Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[gondrin]

It should certainly be an issue when the party championing him claims to be the party of "family values."

This is a party that not less than two decades ago were losing their shit about gay marriage "sullying the sanctity of marriage." And then without a second thought they support Trump, an adulterer. And not an alleged adulterer from some tabloid rag gossip. A legally documented adulterer.

It's one more important building block in the evidence that Republicans don't truly have any values they're willing to actually stick up for.

Oh, if it were any other republican, I would agree. I wasn't talking about the republican party in general as they have always been hypocrites on this, and many, topics. I was talking about Trump personally here. It is a non-issue as an affair is standard fare for him.

The rest of the party though, if hypocrisy was a sin, nearly all would be burning in hell because of it.

[DarkTZeratul]

The rest of the party though, if hypocrisy was a sin, nearly all would be burning in hell because of it.

In Dante's Inferno, hypocrites are among those sent to the eighth circle of Hell.

[Azadina]

It wasn't the secrecy. Trump called Melania and Melania screened his cheating ass out. He had to borrow a phone so she'd pick up.

I don't even get why she might have been upset about that. She signed up for being a trophy broodmare to a rich asshole who cheats and dumps trophy wives on a whim. What the fuck did she expect? To not be treated how she was taken and what she signed in for?

[Breccia]

Well, it was never a big secret that he cheats on his wives. He did it with all of his wives.

I don't even get why she might have been upset about that.

For years, we've discussed how the people who were in Trump's inner circle seemed surprised when Trump discarded them. How many times have we sung the "I never thought Trump would turn on me" song? What you're saying is reasonable, but reasonable people don't work for Trump. I posit the same happened here. Trump told Melania "when I promise to be faithful, this time I mean it" and you'd think the third wife -- who Trump cheated on his second wife with -- would know better.

We would. Team Trump continue to seem surprised, betrayed, bewildered.

[solinari6]

So what's the deal with this latest John Durham report that Trump is screaming bloody murder about? I don't see a lot of coverage of it by normal press, just right wing rags, so I can't tell if there's anything to it or not.

[bladeXcrasher]

So what's the deal with this latest John Durham report that Trump is screaming bloody murder about? I don't see a lot of coverage of it by normal press, just right wing rags, so I can't tell if there's anything to it or not.

Did that guy already find absolutely nothing 2 years ago? Guessing it's just another faux outrage point to churn the right wing up before midterms.

[Breccia]

Did that guy already find absolutely nothing 2 years ago? Guessing it's just another faux outrage point to churn the right wing up before midterms.

This is correct.

Someone brought it up on FOX News just to get Trump to shout out FOX News. As a reminder, Barr gave him $4 million to find out the cause of the Russia Investigation and Durham, a year later, said "Crap, I can't say in public that the source of the Russia Investigation was all those things Trump did for Russia, can I?" So he made a bunch of noise rather than do what Cyber Ninjas did, admit they found nothing, go home and sulk.

Durham's work got two indictments, both for lying to the FBI. Hmm. I wonder how ironic that's going to be?

There was nothing until a couple days ago, when Durham made the allegations that Clinton spied on Trump -- yes yes, But Her Emails -- but had nothing to back it up. The DOJ is refusing to release that information, probably because it doesn't exist. Rep. Jordan then saw the same FOX News show Trump did and demanded action, from the assuredly safe position that he knows Biden will never turn anything like that over -- even if it did exist.

So Trump has, once again, put himself in the position where his only defense is hypocrisy. "How dare the White House hide things!" he screams, while the National Archives bemoans the fact that they're the second-most called people to unclog Trump's toilet.

Trump knows he has nothing, so yes, he's making a big noise about the nothing he has while his followers do everything in their power to deflect from the subpoenas, indictments, contempt and court cases that Team Trump is constantly on the losing end of. Oh, and "you shouldn't have been spying on me to find all those things I did!" seems like a lame-ass limp-dick IMPOTUS defense.

[solinari6]

Ok, here's a good explanation of what that Durham report bullshit is all about

What The Hell Are The Wingers On About Now With John Durham?

(god bless Wonkette LOL)

[Odinfrost]

Ok, here's a good explanation of what that Durham report bullshit is all about

What The Hell Are The Wingers On About Now With John Durham?

(god bless Wonkette LOL)

I must say that your source for this is biased as fuck. He is most likely right and states facts as is (if with his own silly connotations), but bias is still bias.
But when you only have one source willing to report on it, I guess you take what you can take.

[Breccia]

Ok, here's a good explanation of what that Durham report bullshit is all about

An excellent read. WaPo has a very similar take, if a tad more charitable. Yes, it does sound like the rabid fanbase is yelling because Trump is yelling, and Trump is yelling because a few people he sees on TV are just making shit up to deflect from the horrible last week Trump had. Trump has no moral high ground to complain about spying after asking Russia to hack Clinton's emails and Russia doing it, and of course, after flushing top secret documents down the toilet.

Not that today's much better.

1) Trump lawyer Eastman, as in "the Eastman Memo", is starting to hand over documents as required. He has given up 8,000 pages but still is claiming 11,000 others are privileged. And apparently there's more, too. I'm not sure what "privilege" stands here, Eastman is a law professor but I don't think he was Trump's actual lawyer. Also, you can't use lawyer privilege to cover conspiring to commit a crime. And Executive Privilege was waived, not that it matters, Eastman never worked for the WH. Since Eastman was stupid enough to use his work email, it's likely his employer has copies, so his stalling attempts will only last so long.

2) The NYTimes reports--

"Paywall."

I'll quote a lot of it.

As Mr. Trump works to retain his hold on the Republican Party, elevating a slate of friendly candidates in midterm elections, Mr. McConnell and his allies are quietly, desperately maneuvering to try to thwart him. The loose alliance, which was once thought of as the G.O.P. establishment, for months has been engaged in a high-stakes candidate recruitment campaign, full of phone calls, meetings, polling memos and promises of millions of dollars. It’s all aimed at recapturing the Senate majority, but the election also represents what could be Republicans’ last chance to reverse the spread of Trumpism before it fully consumes their party.

Mr. McConnell for years pushed Mr. Trump’s agenda and only rarely opposed him in public. But the message that he delivers privately now is unsparing, if debatable: Mr. Trump is losing political altitude and need not be feared in a primary, he has told Mr. Ducey in repeated phone calls, as the Senate leader’s lieutenants share polling data they argue proves it.

In conversations with senators and would-be senators, Mr. McConnell is blunt about the damage he believes Mr. Trump has done to the G.O.P., according to those who have spoken to him. Privately, he has declared he won’t let unelectable “goofballs” win Republican primaries.

As per usual, McConnell is doing this behind closed doors because he knows what Trump's rabid fanbase would do if they found out McConnell no longer supports losers like Trump. You know, just like Trump doesn't support losers. McConnell is a crafty veteran, not a suicide bomber. He knows he's digging from six feet down, but it won't start without the first handful of dirt.

WaPo picked this story up too.

3) We're seeing more visible cracks in Trump's Cheeto-dust armor. Trump is apparently furious with the one Ohionian...Ohite...Ohitizen...what do you call an Ohio resident? Ah fuck it.

During meetings, phone calls and impromptu chats, Trump has been peppering top aides and allies with questions about Matt Dolan, a wealthy Ohio Republican who accused the former president of “perpetuat[ing] lies about the outcome” of the 2020 election and called the pro-Trump Jan. 6 Capitol riot “a failure of leadership.”

While other contenders in the crowded GOP Senate primary are auditioning for Trump’s support, Dolan is funding a battery of TV ads that don’t even mention the former president. And in a barely veiled jab at his rivals who are making pilgrimages to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Dolan has declared that his campaign “is about one thing, and one thing only: Ohio.”

While Dolan is widely regarded as a longshot in the Trump-dominated primary, those in the former president’s orbit say there’s good reason to be focused on him: The candidate is spending $10 million-plus out of his pocket, is slowly rising in polling and is poised to benefit from a raft of Trump-aligned primary rivals splintering the vote among themselves.

Trump's ego has left him with two choices, both bad. He can poll against Dolan, make Dolan's name hit every TV and newspaper as the "only Republican who isn't a cultist" and increase his market share...or say nothing, seethe, and give himself an aneurysm. Just like FOX News has a plurality because far more news networks show the truth and FOX News is where you go for pro-Trump lies, Dolan is in a crowded group of pro-Trump cultists as a non-cultist. If you are a Republican, not a Party of Trump voter, you have one choice.

4) This story literally hit the NYTimes as I was writing this post.

Donald J. Trump’s longtime accounting firm abruptly cut ties with his family business last week amid ongoing criminal and civil investigations into whether Mr. Trump illegally inflated the value of his assets, court documents filed on Monday show.

In a letter to the Trump Organization on Feb. 9, the accounting firm notified the company of its decision and disclosed that it could no longer stand behind annual financial statements it prepared for Mr. Trump. The firm, Mazars USA, compiled the financial statements based on information the former president and his company provided.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shit. That's really not good...for Trump. @cubby you might want to see this!

The letter instructed the Trump Organization to essentially retract the documents, known as statements of financial condition, from 2011 to 2020. In the letter, Mazars noted that the firm had not “as a whole” found material discrepancies between the information the Trump Organization provided and the actual value of Mr. Trump’s assets. But given what it called “the totality of circumstances,” the letter directed the Trump Organization to notify anyone who received the statements that they should no longer rely on them.

Mazars said it concluded that the statements were no longer reliable based in part on the attorney general’s earlier filings, its own investigations and information the accountants received from “internal and external sources.” The letter added that Mazars “performed its work in accordance with professional standards.”

My guess? Having only seen one side of the value vs. value discrepency, Mazars was recently shown the gap between them by the NY AG and their response was an immediate "Fuck you fatty, we're not taking the fall for this". I think it's likely Mazars was trying to put Trump's properties' assets in the best possible light, and were perhaps instructed to be, erm, most yuge bigly possible. Even if criminal penalties weren't involved, civil suits brought by state governments can force an organization to close. Such as Mazars, if they're found to be a willing and eager participant.

I can't think of a lot of good reasons any company could say "we retract ten years of our work" if everything was 100% fine. Honestly I'm a little surprised you can just do that. If they willingly worked with Team Trump to inflate the value of their assets, and those inflated assets brought in loans based on the inflated value, that sounds like fraud to me. I suppose Mazars could claim they were lied to, or that it was one rogue employee (who could face criminal charges, NYState ain't fuckin' around) or something. But to just say "Those last ten years of estimates we publshed and stood behind? Just kidding." sounds like some kind of contract violation. Mazars didn't do so in public, but the NY AG has the letter, so it might as well be.

Of course, if Mazars can prove Trump broke this contract I feel like it exists but don't know for sure first...such as by giving Mazars a list of values they said were accurate instead of factual info...then that contract breakage is itself evidence of fraud.

Mazars might be in trouble, and this might be the way they think will get them out of trouble. But when your accountant for a dozen years suddenly tells the AG "Um, you can't use those estimates of ours for 2010 to 2020, they're unreliable" while you're under civil and criminal investigation for those estimates, you should pack a bag and flee to the fucking hills. That smells like smoking gun to me.

- - - Updated - - -

I must say that your source for this is biased as fuck.

As i just posted and therefore you hadn't seen yet, a less biased but still factually parallel story is showing up in other, more mainstream media pieces. The Wonkette isn't wrong, they're just gleeful.

[Zaydin]

So I know @Breccia posted about the Mazars story already, but on a scale of 1 to 10, how fucked do we figure the Trump Org is given that Mazars all but accused them of committing fraud?

[Poopymonster]

So I know @Breccia posted about the Mazars story already, but on a scale of 1 to 10, how fucked do we figure the Trump Org is given that Mazars all but accused them of committing fraud?

"Wake up the gimp" levels of fucked.

[Edge-]

Ok, here's a good explanation of what that Durham report bullshit is all about

What The Hell Are The Wingers On About Now With John Durham?

(god bless Wonkette LOL)

I've loosely followed and best I can see is that conservative media are taking the fact that the outfit that the Clinton campaign paid for opposition research may have "spied" on the Trump tower communications, and conservative media are trying to tie that to a non-existent direct order from the Clinton campaign to spy on Trump.

Like, for all that was made of it, the Durham Report is so far looking a lot like the Benghazi commission in terms of results. A ton of noise, but at the end of the day not really meaningful in reality.

[Breccia]

So I know @Breccia posted about the Mazars story already, but on a scale of 1 to 10, how fucked do we figure the Trump Org is given that Mazars all but accused them of committing fraud?

The key phrase is "all but". Mazars refusing to stand by the figures is devastating, but there's still a gap between "I can't say this is true" and "this is false". If Mazars testifies the figures are fraudulent, this hits the 9-10 range. Right now, it's 8 or 8.5

[Zaydin]

The key phrase is "all but". Mazars refusing to stand by the figures is devastating, but there's still a gap between "I can't say this is true" and "this is false". If Mazars testifies the figures are fraudulent, this hits the 9-10 range. Right now, it's 8 or 8.5

Mazars has to be pretty certain the Trumps fed them false information to have outright said at least ten years of their financial documents are unreliable and to dump the Trump Org as a client. They likely just don't have proof that the Trumps deliberately committed fraud.

[Odinfrost]

As i just posted and therefore you hadn't seen yet, a less biased but still factually parallel story is showing up in other, more mainstream media pieces. The Wonkette isn't wrong, they're just gleeful.

I expected as such, since the bias had a very "Ha ha ha ha. Oh, wait? You're serious? Let me laugh even harder. BWAHAHAHAHA!" vibe to it.

As for the rest of your post. I think that SS Trump is running out of life boats and the ship is almost completely submerged. But seriously, so many investigations and people being pulled in front of judges or the freaking senate and you don't really hear anything other than even more people getting investigated and dragged in front of judges.
SOMEONE DO SOMETHING. Whether dismisals or people getting fined or thrown in jail, when will there be ACTUAL consequences or conclusions to this entire nightmare?

[Edge-]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...cial-rcna16206

"We write to advise that the Statements of Financial Condition for Donald J. Trump for the years ending June 30, 2011 — June 30, 2020, should no longer be relied upon and you should inform any recipients thereof who are currently relying upon one or more of those documents that those documents should not be relied upon," Kelly wrote in a letter released Monday by James.

That's Mazar Group General Councel William J. Kelly. Who are they? Just Trump's accounting firm. Telling the Trump Organization lawyer that Trump's financial documents can't be trusted.

[Poopymonster]

Mazars has to be pretty certain the Trumps fed them false information to have outright said at least ten years of their financial documents are unreliable and to dump the Trump Org as a client. They likely just don't have proof that the Trumps deliberately committed fraud.

If they have the AGs numbers based on reality, and Mazars had Trumpian numbers (Bigly, Yuge, Jyna sized) provided by the Trump org, and those numbers are 1 or more Steiner Maths of difference...I'd think the numbers given to Mazars, intentionally given to them, would be fraudulent. No? It's not like Herschel the intern in Trumpland made up the numbers pulled from Kirk Johnson's data. Someone had to sign off on it to hand it over.

[Zaydin]

If they have the AGs numbers based on reality, and Mazars had Trumpian numbers (Bigly, Yuge, Jyna sized) provided by the Trump org, and those numbers are 1 or more Steiner Maths of difference...I'd think the numbers given to Mazars, intentionally given to them, would be fraudulent. No? It's not like Herschel the intern in Trumpland made up the numbers pulled from Kirk Johnson's data. Someone had to sign off on it to hand it over.

Given how notoriously litigious Trump is, I could see Mazars implying but not outright accusing the Trumps gave them false information to give them some cover if Trump tried to sue them for defamation.

Anyways, with Mazars effectively accusing the Trumps of fraud, no reputable accounting firm in the world is going to want to get near the Trumps. The only people who might take them up as clients would either be the desperate or crooks.

Trump is effectively out of business.

[Paranoid Android]

The key phrase is "all but". Mazars refusing to stand by the figures is devastating, but there's still a gap between "I can't say this is true" and "this is false". If Mazars testifies the figures are fraudulent, this hits the 9-10 range. Right now, it's 8 or 8.5

I read this about an hour ago. Hmm? Yeah. While I don't follow law that close, an accountant trying to wash his hands clean of 10 years of books is interesting. As you stated idk how they get to do this but maybe it's prosecution not caring if the get some dirt. Such as Arthur Anderson with Enron, this dude or company should be effed.

I just hope this is a clear as day case in this idiot did some out in the open blatant accounting hacks by undervaluing during taxes and over-valuing for loans, and this gets him. Maybe throw in some tax evasion, but just as long as we see justice.