Daily Archives: March 26, 2021

Back in January, Representative Liz Cheney earned the ire of many a fellow Republican when she had the audacity to claim that Donald Trump had lit the flame of the attack on the Capitol, announced her support to impeach him, and then, days later, voted to do exactly that. Of course, nothing that Cheney said or did was wrongTrump quite obviously incited the violent riot and he should have been impeachedbut to his band of loyalists in the party, the Wyoming lawmakers actions were tantamount to treason. (Which is an interesting point of view, given that the guy they were defending had literally tried to overthrow the results of a federal election.) Dozens of Republican representatives tried to strip Cheney of her role as conference chair. Florida representative Matt Gaetz flew to Wyoming and, after declaring like only a mediocre white man can that he knew everything there was to know about the place having been there for one hour, urged voters to oust her from the House. Donald Trump Jr. has spent the last two months and change attacking Cheney for disrespecting his father.

Unfortunately for Junior, his quest to avenge Daddy Trump and maybe get more than one biannual hug, is not going so hot. Per CNN:

A Wyoming Senate bill to create election runoffsfailed on Wednesday, despite Donald Trump Jr.s campaign to pass it in an attempt to defeat Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in 2022. The vote was 1415 with one lawmaker excused. The former presidents son has increasingly attacked the No. 3 House Republican sinceshe voted to impeach his fatherfollowing the deadly attack on the Capitol. In January, Trump Jr. called into an anti-Cheney rallyled by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, urging Republicans to coalesce around a single candidate to challenge her. And in March, Trump Jr. publicly pressured the state senators on the committee working on the bill, tweeting their email addresses to his 6.8 million followers. Any Republican in Wyoming who does Liz Cheneys bidding and opposes SF145 is turning their back on my father and the entire America First movement, Trump Jr.tweeted.

The bill wouldve forced Cheney and other candidates to receive more than 50% of the vote to win a primary, and potentially pit her against one Trump-backed opponent in a runoff primary election. But despite Trump Jr.s efforts, a Wyoming state Senate committee amended the bill so it wouldnt take effect until 2023, as some legislators pushed to give county clerks enough time to adapt.

Earlier this week, the ex-presidents namesake tweeted a photo of Cheney speaking to Democratic representative Jamie Raskin and suggested the two were conspiring to take down his father:

Last month, Junior said in an interview that he has no intention of running for office right now but wouldnt rule out a future bid. At the moment, though, he believes he can make a bigger impact on the Republican Party by focusing on the weaklings who voted to impeach his dad for a second time. Said weaklings are no doubt quivering in fear.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

Andrew Cuomos Biographer on the Governors Brutish History How Officials in Trumps White House Scrambled to Score COVID-19 Vaccinations A Private Jet of Rich Trumpers Wanted to Stop the Steal Donald Trump Is Drowning in Criminal Investigations and Legally Screwed The Wave of Anti-Asian Hate Could Last Beyond the Pandemic Could Brett Kavanaugh Be Booted From the Supreme Court? Leak of Bombshell CBS Investigation Led to Multimillion-Dollar Settlement From the Archive: The Day Before Tragedy

Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.

Excerpt from:

Wyoming Tells Donald Trump Jr. to Sit Down and STFU - Vanity Fair

As youve probably heard by now, Donald Trump is in a lot of legal trouble, which is unfortunate for him given the fact that legitimate lawyers want nothing to do with him and if it werent for the fact that the Republican Party had already decided to let him get away with inciting a violent insurrection, he almost certainly would have been found guilty at his second impeachment trial. (In fact, one of the attorneys on his dream team suggested the Department of Justice should arrest him if they thought he committed a crime.) Currently, the ex-president is the defendant in approximately 29 lawsuits, according to The Washington Post, though likely more worrisome to him are the criminal investigations hes at the center of, particularly the one being led by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. In the last several months, the D.A. has brought on the attorney who put John Gotti and other white-collar criminals behind bars, has reportedly been working to flip the Trump Organizations longtime CFO, and, most crucially, obtained Trumps much sought-after tax returns, documents that the Queens-born real estate developer has gone to such extreme lengths to keep secret that some people have gotten the impression they contain extremely incriminating information. Now, Vances office has taken the next step in its criminal investigation: finding people who can explain to a jury why Trump is a possible crook.

Reuters reports that investigators are combing through millions of pages of newly acquired records with an eye toward identifying witnesses who can bring the documents to life for a jury, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of the individuals expected to testify are already well known and likely include the 45th presidents former fixer, Michael Cohen, who has met with prosectors eight times. (In February 2019, Cohen told lawmakers that Trump regularly inflated and deflated his assets when it served his purposes, whether it was to reduce his tax bill or obtain loans. Last year, he said in an interview that Trump should go to prison for 360 years.) In addition, theres Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization employee who has described himself as Trumps eyes and ears at the company and would seemingly know if his boss had committed fraud, whether of the bank, insurance, or tax variety. But according to reporters Jason Szep and Peter Eisler, a growing universe of people, institutions, and agencies are being scrutinized by Vances team. Per Reuters:

Prosecutors are looking to gather information and testimony from bankers, bookkeepers, real estate consultants, and others close to the Trump Organization who could provide insights on its dealings, according to interviews and court filings. The process of identifying all witnesses and targets could take months. The next phase is identifying targets for subpoenas and testimony, said one person familiar with the case. Vances investigators need insiders who can provide the narrative behind any conflicting numbers on Trumps financial records and testify to Trumps knowledge and intent, said former prosecutors of white-collar fraud cases. Even in the most heavily document-dependent case, you need witnesses to tell the story, said Reed Brodsky, a longtime white-collar defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor.

Several potential key figures in Vances investigation are current or former employees of outside companiesfrom financial and real estate consultants to legal adviserswith inside knowledge of Trumps dealings, according to court filings and the two people familiar with the investigation. Some performed crucial roles for many years, such as Mazars accountant Donald Bender. His signature is on the tax returns of the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which was dissolved in 2018 after a probe by the New York attorney general found that the organization misused charitable funds. Trump was ordered to pay more than $2 million in damages.

In addition to real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, which did years of work for the Trump Organization and appraised a property Trump used to obtain a tax easementa tool ProPublica described as a much-abused deduction exploited by wealthy investors that has cost the U.S. Treasury billions of dollarsVance has spoken to and requested records from Ladder Capital Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG, two of the former presidents biggest creditors. (Trump currently owes Deutsche Bank some $340 million and there is no love lost between him and the German lender, which could foreclose on the properties he used to personally guarantee his loans.) But according to Reuters, Vances investigation will likely rely heavily on Trumps closest associatespeople who can address the key question of what Trump was thinking when he made the financial claims now under scrutiny.

Only a core group of Trumps confidantes can address that state-of-mind question, which is critical to proving criminal intent. They include Weisselberg, 73, who began working for Trumps father, Fred, in 1973. Legal experts and a source familiar with the investigation say prosecutors apparent goal is to convince Weisselberg to cooperate. Also under scrutiny are Weisselbergs adult sons - one who has worked for the Trump Organization. The other son worked for Ladder Capital, though theres no evidence he was involved in Ladders loans to Trump.

Jennifer Weisselbergthe former wife of Allens older son, Barry Weisselbergtold Reuters that she has spoken with Vances office five times since November. The day after the first interview, she said, D.A. investigators visited her to retrieve tax and financial records for her and her former husband. She acknowledged that prosecutors have shown interest in an apartment in a Trump-owned building where she and her former husband lived rent-free for seven yearsan arrangement that could have legal implications if it represented compensation not properly reported in tax filings. Jennifer Weisselberg said she believed her father-in-law would never testify against Trump voluntarily. She envisions Allen Weisselberg flipping only if he or his sons are facing prosecution. But no one, she said, knows more about Trumps finances.

Read this article:

Prosecutors Are Lining Up Witnesses to Explain Donald Trumps Many Alleged Crimes to a Jury - Vanity Fair

In a just world, the day Donald Trump walked out of the White House and boarded a plane headed for Mar-a-Lago would have been the last time we heard from the 45th president or his family ever again. At the very least, it would have been nice for Trump to have been banned from getting within 200 feet of the nuclear codes, on account of both the failed coup and his habit of saying things like this is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest weve ever seen, from the standpoint of water, one of many examples of obvious cognitive impairment. Unfortunately, not only is the guy who (1) sicced a fascist mob on the Capitol and (2) thinks the stock market is a person still eligible to hold office, his entire extended clan is as well. And some are actively threatening to inflict themselves on the U.S. government.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Lara Trump, Eric Trumps wife and Donald Trumps daughter-in-law, said she is absolutely considering running for Senate in North Carolina. Like her father-in-law when he announced his candidacy for the White House, Lara has no experience whatsoever working in government, though she is skilled in whipping out right-wing talking points the Trump base eats up. In April 2019, she called German chancellor Angela Merkels decision to accept refugees the downfall of Germany and one of the worst things to ever happen to the country that started World War II. In 2020, she hit the campaign trail in support of her husbands father with far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who describes herself as a proud Islamophobe. Naturally, she actively took part in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. More recently, it was reported that an animal-rescue charity linked to Lara spent nearly $2 million at Donald Trumps properties. (Charitable shadiness is a family affair for the Trumpsin 2019, Donalds charity was forced to shut down and pay $2 million for illegally using the foundations funds, while Eric, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. were required to undergo mandatory training to learn how not to rip off charities moving forward. In a statement at the time, an attorney for the Trump Foundation claimed the group had been trying to to dissolve and distribute its remaining assets since 2016, which is really neither here nor there. A 2017 Forbes report also alleged that Eric Trumps foundation had misappropriated money intended to benefit pediatric cancer. A spokesperson for Eric Trumps foundation insisted the charity had been transparent about where funds were going, and that relevant donors whose money was given to causes...were made aware the funds would be donated elsewhere.)

More recently, Lara was in the news complaining about how social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook suppress the voices of conservatives, hence Donald Trumps need to start his own platform where people can post without fear of the fact-checkers being all over them:

Lara, of course, is not the only Trump mulling a run for office. In addition to her father-in-laws threat to run again in 2024, her sister-in-law, Ivanka, has reportedly had her eyes on the White House since 2016. (In a storyline straight out of a horror film, Trump allies are said to be pushing him to dump Mike Pence if he runs for a second term and pick a woman as his running mate. Like, say, the daughter with whom he has a deeply creepy relationship.)

And speaking of the ex-first daughters political ambitions: over the weekend the Daily Beast suggested that Ivanka has been hard at work attempting to redeem and rebrand herself, given her current reputation as a rioter-praising poster child for nepotism who doesnt let the people guarding her life use the bathroom.

Unfortunately, not everyone thinks a rebrand is possible, for physiological reasons:

If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, clickhereto subscribe.

Link:

Another Trump Is Threatening to Run for Office - Vanity Fair

The former wife of a key Trump Organization employee scrutinized by prosecutors said the company held sway over employees through unusual financial arrangements, including paying for her home and tuition for her children.

"They want you to do crimes and not talk about it and don't leave," Jennifer Weisselberg said in an interview with Insider. "It's so controlling."

Weisselberg is a cooperating witness in investigations into former President Donald Trump's finances. Between 2004 and 2018, she was married to Barry Weisselberg, the son of Allen Weisselberg, Trump's longtime chief financial officer. Barry Weisselberg is a significant employee of the company in his own right as the manager of the Trump Organization-operated Wollman Rink in New York's Central Park.

Jennifer Weisselberg said she handed over "seven boxes" of documents that came out of her divorce proceedings to prosecutors. Prosecutors in both the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the New York attorney general's office are investigating the finances of Trump and the Trump Organization. The Manhattan DA's office is analyzing whether they violated tax laws by distorting financial information to receive favorable loan terms and pay little in taxes.

Read more: The Manhattan DA's office picked up the pace of its investigation into Trump's finances after he left office, a cooperating witness says

The office successfully subpoenaed millions of pages of tax documents from the Trump Organization in February. Prosecutors there are now seeking to "flip" Allen Weisselberg into guiding them through those pages, The Washington Post reported.

Jennifer Weisselberg said the company retained a grip on key employees by withholding raises. In yearly compensation meetings with Barry Weisselberg, she said, Trump or Allen Weisselberg would offer to pay the tuition of their children instead of giving them raises. She said her ex-husband's base salary hadn't change substantially in the roughly 20 years he's worked there.

"It was like Allen designing a plan," she said. "It was like, 'OK, the way we're going to maestro this is instead of a raise, we're going to pay my daughter's tuition. Instead of a raise, we're going to pay for the apartment.'"

Donald and Melania Trump gave Jennifer and Barry Weisselberg an apartment in their Trump Parc East building by Central Park in Manhattan as a wedding gift, Bloomberg News first reported.

The couple paid only $400 a month in utilities and other fees far below the market rate for rent, Jennifer Weisselberg told the outlet. Prosecutors are examining whether the way the arrangement was reported in tax documents violated tax laws, according to Bloomberg News.

These arrangements, while appearing generous on the surface, served as a way to keep Trump Organization employees in line, Jennifer Weisselberg told Insider.

"Obviously, it's not a gift when you get the same salary for 20 years," she said.

"It's so controlling," she added. "Because if you want to leave and make the same money you live there. If you want to leave, where are you going to live?"

Since Allen Weisselberg handled the finances for both the Trump Organization and her family, gifts like that also served as a way to avoid paying taxes, Jennifer Weisselberg said.

"That's the compensation. They just pay for everything, instead of paying on the books," she said. "It was a way Allen decided to maestro things to benefit Donald or to avoid employee taxes, state taxes, gift taxes. I mean, if you want to get compensated and thank Donald great. But you got to pay taxes on it."

In February, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. hired Mark Pomerantz, a well-regarded white-collar attorney with experience investigating mob organizations, to join the team looking into the Trump Organization. Jennifer Weisselberg has spoken with Pomerantz several times since, she said. The office also sent a forensic accountant with experience analyzing mob finances to look at her documents, she added.

Representatives for the Trump Organization and Barry Weisselberg didn't immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. Representatives for Allen Weisselberg, the Manhattan DA's office, and the New York attorney general's office declined to comment.

View post:

Trump Org controlled employees with perks instead of salary: source - Business Insider

WASHINGTON (AP) Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Friday, arguing the cable news giant, in an effort to boost faltering ratings, falsely claimed that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election.

The lawsuit is part of a growing body of legal action filed by the voting company and other targets of misleading, false and bizarre claims spread by President Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of Trumps election loss to Joe Biden. Those claims helped spur on rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent siege that left five people dead, including a police officer. The siege led to Trumps historic second impeachment.

Dominion argues that Fox News, which amplified inaccurate assertions that Dominion altered votes, sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.

The truth matters. Lies have consequences, the lawsuit said. ... If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does.

Even before Dominions lawsuit on Friday, Fox News had already filed four motions to dismiss other legal action against its coverage. And anchor Eric Shawn interviewed a Dominion spokesperson on air in November.

Fox News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and we will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court, it said in a statement on Friday.

There was no known widespread fraud in the 2020 election, a fact that a range of election officials across the country and even Trumps attorney general, William Barr have confirmed. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Bidens victory, also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states. Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies were dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the Supreme Court, which has three Trump-nominated justices.

Still, some Fox News employees elevated false charges that Dominion had changed votes through algorithms in its voting machines that had been created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late dictator Hugo Chavez. On-air personalities brought on Trump allies Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, who spread the claims, and then amplified those claims on Fox News massive social media platforms.

Dominion said in the lawsuit that it tried repeatedly to set the record straight but was ignored by Fox News.

The company argues that Fox News, a network that features several pro-Trump personalities, pushed the false claims to explain away the former presidents loss. The cable giant lost viewers after the election and was seen by Trump and some supporters as not being supportive enough of the Republican.

Attorneys for Dominion said Fox News behavior differs greatly from that of other media outlets that reported on the claims.

This was a conscious, knowing business decision to endorse and repeat and broadcast these lies in order to keep its viewership, said attorney Justin Nelson, of Susman Godfrey.

Though Dominion serves 28 states, until the 2020 election it had been largely unknown outside the election community. It is now widely targeted in conservative circles, seen by millions of people as one of the main villains in a fictional tale in which Democrats nationwide conspired to steal votes from Trump, the lawsuit said.

Dominions employees, from its software engineers to its founder, have been harassed. Some received death threats. And the company has suffered enormous and irreparable economic harm, lawyers said.

One employee, Eric Coomer, told the AP he had to go into hiding over death threats because of the false claims. He has sued the Trump campaign, conservative media columnists and conservative media outlets Newsmax and One America News Network.

Dominion has also sued Giuliani, Powell and the CEO of Minnesota-based MyPillow over the claims. A rival technology company, Smartmatic USA, also sued Fox News over election claims for a similar sum of money. Unlike Dominion, Smartmatics participation in the 2020 election was restricted to Los Angeles County.

Dominion lawyers said they have not yet filed lawsuits against specific media personalities at Fox News but the door remains open. Some at Fox News knew the claims were false but their comments were drowned out, lawyers said.

The buck stops with Fox on this, attorney Stephen Shackelford said. Fox chose to put this on all of its many platforms. They rebroadcast, republished it on social media and other places.

The suit was filed in Delaware, where both companies are incorporated, though Fox News is headquartered in New York and Dominion is based in Denver.

Visit link:

Dominion Voting sues Fox for $1.6B over 2020 election claims - Associated Press

Phil Jackson feels he can empathize with President Donald Trump over the way both of them were targeted by the media.

Jackson, 75, joined Coby Karls The Curious Leader podcast for an interview published on Thursday. In the interview, the 11-time NBA champion head coach discussed where his tenure as New York Knicks president went wrong.

Jackson cited various factors that went against him, including the media, fans, and star player Carmelo Anthony.

Jackson told Karl that he believes he was fighting a major uphill battle because the media was so anti-Knicks, they were looking for every reason possible to make him and the team look bad.

Jackson said the media was decidedly against the organization and they were looking for whatever they can do to throw aspersions.

I kind of understand what Trump had to live with probably for his first 3.5 years in office with the media, Jackson said, via the New York Daily News.

The media displayed a heavy anti-Trump bias from the day the president was elected in 2016 and often misquoted him, omitted context or twisted his words, or ran inflammatory headlines. They found the negative in almost every story and highlighted that. Jackson feels that is exactly what happened with him as Knicks president.

Jackson says that he believes team owner James Dolan recognized that the media had sided with Anthony in his dispute with the team and that made things difficult for Jackson.

I think that [Dolan] felt like I was facing too big of an uphill climb and relieved me of the job because he just saw the media was going to be backing Carmelo in this situation, Jackson said. And I was going to be the guy taking the lumps.

Jackson took over as the Knicks president after the 2013-2014 season and lasted three years until 2017. Jacksons best move was drafting Kristaps Porzingis, who later demanded a trade from the team. His biggest mistake was hiring Derek Fisher, who embarrassed himself as the head coach.

One of the biggest problems for the Knicks has been Dolan. He has such a contentious relationship with the media and fans that it makes it extremely difficult for anyone to try and survive in that environment.

Several years later, the Knicks finally have a .500 team and look to be somewhat respectable for the first time since 2012-2013.

Read this article:

Phil Jackson empathizes with Donald Trump over treatment from media - Larry Brown Sports

UPMC on Friday said it has given monoclonal antibody treatment to about 1,000 people, preventing death or even hospitalization for about 70 percent.

UPMC portrayed the results as a major breakthrough in COVID-19 treatment and one that, along with vaccine, can prevent a repeat of COVID-19 surges and high death rates of the past.

Moreover, UPMC said the treatment is available at 16 of its locations, including UPMC Pinnacle hospitals in the Harrisburg region.

I would advise most patients to get monoclonal antibody treatment if they qualify, said Erin McCreary, a UPMC infectious disease pharmacist.

McCreary said UPMC plans to eventually detail its results in a peer-reviewed article. However, because the results represent a transformative and life-saving development, UPMC chose to publicize the results on Friday, she said.

Monoclonal antibody treatment is a one-time treatment given intravenously. According to McCreary, it involves copies of antibodies which seek out the COVID-19 virus and prevent it from infecting the cells and reproducing.

Essentially, were giving your immune system a leg up on the virus before it can take hold and wreak havoc, she said.

McCreary said side effects have been minimal, and she knows of no UPMC patients who had to be hospitalized because of reaction to the treatment. Three versions of monoclonal antibody treatment are available under emergency use approval from the federal government.

UPMC doctors said the treatment was given to President Donald Trump in October, when Trump made a seemingly miraculous recovering after coming down with COVID-19. UPMC had no role in treating Trump.

UPMC said it has found the treatment works best if given within 10 days of a positive COVID-19 test and, ideally, within four days of the onset of mild symptoms.

Its available to people at highest risk of becoming severely ill from COVID-19, including people 65 and older and younger patients who are obese or have conditions such diabetes or heart, lung or kidney disease.

About one-third of UPMC COVID-19 patients qualify. However, UPMC doctors said Friday they will advocate for expanding eligibility.

They further said they are surprised monoclonal antibody treatment isnt being used more widely. In fact, they said, because of expanded demand, they devised a lottery system to determine who would receive it, to ensure people dont use favored status and connections to get it. They havent had to use the lottery.

They urged people with COVID-19 symptoms to ask their doctors about getting the treatment.

They said costs are covered by the federal government or private insurance and cost shouldnt be a barrier for anyone.

They further said the monoclonal antibody treatment is being adjusted to involve more than one antibody. UPMC is studying the revised versions to determine if they are more effective against variant strains of COVID-19, which werent present when the original version was developed.

The UPMC doctors said the treatment is available in UPMC emergency rooms and also can be given at nursing homes or even at someones home.

After Trump tested positive and began feeling severely ill on a Friday in October, he was given monoclonal antibody therapy at the White House before he was taken to the hospital by helicopter. At one point his blood oxygen level had dropped to the point he was given supplemental oxygen.

At the hospital, he was also given an antiviral medication and a steroid. After being flown to the hospital on a Friday, he walked out on the following Monday.

The rest is here:

UPMC cites dramatic results with COVID-19 treatment received by Trump - PennLive