Ill Gotten Riches

The Apprentice:  The Forbes list of the 400 Richest Americans is due out shortly, Trump, who really cares about his ranking, has dropped 138 spots and is getting perilously close to falling off the list altogether. It turns out that while revenue is up at his Washington hotel, most of his other properties haven’t done as well since he ascended to the presidential throne.  To be sure Trump is still rich, just not as rich as he wants everyone to believe.  As to those riches, yesterday the NY Times released an extensive analysis of the source of his wealth and to the surprise of only his most diehard believers he started out with far more than the $1 million that he has long claimed his father lent him to kick start his real estate career. In fact, he’s been a millionaire since childhood, the beneficiary of some highly questionable asset shifting techniques employed by his financially shrewd and unethical father Fred, the father who “lent” him more than $60 million to get his career started and who then bailed him out of many of his poor investments including his ill-fated attempts to become a casino magnate.  All told Trump has received the equivalent of $413 million from his father’s real estate empire. The NY Times says that “Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents.”  The Times writers who spent 18 months on their analysis, time that may well put them in the running for next year’s Pulitzer, base their conclusions on interviews with many of Fred Trump’s former employees and advisers and more than 100,000 pages of documents describing the inner workings and immense profitability of his empire. They include documents culled from public sources including mortgages and deeds, probate records, financial disclosure reports, regulatory records and civil court files and more than 200 tax returns from Fred Trump, his companies and various Trump partnerships and trusts. The records do not include Trump’s personal tax returns but do include one accidentally unredacted revealing filing submitted to the government by his sister Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, another beneficiary of some of those ill-gotten riches. Trump may be great at personal marketing, brand management and tax avoidance but other than that his business acumen stinks.  Reading from a statement that appears to have been dictated by Trump himself, Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacked the NY Times article saying ““Fred Trump has been gone for nearly twenty years and it’s sad to witness this misleading attack against the Trump family by the failing New York Times.” She went on to say that press “credibility with the American people is at an all-time low because they are consumed with attacking the president and his family 24/7 instead of reporting the news,” before calling for an apology from the paper. Trump lawyer Charles Harder called the paper’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion “100% wrong” but then went on to distance Trump from the tax strategies used by his family, saying that those tasks had been delegated “to relatives and tax professionals…who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law.” It’s not clear that the NY Times article will have any impact on the IRS, but apparently NY State plans to act.  After the article was published the NYS Department of Taxation said it was examining the allegations and “vigorously pursing all appropriate avenues of investigation.” To the extent that Democrats take over the House, obtaining Trump’s tax filings will be high on their agenda.  Providing yet another example of family fealty run amuck, yesterday the Wall Street Journal revealed that Trump personally directed son Eric to work with lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen on a plan to prevent Stormy Daniels from publicly revealing the details of their tryst. Under Eric’s direction, a Trump organization lawyer in California was detailed to help file paperwork on her “personal time” as part of an effort to get a restraining order against Daniels.  As we all know, those efforts failed miserably and did nothing to silence Daniels, instead they triggered the beginning of the Michael Cohen’s slide into the clutches of Special Counsel Mueller.         

The Judge:  Though the week isn’t up yet, expectations are that the “weeklong” investigation into the allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh will be completed sometime today. Reports are that though the FBI did interview a few more people than they’d been authorized to contact initially, agents haven’t spoken with many who have come forward including those on the long list that Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez, accuser number two,  provided and didn’t circle back to either Dr. Blasey Ford or Judge Kavanaugh, something that leaves Dr. Blasey fairly upset since she had more details to discuss but that probably leaves Judge Kavanaugh quite relieved since every time he opens his mouth to speak about the alleged events he engages in more dissembling, in other words he lies bigly.  Notably, if reports are true, the FBI didn’t focus much on Kavanaugh’s under oath lies about his alcohol consumption.  As to any report that the FBI prepares, it will go to the Senate Judiciary Committee but the rest of us won’t see it, until it gets leaked, and it’s hard to believe that it won’t be leaked. Before leaving for a campaign rally in Mississippi, Trump lamented about how hard it is to be  a guy, especially a rich white one, and how he knows all about being falsely accused of sexual assault.  Then during his campaign speech he gave up any pretense of compassion for Dr. Blasey, instead he slammed her story while talking up the wonderful and honorable Kavanaugh, the poor guy unfairly targeted by that woman who claimed she only had one beer.  He also targeted those extreme Democrats especially Senators Feinstein and Blumenthal, Feinstein for “sitting” on the Blasey letter and Blumenthal over his military record, one that didn’t involve Viet Nam time but that did involve time in the military as opposed to Trump’s multiple heel spur deferrals.  Trump also found time to call Michael Avenatti a sleazebag. A few weeks into this mess and we are back to where we were at the beginning.  Absent any really damning information from the FBI report, Kavanaugh’s confirmation is still in the hands of Senators Flake, Murkowski and Collins. Democratic Senators Heitkamp and Manchin are also among the undecided but its highly likely that they will follow the lead of the Republican fence sitters.  Majority Leader McConnell still plans to start voting on Kavanaugh’s confirmation this week.

The Kids:  The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General report on zero tolerance at the border and the separation and subsequent treatment of migrant children is out and the conclusion is that DHS screwed up big time.  The report confirms that despite Secretary Nielsen’s assertions to the contrary, the separation of the children from their parents was intentional, that there were no plans to deal with the kids once they were taken from their parents, nor was there a functioning system to track them so that they could be returned to their families.  At this point, with a number of the youngest still in limbo and reports that thousands more are being moved under the cover of darkness to ill-suited detention facilities in Texas, none of this is surprising.  Unfortunately with all the attention being paid to the Kavanaugh mess, the problem is not getting the continued attention it deserves.  And Congress hasn’t held any hearings, an oversight that is beyond inexcusable.