterns. Mary Gibbs. Watercolour.

Patterns of deceptive practices occurred in a dozen deals across the globe, as the business expanded into international projects, and the Trumps often participated. One common pattern, visible in more than half of those transactions, was a tendency to misstate key sales numbers.

In interviews and press conferences, Ivanka Trump gave false sales figures for projects in Mexico’s Baja California ; Panama City, Panama ; Toronto  and New York’s SoHo neighborhood . These statements weren’t just the legendary Trump hype; they misled potential buyers about the viability of the developments.

Another pattern: Donald Trump repeatedly misled buyers about the amount (or existence) of his ownership in projects in Tampa, Florida; Panama; Baja and elsewhere. For a tower planned in Tampa, for example, Trump told a local paper in 2005 that his ownership would be less than 50 percent: “But it’s a substantial stake. I recently said I’d like to increase my stake but when they’re selling that well they don’t let you do that.” In reality, Trump had no ownership stake in the project.

The Trumps often made money even when projects failed. And when they tanked, the Trumps simply ignored their prior claims of close involvement, denied any responsibility and walked away.

Read the rest and listen to the Trump, Inc. episode at the link.

At The New Yorker, Adam Davison summarizes the findings of the two studies and asks: Is Fraud Part of the Trump Organization’s Business Model?

It is becoming increasingly clear that, in the language of business schools, the Trump Organization’s core competency is in profiting from misrepresentation and deceit and, potentially, fraud. There are many ways to make money in real estate. The normal way is to identify a need in the market, raise money by convincing lenders or investors that your plan is sound, build the structure, then either profit through ongoing rent or by selling units. The key variables in such a business are what is known as product-market fit—the accuracy with which a developer understands the housing or commercial needs of a place—and the ability to execute well by keeping costs down without sacrificing the right level of quality. Perhaps more than anything, practitioners of a successful real-estate business obsessively focus on maintaining the ability to borrow money cheaply. The profit on many real-estate projects often comes down to simple math: the cheaper you can borrow money to build, the more money you make. The more trustworthy you are, through a long period of successful projects, the less interest banks will demand on their loans, so the more profit you can make, and the more successful you will be.

Autumn Still Life by Ruslan Smorodinov

Rather famously, Trump overinvested in luxury housing, spent too much on his casinos, and completely blew his brief foray into a regional airline. Far worse, Trump did the very opposite of insuring a long record of fiscal prudence that would allow him to borrow money cheaply. Despite the company’s mixed record, it has survived and grown. It’s doing something well, so what is it?

This month, two incredible investigative stories have given us an opportunity to lift the hood of the Trump Organization, look inside, and begin to understand what the business of this unusual company actually is. It is not a happy picture. The Times published a remarkable report, on October 2nd, that showed that much of the profit the Trump Organization made came not from successful real-estate investment but from defrauding state and federal governments through tax fraud. This week, ProPublica and WNYC co-published a stunning story and a “Trump, Inc.” podcast that can be seen as the international companion to the Times piece. They show that many of the Trump Organization’s international deals also bore the hallmarks of financial fraud, including money laundering, deceptive borrowing, outright lying to investors, and other potential crimes.

It’s still difficult to believe that the thug who head’s this crime family is currently the “president.”

We know that with Trump, everything is about his personal money and power, not the nation he supposedly leads. So what is this all about?

The Washington Post: Saudi Arabia transfers $100 million to U.S. amid crisis over Khashoggi.

The United States received a payment of $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeoarrived in Riyadh to discuss the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a State Department official confirmed Wednesday amid global calls for answers in the case.

Saudi Arabia publicly pledged the payment to support U.S. stabilization efforts in northeastern Syria in August, but questions persisted about when and if Saudi officials would come through with the money.

Autumn Still Life, William Merritt Chase

The timing of the transfer, first reported by the New York Times, raised questions about a potential payoff as Riyadh seeks to manage the blowback over allegations that Saudi agents were responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance. The State Department denied any connection between the payment and Pompeo’s discussions with Saudi officials about Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist.

Could there be a more obvious bribe? Yet the Trump thugs expect us to believe it’s just a coincidence.

“We always expected the contribution to be finalized in the fall time frame,” Brett McGurk, the State Department’s envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said in a statement. “The specific transfer of funds has been long in process and has nothing to do with other events or the secretary’s visit.”

But, the WaPo continues,

Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich monarchy and staunch U.S. ally, has long relied on its financial largesse to persuade partners to support its foreign policy objectives. Western diplomats suspect that the kingdom will also compensate Turkey for its willingness to launch a joint investigation on Khashoggi’s disappearance — a payback that could come in the form of large-scale debt relief, strategic buyouts or other arrangements that boost Turkey’s ailing economy.

We’re most likely never going to get that audiotape from Turkey, folks.

Trump won’t even let Republicans in Congress know what’s happening with the murder cover up.

The Hill: Corker: Trump administration ‘clamped down’ on Saudi intel, canceled briefing.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday that the Trump administration is restricting access to information about a missing Saudi journalist, a move that comes as President Trump has publicly echoed denials of wrongdoing from top Saudi officials.

Joke Frima (b.1952) — On the Woodpile, 2010

Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Washington Post that the administration had “clamped down” on sharing intelligence about Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government who has been missing for more than two weeks.

“I can only surmise that probably the intel is not painting a pretty picture as it relates to Saudi Arabia,” Corker told the Post.

Corker added that the administration canceled an intelligence briefing scheduled for Tuesday and that he was told additional information would not be shared with the Senate at this time, a development he described as “disappointing.”