Trump's Nominees & Hirees, contd. IV

Donald Trump’s:

Campaign chair: felon
Deputy campaign chair: felon
Foreign policy adviser: felon
Personal lawyer: felon
National security adviser: felon
Longtime political adviser: felon
Chief strategist: twice indicted

- Brian Klaas (U College London) @brianklaas | 5:12 PM · Nov 12, 2021
https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1459282938995093513
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Manafort, Gates, Pappadopolous, Cohen, Flynn, Stone, Bannon?
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Cartoon: https://twitter.com/DebGREER5/status/1459290981703073803/photo/1
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"the company he keeps": https://twitter.com/NthnGd4/status/1459301791565328389/photo/1

Only one former secretary of state is praising Putin and criticizing Biden in Ukraine crisis
Michael Wilner | February 22, 2022

...“He is a very talented statesman. He has lots of gifts,” (frmr Sec'y of State Mike) Pompeo told Fox News in January. “He was a KGB agent, for goodness sakes. He knows how to use power. We should respect that.”...

...Pompeo has targeted Biden as exemplifying “enormous weakness,” leading “an America on its back, an America that apologizes.” He asserts that Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and response to a ransomware hack of the Colonial pipeline last year contributed to Putin’s confidence.

Putin is “very shrewd. Very capable,” Pompeo said in another recent interview with the Center for the National Interest. “I have enormous respect for him – I’ve been criticized for saying that.”

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article258638383.html
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Julia Davis (The Daily Beast) @JuliaDavisNews | 1:34 PM · Feb 22, 2022:
#Russia's state TV is proudly showing off Mike Pompeo's recent commentary, where he said about Putin: “Very shrewd. Very capable. I have enormous respect for him."
Screenshot ( https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1496191658387517443/photo/1 )

KNEWZ EXCLUSIVE: Paul Manafort Denied Flight To Dubai Over Revoked Passport
msn.com

Officials with Miami-Dade police confirmed that Manafort was denied travel by the Customs and Bureau Protection at Miami International Airport. Police said he could not take the flight and his U.S. Passport was revoked.

- Eugene Wilkie @ResusCGMedia | 11:37 PM · Mar 22, 2022

KNEWZ EXCLUSIVE: Paul Manafort Denied Flight To Dubai Over Revoked Passport
msn.com

Officials with Miami-Dade police confirmed that Manafort was denied travel by the Customs and Bureau Protection at Miami International Airport. Police said he could not take the flight and his U.S. Passport was revoked.

- Eugene Wilkie @ResusCGMedia | 11:37 PM · Mar 22, 2022
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Manafort was trying to regroup w his sponsors. Dubai is where the oligarchs are flocking to now.
At least 38 businessmen or officials linked to Russia’s president own dozens of properties in Dubai collectively valued at more than $314 million.

How a Playground for the Rich Could Undermine Sanctions on Oligarchs
Allies of President Vladimir Putin, arriving on private jets and yachts, are still welcome in the U.A.E., which has yet to condemn the Ukraine invasion or enforce sanctions.
David D. Kirkpatrick, Mona El-Naggar and Michael Forsythe | March 9, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/us/russian-oligarchs-sanctions-dubai.html

- Cantankerous chihuahua @CanDoChiChi | 12:37 AM · Mar 23, 2022

Trump Hired a Nazi-Lover

If not an actual Nazi.

Trump's former acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, was accused of Nazism by a U.S. congressman on Friday (today).

Grenell was called out by Rep. Ted Lieu (R-CA) for his "stupid, racist sh*t."

"I served on active duty to defend your right to say stupid stuff. To the extent you now randomly mention China because of my race, then you’re saying stupid, racist sh*t," Lieu said.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) offered his thoughts on the former Trump aide. Twitter exchange below.

Rep. Eric Swalwell @RepSwalwell
Hey @tedlieu, did you know @RichardGrenell used to hang out with Nazis when he was supposed to be representing us in Germany?

Then this message from Olivia Troye, who served as a homeland security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence.

Olivia of Troye @OliviaTroye
Replying to @tedlieu @RepSwalwell and @RichardGrenell
I do. While in his (Richard Grenell) role as Ambassador, Grennell tried to get Mike Pence to attend a white supremacist gathering during one of his overseas trips.

But Hunter's laptop! Hillary's emails!

Report: Saudi Arabia Concluded Jared Kushner’s Investment Firm Was a Joke, Gave Him $2 Billion Anyway
Saudi Arabia, which famously dismembered a man via bone saw, was worried Kushner was a P.R. risk to them.
Bess Levin | April 11, 2022

...just six months after leaving the White House, the former first son-in-law’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, was awarded a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is led by MBS. That the kingdom would fork over that kind of cash to Kushner is obviously ridiculously shady and, as Nick Penniman, the founder and chief executive of good-government organization Issue One, told The Times, “swampy and seemingly hypocritical.” But the cash alone is not even the funniest part, and by funniest we mean insanely unethical and wildly corrupt. No, the unethical and corrupt part is that the people who perform due diligence for the Saudis’ Public Investment Fund concluded Kushner’s firm was a joke and that he might make them look bad…and then the board, headed by MBS, gave him the money anyway. Because…y’know.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-2-billion-inv...
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Paywall:

Gee, Wonder Why Mohammed Bin Salman Personally Intervened to Give Jared Kushner $2 Billion
Ryan Bort | April 11, 2022

Advisers for the Saudi Arabian foreign wealth fund didn’t want to infuse Kushner’s private equity firm with cash. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did it anyway...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-i...

EXCLUSIVE: The *Real* Reason Jared Kushner was Given $2 Billion to Invest by MBS
Vicky Ward* Investigates | Apr 15, 2022

$2 billion entrusted by the Saudi investment fund PIF to Jared Kushner’s new fund, Affinity Partners—reportedly at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince MBS over objections by a panel of financial advisers who highlighted Kushner’s lack of track record. I reported that the money was possibly both an IOU for sympathetic foreign policy led by Kushner during the Trump years and also a bet by MBS on a return to the White House by Kushner’s father-in-law, Donald Trump.

Since then, I’ve learned that what’s at the heart of this potentially reveals the reason Kushner was denied a top-secret security clearance by the CIA.

I’m told it was Kushner and Kushner’s allies who blocked top-level U.S. government support for MBS’s cousin, former Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN)—a long-time intelligence and counter-terrorist asset for the U.S.—when MBN attempted a legal coup d’état in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2017. MBN believed he had enough support from the so-called “Council of Ministers” to back him in a regime change.

If successful, both King Salman and MBS (then deputy crown prince) would have been unseated and replaced by MBN. My sources tell me it was Kushner and his allies in the White House who got word to MBS of bin Nayef’s plans, and the plot was abruptly stopped. (As I’ve mentioned before, a spokesperson for Kushner has denied passing on intelligence to the Saudis).

But, according to three sources with knowledge, it was this meddling in Saudi royal affairs that caused U.S. intelligence officials to go “apoplectic” and prevent Kushner from getting a top-level security clearance...

https://vickyward.substack.com/p/exclusive-the-real-reason-jared-kushner

* Vicky Ward
Journalist working at the intersection of power, money & corruption. NYT bestselling author. Host/reporter of "Chasing Ghislaine"

Daniel Scavino Jr. is an American political adviser who served in the Trump administration as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications from 2019 to 2021 and Director of Social Media from 2017 to 2021. (Wikipedia)
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Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson | 10:02 PM · May 1, 2022:
My God.
This is stunning.
I also realized that "Lonna Bauer" is an anagram for "Anal Ore Nub."
THAT'S HOW DEEP THE RABBIT HOLE GOES.
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Operative_X @OperativeXRay | 10:07 PM · May 1, 2022:
Holy sh...Lonna Bauer = "Anal Ore Nub"? That was the Secret Service code name for Dan Scavino.
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Lonna Bauer tweets Q and other conspiracies and lies, etc., e.g.,

Lonna Bauer @palmerLoni4 | 7:21 PM · Apr 30, 2022:
https://twitter.com/palmerLoni4/status/1520543909704839168

Huge news. We pray it’s so accurate. Between Mon. 2 May and Thurs. 5 May there is expected to be a removal of Joe B. and return of Trump to the US Presidency this is big.
-High level.

How Unlikely Is It That the Audits of Comey and McCabe Were a Coincidence? A Statistical Exploration.
Francesca Paris and Josh Katz | July 7, 2022

The chances are minuscule. But minuscule is not zero.

... (assume all taxpayers have an equal chance of being audited and that both men were audited in 2017)...a probability of roughly one in 950 million...

Mr. McCabe and Mr. Comey only (2 people) 1 in 82 million
Top Trump officials forced out (34 people) 1 in 150,000
Top F.B.I. officials (45 people) 1 in 83,000
Top D.O.J. officials and deputies (134 people) 1 in 9,300
Americans Trump insulted on Twitter (400 people) 1 in 1,100
All F.B.I. employees (35,000 people) 9 in 10...

...Math has its limits. The point of trying to estimate a probability such as this one, (Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University) said, is not to put too much stock in the numbers, but to let the result push you to find out more.

In this case, the best question is not one with an answer you can look up in a statistics textbook.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/07/upshot/comey-mccabe-tax-audits.html

Instead, Mr. Gelman said, the question to pose is: “What’s going on?”

>9 margd: I think McCabe’s audit was for 2019, but still!

>10 2wonderY: Right. Back-of-envelope figgering assumed both were audited in 2017, for simplicity's sake, I assume, but Comey was audited in 2017 and McCabe in 2019. I wasn't clear.

Alexander S. Vindman @AVindman | 11:21 PM · Jul 7, 2022:
Vet. NYT Best-selling Author. Ex NSC/ WH Staffer. Advisor @votevets . Pritzker Fellow, Lawfare. Doctorate JHU 22'.

Trump had the @USArmy conduct an investigation into me after removing me and my twin @YVindman from the White House. He prevented my promotion to Colonel. He had his staff retaliate against Yev. This is who Trump is. If there’s a next time it will be far worse.

Who Would Staff a Second Trump Term? Spineless sycophants, that’s who.
Frederick E. Hoxie and Dennis Aftergut | July 29, 2022

...Imagine Mike Flynn, a convicted felon, as secretary of defense, Fox host Dan Bongino as the next FBI director. Secretary of Commerce Mike Lindell or Patrick Byrne. Tony Ornato as Secret Service director. How about Solicitor General John Eastman?...

Beyond the political appointees are the hundreds of thousands of civil servants who fill out the federal bureaucracy. Here, too, the Trump team has made clear that it intends to exert much more control.

The key tool for removing any disloyal civil servant is an executive order that Trump signed late in his term, in October 2020. It erased civil service protections for any government worker who has the slightest influence with policymaking, classifying such individuals as “Schedule F.” President Joe Biden rescinded the executive order on January 22, 2021, but Trump is expected to reinstate it if he is re-elected.

...Estimates are that 50,000 federal workers would come under Trump’s thumb...With Trump’s reissuance of the Schedule F executive order, our national government would start to resemble Tammany Hall—a corrupt political machine...

https://www.thebulwark.com/who-would-staff-a-second-trump-term/

Trump was his own worst enemy. He allowed yes men like Bannon and his ilk to guide the Oval Office discussions in the direction Trump preferred to hear them go. Garbage in always equals garbage out.

Wow.

Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals
How Mark Milley and others in the Pentagon handled the national-security threat posed by their own Commander-in-Chief.
Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker | August 8, 2022

The four years of the Trump Presidency were characterized by a fantastical degree of instability: fits of rage, late-night Twitter storms, abrupt dismissals. At first, Trump, who had dodged the draft by claiming to have bone spurs, seemed enamored with being Commander-in-Chief and with the national-security officials he’d either appointed or inherited. But Trump’s love affair with “my generals” was brief, and in a statement for this article the former President confirmed how much he had soured on them over time. “These were very untalented people and once I realized it, I did not rely on them, I relied on the real generals and admirals within the system,” he said.

It turned out that the generals had rules, standards, and expertise, not blind loyalty...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/inside-the-war-between-trump-and-h...

I saw these Trumps appointees mentioned on Twitter. Who are they?

Bonnie Glick, Deputy Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, responsible for civilian foreign aid and assistance, from Jan 2019 to Nov 2020.

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, an official of national nuclear security from February 2018 to Nov 2020. She's married to the founder and CEO of Tier Tech International, a for-profit company that vaguely says it "provides strategic consulting services for mission-critical challenges."

Neil Chatterjee, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Aug 2017 to Dec 2017 (only four months!) and Oct 2018 to Nov 2020. Became a member of the commission two days(!) before he was first made the chairman.

One of the noteworthy things I'm seeing is their termination date: Nov 6, 2020, when it was clear Trump had lost his reelection. That's strange.

Other noteworthy people:

John Barsa (R) was Acting Administrator for International Development from April 2020 but became Acting Deputy in place of Glick on Nov 7 in what appears to be an illegal move circumventing the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. The administrator's position was left vacant. He left the agency on Inagruation Day (Jan 2021).

Kevin J. McIntyre (R) joined FERC the day he was made its chief in Dec 2017, when he took over for Chatterjee. He was later suceeded by Chatterjee in Oct 2018 but remained on the commission until he died of brain cancer on Jan 2019. (Was he fit to serve?!)

For context with the position duration, President Obama appointed Cheryl LaFleur (D) as Acting Chief of FERC in Jan 2013. She served as the chief until Apr 2015 then again in an officially temporary capacity in Jan 2017 to Jul 2017. She was one of the five members of the commission from 2010 to 2019.

While advising Trump on judges, Conway sold her business to a firm with ties to judicial activist Leonard Leo
Heidi Przybyla | 12/20/2022

...It appears ( longtime judicial activist Leonard ) Leo, via one of his dark money groups (Creative Response Concepts Inc.), helped finance the transaction ... worth between $1 million and $5 million... At the time, CRC was also bringing in millions of dollars from dark money groups to promote Leo’s picks.

It’s the latest example of how Leo has used his network to secure and protect allies at the highest levels of government to successfully advance his decadeslong agenda of shifting the Supreme Court rightward for the next generation. Conway was among a small circle of advisers with outsized influence over a newly elected president whose commitment to overturning major precedents like the right to abortion was in doubt by some social conservatives. While former President Donald Trump — a onetime supporter of abortion rights and former registered Democrat — was considered unpredictable by some social conservatives, Conway proved from the earliest days of Trump’s presidency to be an outspoken advocate for Leo’s list of handpicked candidates.

If Leo helped facilitate the transaction, it could violate ethics laws designed to prevent executive branch employees from obtaining benefits from people with whom they interact in their official capacities, said Bruce Freed, president of the nonpartisan Center for Political Accountability, which tracks corporate spending in politics. Federal ethics laws prohibit executive branch employees from using their positions for private personal gain and from accepting gifts.

...The Conways and Leo have longstanding ties. ...

Leo served on the board of a group led by Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, and he and the Thomases have maintained a longstanding friendship. Leo’s network has been among the most prolific forces behind the new conservative majority, successfully advocating to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett as well as to block former President Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland.

... “serious concerns” about how Leo will use his new, “no-strings-attached” $1.6 billion windfall, arranged through a series of transactions that appear to have avoided tax liabilities, to influence the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court...

... particularly problematic if the firm wouldn’t have otherwise been purchased or wasn’t purchased at fair market value...

...Leo left his post as Federalist Society executive vice president in 2020 to become chairman of a newly rebranded CRC Advisors, but he remains co-chairman of the Federalist Society board. He has subsequently devoted himself to cultivating his donor network...

...According to a review of Federal Elections Commission filings by OpenSecrets, no federal political committee has paid CRC for polling services since Conway sold the company, with the exception of a $27,000 disbursement on Feb. 4 of this year. It also found at least $60,000 in 2020 in payments from the Republican Attorneys General Association...

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/20/trump-conway-leonard-leo-00074690