The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[N.E. Brigand]

News from Britain today: "Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman was arrested at his multi-million-pound residence in London on suspicion of offences including money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the Home Office and conspiracy to commit perjury."

Fridman is said to be one of Russia's richest citizens. Lately I believe he's made some comments skeptical of Russia's war in Ukraine. But I cite this news here because Fridman was the founder of Alfa Bank and its chairman until earlier this year, when he stepped down to reduce the effect that U.S. and European sanctions on him could have on that firm. A few years ago, he has variously sued Buzzfeed, FusionGPS, and Christopher Steele in U.S. and U.K. courts for supposedly having defamed him in the Steele dossier. Some of those suits were dismissed, some continue, and in one case, a British judge did order Steele to pay Fridman $23,000 (per Wikipedia, which gives the amount in dollars not pounds) for having written that Fridman had been a bagman for Vladimir Putin when Putin was the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. I wonder if Steele will have the last laugh.

Yesterday in France, Alexei Kuzmichev, billionaire co-founder of Russia's Alfa Bank, was "detained ... in a dramatic raid with 60 officers as they investigate allegations of tax avoidance, money laundering and violating sanctions."

[N.E. Brigand]

What is driving the Trump legal team's obsession with Judge Engoron's clerk?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

What is driving the Trump legal team's obsession with Judge Engoron's clerk?

Judge Engoron certainly has some thoughts.

"Sometimes I think there's a bit of misogyny in you referring to my female principal law clerk," the judge suggested.

https://themessenger.com/politics/trump ... ge-engoron

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A more interesting question may be "Why is Ivanka Trump so afraid of testifying in this case?"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Back to the question about the clerk. Lisa Rubin has another suggested answer.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A more interesting question may be "Why is Ivanka Trump so afraid of testifying in this case?"

[Dave_LF]

I spent the morning tearing my hair out trying to get my kids to school with their delayed start and work at the same time. Do I get to tell my boss it's an undue hardship having to work during the school week, or is that just for the filthy rich?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[RoseMorninStar]

From what I've been able to find on the interwebs:

The Mar A Lago Membership costs around $200,000, but you will have to go through a committee before being accepted. And this is just the initiation cost. Members will also have to pay a membership fee of around $14,000 every year to keep their membership at the club active. Members also have to spend a $2,000 annual minimum on food.

I don't know anyone who charges that kind of money for guests in their 'home'.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The plot thickens.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This seems to define pretty well has Trump's testimony is going today.

[RoseMorninStar]

[N.E. Brigand]

Remember back in May 2017 when a recording emerged of future House Speaker Kevin McCarthy telling Republican colleagues in July 2016 that "There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump. Swear to God"?

"Rohrabacher" referred to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican Congressman from California's 48th District (including Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, and Santa Ana and other communities east of San Diego) and its predecessor districts from 1989 to 2019. He lost to a Democrat, Harley Rouda, in 2018; Rouda in turn lost to the now-incumbent Republican, Michelle Steele, after just one term in 2020.

As can be seen at that link, Rep. Rohrabacher had a rather scandal-tinged career. Here's something not mentioned there, which I cannot forebear from sharing:



Rohrabacher's Wikipedia page above doesn't even mention that he had been a member of Young Americans for Freedom (click for other examples of what the YAF stood for).

[N.E. Brigand]

No Mary or Maryanne Trump though.

I forgot that Maryanne Trump, the former judge who was Donald Trump's older sister who died today at the age of 86 (she retired from judicial senior status when the New York Times broke a story during her brother's presidency about how the Trump siblings cheated their way around inheritance taxes), once told her niece Mary (daughter of Donald's older brother, Fred Jr.) that Donald paid someone else to take the SAT for him.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Trump Org. fraud civil trial in New York continues apace. Testifying today for the defense was Jeffrey McConney, the firm's former comptroller (for almost 40 years), who had already been a witness called by the plaintiffs (i.e., the state). At one point he appeared to say that just today he had been subpoenaed anew in a federal matter, which if accurate is an unexpected bit of news.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Trump Org. fraud civil trial in New York continues apace. Testifying today for the defense was Jeffrey McConney, the firm's former comptroller (for almost 40 years), who had already been a witness called by the plaintiffs (i.e., the state). At one point he appeared to say that just today he had been subpoenaed anew in a federal matter, which if accurate is an unexpected bit of news.

I hadn't seen that. Interesting!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No big surprise here.

[N.E. Brigand]

A few days ago, Donald Trump's team said they wished to call former judge Barbara Jones as a witness. You may recall that the judge in this case, Arthur Engoron, appointed Jones as a special master last December to monitor the Trump Org. finances and ensure that the conglomerate's finances aren't illicitly liquidated in advance of any financial judgement that might arise from the court proceedings. It was understood that Trump believed Jones would testify that she had seen no financial skullduggery in the nearly twelve months she has been in this role. But Judge Engoron ruled that Jones, as an officer of the court, could not be called as a witness.

Now Trump may be happy about that ruling, because Jones issued a report indicating that the Trump Org. transferred out three payments totaling more than $40 million without notifying her, of which $29 million was for Donald Trump's taxes and $5.5 million was to an attorney escrow fund relating to the E. Jean Carroll case (presumably to be held there until all Trump's appeals are exhausted). So she explained to the Trump Org. trustees that when she said they had to get her approval for transfers of more than $5 million, she meant it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Of course, the harm is largely already done as a result of the stay that was entered while they decided to reinstate the order, giving Trump a chance to make extensive posts attacking Allison Greenfield, Judge Engoron's chief clerk, as recently as yesterday.