OFFICIAL: Donald Trump thread.

[Tomjas]

the fact that they care about some grades he had when he was in school YEARS ago imo is very sad

Trump spent years babbling on about Obama’s grades, birth certificate, taxes but when the boot is on the other foot, it’s waaaaaaaaaaah

The US right really are a bunch of whiny *****es

[bigjavi973]

The fiscal conservatives are gonna be pissed

can you link where you got the pic from? thanks

[bigjavi973]

Trump spent years babbling on about Obama’s grades, birth certificate, taxes but when the boot is on the other foot, it’s waaaaaaaaaaah

The US right really are a bunch of whiny *****es

oh really?


please quote me complaining about where obama was born his grades or whatever from YEARS ago.....

i wont wait at all cuz you are full of shit

idgaf who's grades where what in whatever school they were in when they were in their 20s


unless your stupid ass can quote me stfu asswhipe

[Motorcity Cobra]

Trump revokes rule requiring U.S. intelligence agencies report civilian deaths from drone strikes, other attacks

President Trump — without explanation — signed an executive order Wednesday that rescinds an Obama-era rule mandating U.S. intelligence agencies publicly disclose the number of civilians killed in drone strikes and other attacks targeting terrorists in non-war zones.

The surprise order, which was quietly rolled out by the White House without a formal press release, states the director of national intelligence is no longer required to issue “an unclassified summary of the number of strikes undertaken by the United States government against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities.”

The director also doesn’t need to report “combatant and non-combatant deaths resulting from those strikes,” according to the order, which revokes then-President Barack Obama's 2016 executive action requiring U.S. intelligence agencies to issue an annual report on the number of casualties caused by covert American military actions.

Obama’s order came in response to widespread criticism of his administration’s use of drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen.

Trump’s abrupt move angered national security watchdogs, who considered it part of his administration’s disregard for transparency and civilian casualties caused by its confidential military strikes around the globe.

But a spokesman for Trump’s national security council downplayed such concerns, called the Obama-era rule unnecessary and claimed the administration is “fully committed” to “minimizing, to the greatest extent possible, civilian causalities.”

“This action eliminates superfluous reporting requirements, requirements that do not improve government transparency, but rather distract our intelligence professionals from their primary mission,” the spokesman said.

Mark Zaid, a prominent national security lawyer in Washington, D.C., disagrees.

“Trump's latest executive order exemplifies the administration's view that the United States does not answer to international criticism,” Zaid told the Daily News. "This requirement was to ensure transparency and accountability, rather than obstruct our efforts, and upheld our respected place in the international community.”

The White House refused to release the annual civilian casualties report last year and Trump’s order had been widely expected, as the administration was facing a May 1 deadline to deliver a second assessment.

The Department of Defense is still mandated by law to publicly report the number of civilian casualties caused by U.S. drone strikes.


However, the CIA — which is known to carry out many such strikes in non-war zones — will now no longer be required to report causalities.

Ned Price, a former CIA officer who resigned after Trump took office, argued the President’s executive order could backfire in several ways.

“This requirement was about more than transparency,” Price tweeted. “It allowed, for the first time, the U.S. to counter disinformation from terrorist groups with facts about the effectiveness and precision of our operations. It was an important tool that we're again without.”

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...306-story.html

[Motorcity Cobra]

Dumb **** has been thru the Presidential debates already and he doesn't realize, doesn't know, or doesn't remember that the Presidential candidates don't get to choose who holds debates.

Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2019

[Tomjas]

Dumb **** has been thru the Presidential debates already and he doesn't realize, doesn't know, or doesn't remember that the Presidential candidates don't get to choose who holds debates.

Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2019

He also boycotted a Fox hosted debate

[Motorcity Cobra]

He also boycotted a Fox hosted debate

Yep he sure did. I remember that now. Over Meghan Kelly, right?

[1bad65]

Dumb **** has been thru the Presidential debates already and he doesn't realize, doesn't know, or doesn't remember that the Presidential candidates don't get to choose who holds debates.

Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2019

Trump doesn't have to show up if he so chooses, genius.

The superfan outlets can host all the debates they want, but there's no rule anyone has to actually show up to them.

I surely wouldn't show up to a CNN debate, in light of them being caught giving out debate questions in advance to their favorite Team D players.

Trump's again being smart, and as usual it goes right over your head.

[1bad65]

Yep he sure did. I remember that now. Over Meghan Kelly, right?

Kelly was a moderator for a debate Trump was in (the first R primary debate, iirc)

Right off the bat she asked that question to Trump about his quotes on women, and Trump made his famous "Only Rosie O'Donnell" reply that garnered a huge round of applause.

You forgot about that???

[COVID-19]

Why The Trump Organization Now Risks Being Charged As A Criminal Enterprise

Steve Denning4:10 pm
The guilty have a head start, and retribution is always slow of foot, but it catches up.
—Horace, Odes, Book III, Ode 2

I have already suggested “What The Mueller Report Will Say“ about the Russia investigation, including the possibility that President Trump will be found to have become involved, wittingly or unwittingly, in multiple criminal conspiracies. But President Trump’s legal troubles are far from over, even if, as some implausibly suggest, that the Mueller Report turns out to be a “dud.”

Beyond Russia, Michael Cohen’s testimony last week before the House Oversight Committee pointed to the possibility of wide-ranging criminality within the Trump Organization before, during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, including election finance violations, bank fraud, charity fraud, tax fraud, insurance fraud, obstruction of justice and suborning perjury.


Some of these possible crimes are already under investigation by relevant Federal prosecutors, such as the Southern District of New York, State and District authorities. Just yesterday, we learned that New York state regulators have subpoenaed documents from Trump Organization’s insurance broker. Investigations are also under way for financial irregularities in Trump’s inaugural committee, while Congress has called on the FBI to investigate the employment of undocumented workers at Trump’s properties.

The Trump Organization As A Possible RICO Enterprise

Even if only some of these multiple crimes were to be proven, then the Trump Organization would be at risk of being charged as a “RICO enterprise”, i.e. a racketeering enterprise within the meaning of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act. If that were to happen, then the Trump Organization, its leaders and its members could, as the New York Times suggests, be subject to draconian financial and other penalties, that could threaten the Trump Organization’s very existence.


What is significant for the situation of the Trump Organization is that the RICO Act allows the conviction of leaders of a criminal enterprise for crimes they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing, even if they themselves didn’t commit the criminal acts.

Under the RICO Act, when an organization is found to have committed at least two acts of racketeering activity within the last ten years, then prosecutors can seek to charge the organization as a criminal enterprise and pursue everyone involved in the organization as part of an organized conspiracy.

“Racketeering activity” under the RICO Act comprises some 35 types of criminal activity including bribery, extortion, fraud, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, money laundering, and harboring aliens, i.e. precisely the kind of criminal activity that Michael Cohen’s testimony for the Oversight Committee pointed to.

Under the RICO Act, a person who has committed at least two acts of racketeering activity within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if a person’s acts relate in one of four ways to the enterprise:

the person invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity in the enterprise; or
the person acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity; or
the person conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise “through” the pattern of racketeering activity; or
the person conspired to do one of the above.
In essence, the enterprise can be either the ‘prize,’ ‘instrument,’ ‘victim,’ or ‘perpetrator’ of the racketeers, or all of the above.

Those found guilty of racketeering can be sentenced up to 20 years in prison for each racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business obtained through a pattern of “racketeering activity.” The RICO Act also allows the recovery of treble damages (damages in triple the amount of actual/compensatory damages).

There are also preventive measures to protect the assets of a RICO enterprise:

When the U.S. Attorney decides to indict someone under RICO, they have the option of seeking a pre-trial restraining order or injunction to temporarily seize a defendant’s assets and prevent the transfer of potentially forfeitable property, as well as require the defendant to put up a performance bond. This provision was placed in the law because the owners of Mafia-related shell corporations often absconded with the assets. An injunction and/or performance bond ensures that there is something to seize in the event of a guilty verdict.

Is Cohen Credible?

Cohen’s testimony pointed to multiple possible crimes. Is he credible? As widely noted, Republican members of the Oversight Committee spent most of their time attacking Cohen’s credibility rather than defending President Trump or the Trump Organization. This may have been prompted by the fact that Donald Trump himself has made more than 9,000 false or misleading statements since taking office. Cohen made the plausible argument that working for such a habitual liar required becoming a liar himself. Cohen admitted in his testimony that he was a fool to have done so and warned Republicans not to fall into the same trap.


Already at the Committee hearing, Cohen provided documentary evidence corroborating his testimony, and offered to provide more. Federal investigators already have access to some 290,000 documents and files they seized in their April raid in 2018, as well as the scores of recordings that Cohen says he made of people during his tenure working for Trump.

A Quinnipiac University poll has found that Cohen came across in the Committee hearing as plausible—indeed more credible than the president himself. One reason is that Cohen’s demeanor was thoughtful and seemingly repentant. He didn’t attack Trump on everything. For instance, he declined to say that he had proof of Trump’s collusion with Russia, although saying it was “possible” and he debunked the Steele dossier’s claim that he himself had met with Russians in Prague in 2016.

It seems that for most viewers, Cohen presented an all-too plausible picture of life working for Donald Trump, where lying and intimidation were the regular modus operandi. Cohen estimated around 500 such incidents in his ten-year stint with Trump.

Using RICO Against The Mafia And White Collar Crime

The RICO Act was introduced in 1970 to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime. It was successfully used by the Southern District of New York against five leading Mafia families in the 1980s. Several top leaders of crime families effectively got life sentences. By 2000, virtually all of the top leaders of the New York Mafia had been sent to prison.

The RICO Act has also been used against white-collar crime.

On 29 March 1989 American financier Michael Milken was indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud relating to an investigation into an allegation of insider trading and other offenses. Milken was accused of using a wide-ranging network of contacts to manipulate stock and bond prices… Milken pleaded guilty to six lesser felonies of securities fraud and tax evasion rather than risk spending the rest of his life in prison and ended up serving 22 months in prison.

On September 7, 1988, Milken’s employer, Drexel Burnham Lambert, was threatened with RICO charges respondeat superior, the legal doctrine that corporations are responsible for their employees’ crimes. Drexel avoided RICO charges by entering an Alford plea to lesser felonies of stock parking and stock manipulation… Years later, Drexel president and CEO Fred Joseph said that Drexel had no choice but to plead guilty because “a financial institution cannot survive a RICO indictment.”

The Analogue To Cohen Is Joseph Valachi, Not John Dean

Thus, while many predicted that Michael Cohen’s testimony before the Oversight Committee would resemble that of John Dean’s testimony against President Richard Nixon in 1973, Garrett M. Graff argues in the New York Times that Cohen’s testimony resembled that of the mobster Joseph Valachi turning on the Cosa Nostra, around 1963.

The Valachi hearings, led by Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, opened the country’s eyes for the first time to the Mafia, as the witness broke ‘omertá’ — the code of silence — to speak in public about “this thing of ours,” Cosa Nostra. He explained just how “organized” organized crime actually was — with soldiers, capos, godfathers and even the “Commission,” the governing body of the various Mafia families.

Fighting the Mafia posed a uniquely hard challenge for investigators. Mafia families were involved in numerous distinct crimes and schemes, over years- long periods, all for the clear benefit of its leadership, but those very leaders were tough to prosecute because they were rarely involved in the day-to-day crime. They spoke in their own code, rarely directly ordering a lieutenant to do something illegal, but instead offering oblique instructions or expressing general wishes that their lieutenants simply knew how to translate into action.

The RICO Act was passed in 1970 to help solve these problems.

Trump’s Mobster Vocabulary And Actions

It is unnerving in this context that Trump himself, even as president, uses the language of the Mafia. In December 2018, Trump called Cohen a “rat” in a tweet for agreeing to cooperate with investigators. The term “rat” has a specific meaning in the underworld. “Rats” are not despised for being liars. On the contrary, “rats” are reviled and punished by their fellow criminals precisely because they tell the truth. They break the vow of silence (the “omerta”) and reveal the criminal secrets of the organization to the authorities.


The context for President Trump applying the term “rat” to Michael Cohen, was that Cohen told a federal court that Trump had directed him to violate the law by buying the silence of two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump before he became president.

In yet another sign of Trump’s unpresidential, underworld mindset and vocabulary, Trump has criticized the practice of criminals making deals with prosecutors. “It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” Trump has said, apparently siding with the interests of the criminal’s collaborators ahead of the State. “It’s not a fair thing.”

The president’s tweet that Cohen’s father-in-law would suffer if Cohen gave testimony to Congress also demonstrated a strong mobster vibe.

“Cohen spun a complicated tale of greed, loyalty, intimidation, and family ties that would be at home in a Martin Scorsese movie,” writes Heather Timmons in Quartz. “Cohen said he was called upon to harass journalists and people Trump owed money, while protecting the president’s children and lying to the president’s wife and to his own spouse.”

The fact that Trump and his employees talk and act like mobsters doesn’t by itself prove that Trump is one. But it doesn’t help the credibility of his denials.

The Trump Organization’s Legal Peril Under RICO

If some of the crimes to which Cohen’s testimony pointed are proven, then there is a risk that the Trump Organization could be charged as a racketeering enterprise within the meaning of the RICO Act.

In many cases, the threat of a RICO indictment can force defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges, in part because the seizure of assets would make it difficult to pay a defense attorney. Despite its harsh provisions, the RICO Act simplifies the task of proving a case in court, since it focuses on patterns of behavior rather than specific criminal acts.

Cohen’s testimony described a culture of lying at the heart of the Trump Organization:

Everybody’s job at the Trump Organization is to protect Mr. Trump. Every day, most of us knew we were coming and we were going to lie for him about something. That became the norm. Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates. Mr. Trump doesn’t give orders. He speaks in code. And I understand that code.

The RICO Act was specifically designed, as Graff explains, “to charge the bosses at the top of crime syndicates—people a step or two removed from the actual crimes committed, those whose will is made real, even without a direct order. Exactly, it appears, as Mr. Trump did at the top of his family business.”

Cohen’s testimony is also consistent with Trump’s behavior with former F.B.I. director James Comey. Comey testified two years ago that Trump never directly ordered him to drop the Michael Flynn investigation, but he made it clear that this is what he wanted. The president took Comey aside, and, with no one else present, asked Comey if he could “let this go.” Comey testified: “I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”

The Vulnerability Of The Trump Organization

The sheer number and breadth of the investigations into the Trump Organization indicates how vulnerable the Trump Organization is now to a RICO prosecution. The possible crimes that Cohen’s public testimony pointed to are enough criminal activity to build a racketeering case.

Moreover, RICO allows prosecutors to stitch together 10 years of racketeering activity into a single set of charges, which, as it happens, is the period for which Cohen worked closely with Trump.

Indicting the Trump Organization as a “criminal enterprise” would enable prosecutors to sidestep the question of whether a sitting president can be indicted in office.

Prosecutors could lay out a whole pattern of criminal activity, indicting numerous players while leaving the president as a named unindicted coconspirator. Such an action would allow investigators to make public all the known activity for Congress and the public to consider as part of impeachment hearings or reelection. It would also activate the forfeiture tools for prosecutors to seize the Trump Organization’s assets and cut off its income streams.

While impeachment would obviously be a severe personal sanction for Donald Trump, convicting the Trump Organization as a RICO enterprise could be far worse. If Trump is “only” impeached, he could always go back to his family business, sadder but perhaps wiser. But if the Trump Organization were to be convicted as a criminal enterprise under the RICO Act, there might be no business for Trump to go back to.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevede.../#541e48fe3a18