Kushner's Foreign Deals Raise Questions

A report in the New York f-ing Times this morning looks at the foreign business dealings of the Malignant Loser's son-in-law, the unctious scammer Jared Kushner. Affinity Partners, Kushner's private equity company, is eyebrows deep in foreign money from some shady operators with an apparent desire to curry favor with the ex-President's family. From the article:

"Jared Kushner’s investment fund is not especially large by global finance standards. But as he gets it fully up and running, each step is bringing with it ethical issues that would only grow if his father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, should win another term as president.

His $3 billion fund is financed almost entirely from overseas investors with whom he worked when he served as a senior adviser in the Trump White House. He has taken money from government wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as from Terry Gou, a founder of Foxconn, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer, whose role in Mr. Kushner’s firm has not been previously disclosed.

In total, 99 percent of the money placed with him by investors has come from foreign sources, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late March."  (our emphasis)

The report goes on to note that former government officials who have established companies dealing with foreign governments after leaving Government service are stunned at the magnitude of the transactions the entitled son-in-law has made. One was quoted as saying "he could recall no precedent for a government official leaving office and starting an investment firm that would immediately receive billions of dollars from foreign governments with which the official had been working while serving in government."

It's a fertile ground for investigation for corruption and insider dealing for the next, Democratic Congress to pursue.

(photo: Getty Images)

NY Times' Brutal Review Of Kushner's Memoir

 

Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner, the symbol of nepotism that the Malignant Loser brought into the White House along with his lusted-after daughter Ivanka, apparently has written a memoir, and it's everything you'd imagine from a smug rich boy who joined his father-in-law's business and thought he too could "fix it." New York Times book reviewer Dwight Garner was ready with a rapier and hot coals to apply to master Jared's fanny:

"The United States Secret Service isn’t known for its sense of humor, but when it gave Jared Kushner the code name “mechanic,” was someone betting that he’d call his memoir “Breaking History”?

It’s a title that, in its thoroughgoing lack of self-awareness, matches this book’s contents. Kushner writes as if he believes foreign dignitaries (and less-than dignitaries) prized him in the White House because he was the fresh ideas guy, the starting point guard, the dimpled go-getter.

He betrays little cognizance that he was in demand because, as a landslide of other reporting has demonstrated, he was in over his head, unable to curb his avarice, a cocky young real estate heir who happened to unwrap a lot of Big Macs beside his father-in-law, the erratic and misinformed and similarly mercenary leader of the free world. Jared was a soft touch."  (our emphasis)

OK, so tell us what you really think:

“'Breaking History' is an earnest and soulless — Kushner looks like a mannequin, and he writes like one — and peculiarly selective appraisal of Donald J. Trump’s term in office. Kushner almost entirely ignores the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on, ad infinitum, to speak about his boyish tinkering (the 'mechanic') with issues he was interested in.

This book is like a tour of a once majestic 18th-century wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely on, and rejoices in, what’s left amid the ashes: the two singed bathtubs, the gravel driveway and the mailbox. Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo."

The entire review is a masterpiece. We predict Kushner's book will hit the discount bin faster than you can say "what about the $2 billion Saudi bribe for you?"

We can't wait for master Jared's sequel, "The Coup Next Time."

Javanka's Jan. 6 Testimony Will Be Broadcast

The House Select Committee Investigation the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol will be airing footage of testimony it received, including from the Malignant Loser's daughter / lust object Ivanka and her jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none husband Jared Kushner, that will lay out the story of the attempted coup in a dramatic, convincing way. According to reports:

"On Thursday night, Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) will launch a series of televised hearings featuring a combination of live witnesses, pretaped interviews with figures that include Trump family members and previously unseen video footage," The Washington Post reported Saturday. "The hearings mark the culmination of an inquiry that has involved more than 1,000 interviews and reviews of more than 125,000 records."

"To tell that story, the committee will draw on testimony from administration insiders, including a previously obscure aide who has given the committee a detailed reconstruction of meetings and movements in the West Wing. The committee also has video recordings of interviews with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, that some inside the process believe will make for gripping television," the newspaper reported. "Although the committee has not made a final decision, people familiar with the investigation believe the panel will screen footage of testimony from Ivanka Trump and Kushner — including Trump’s account of her father’s actions in the West Wing on Jan. 6." (our emphasis)

It will be a major task to hold the interest of a public that's divided between reality and cult worship, but it's important to make the case against the corrupt sedition of the Malignant Loser digestible and clear for the record.

The "previously obscure aide" mentioned above is apparently Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs in Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' office. Hutchinson gave the Committee some 20 hours of testimony that could figure prominently in their presentation. Late last month, Politico reported that she disclosed that Meadows burned papers after meeting with rabid Trumper Rep. Scott Perry (Sedition-PA), who was urging Republican-controlled legislatures to override President Biden's victory. Hutchinson may have provided one or more smoking guns to the Committee, and hopefully they'll make maximum use of them.

(photo: members of the House Select Committee. J. Scott Applewhite / AP)

 

"Pardon Me? I'm Being Charged Again?"

The New York Daily News reports that an ally of the slippery son-in-law of the former guy Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner was charged in New York on state felony charges of eavesdropping and computer trespassing, as he stalked his now ex-wife. Ken Kurson had been pardoned by the former guy on the same Federal charges just as he was kicked from office in January:

"Ken Kurson, 52, the former editor-in-chief of the New York Observer, is charged with harassing and spying on his wife, who he divorced in 2015. He allegedly monitored his wife’s computer activity and leaked her private messages as their marriage fell apart.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement that Kurson’s powerful friends wouldn’t help him avoid justice this time around.

'We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York,' Vance said. 'As alleged in the complaint, Mr. Kurson launched a campaign of cybercrime, manipulation, and abuse from his perch at the New York Observer, and now the people of New York will hold him accountable.'” 

Kushner once ran the New York Observer, a right-wing organ that's an also-ran in the New York City newspaper business. Cy Vance is also pursuing charges against the former guy's business for various crimes within his jurisdiction.

(photo: Buds in criminality Kushner and Kurson. Amber De Vos / Patrick McMullan Getty Images)

He Went To Jared (And The Economy Collapsed And 150,000+ Died)

Vanity Fair seems to have the goods on the COVID-19 testing debacle that pale Peter Principle princeling Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner was heading up.  Jared seemed to have a testing plan ready in late March:

The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments.

But, then came April and the sense that political advantage could be gotten by certain malevolent sociopaths:

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.

On April 27, Trump stepped to a podium in the Rose Garden, flanked by members of his coronavirus task force and leaders of America’s big commercial testing laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and finally announced a testing plan: It bore almost no resemblance to the one that had been forged in late March, and shifted the problem of diagnostic testing almost entirely to individual states.

The entire article is worth a read and belongs near the front of any retrospective on how the Trump regime criminally bungled the COVID-19 response, resulting in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths and economic devastation.  These bastards need a serious reckoning some day;  fumigating them out of the White (Supremacist) House starting November 3 is the starting point.

Mr. Fix It or Mr. F*cks It? Jared's Fresh Debacle

After the public relations stunt last week announcing an Israeli - Palestinian "peace plan" that the Palestinian Authority refused to participate in, it appears that the boss' son-in-law, young Master Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner, the architect of the "plan" is taking incoming fire from his erstwhile allies:

"Supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are blaming presidential adviser Jared Kushner for a delay in plans to immediately annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank as envisioned in President Trump's peace plan. 

Netanyahu appeared to acquiesce to U.S. pressure Tuesday, saying he would hold off on annexation action until a new government is formed after Israeli elections next month. Kushner and other U.S. officials had sent signals both publicly and privately that Israel should not move too fast to reap what many of Netanyahu's pro-settlement political base saw as the rewards of the plan released last week.

Israeli media has extensively reported grumblings among key Netanyahu backers, with David Elhayani, chairman of the powerful Yesha Council, which oversees more than 150 settlements, accusing Kushner of betraying Netanyahu and not being honest with him.

“Kushner took a knife and put it in Netanyahu’s back,” he told The Washington Post. “Kushner misled the prime minister. He misled everybody. He knew for a long time that Netanyahu wanted to declare sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea — he said it many times over the last year. Gentlemen just don’t act this way.” (our emphasis)

1) Who ever thought Master Jared was a "gentleman," and 2) lying is clearly a major skills requirement for the Trump regime, even lying to the people who are in on your scam "plan."

This fake "plan" was supposed to be a two-fer: give con man Donald "Impeached Forever" Trump a distraction from the Senate trial, and give Bibi "Bomb Bomb" Netanyahu a "win" for the upcoming elections in Israel. It was a dud, and now it appears that Master Jared is on Bibi's drek list. He needs to stick to shaking down Arab potentates for "loans" to bail out his failed real estate ventures.

(photo: Master Jared sizing up Bibi for the shiv. Reuters)

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op- eds.

Gee, we never saw this coming:

President Donald Trump said Monday after speaking with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman that “rogue killers” may be responsible for the mysterious disappearance of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. 

″I just spoke with the King of Saudi Arabia who denies any knowledge of what took place with regard to, as he said, his ‘Saudi Arabian citizen,’” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn. “He firmly denied that.”  

Trump added: “Maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows."

To anyone who thought there would be any action coming from this utterly compromi$ed a$$hole:  we have some primo Saudi Arabian sand we'll sell you so you can go pound it.

Todd Purdum writes about Donald "Rump" Trump (a.k.a. Dolt 45) as "the man who isn't there," when it comes to his family or the national "family":

It is a poignant paradox of Donald Trump’s ubiquitous presidency—all tweets, all the time—that a leader who prides himself as omnipresent in digital public discourse is so often absent from national life in the hundred human ways in which the country has come to expect its presidents to perform. 

Latest case in point: After Hurricane Michael devastated parts of Florida’s Panhandle, Trump played host at the White House to Kanye West, who—in a ten-minute monologue in the Oval Office—dropped the F-bomb and praised Trump’s “Make American Great Again” cap as a hyper-masculine talisman that made him feel “like a guy that could play catch with his son.” 

But think about it: Have we ever seen Trump play catch with his own 12-year-old son, Barron? Without question, the president dotes on his children, especially his daughter, Ivanka. But he's an absentee father to the nation, or at least a majority of the nation. There have been no warm and fuzzy photos of Trump shopping for books or gifts, as Barack Obama and Bill Clinton did with their daughters. No images of him poring over a photo album, as Abraham Lincoln famously did with his son Tad, or tending to his stamp collection, as FDR did.  No visible evidence of the easy relaxation with friends and family that has become a standard part of presidential iconography.

He also spent his 210th day as "president" golfing while Hurricane Michael victims were trying to cope with that disaster. What more does one expect of a narcissistic sociopath?

Surprise!  Princeling Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner paid no Federal income tax for several years running:

Over the past decade, Jared Kushner’s family company has spent billions of dollars buying real estate. His personal stock investments have soared. His net worth has quintupled to almost $324 million. 

And yet, for several years running, Mr. Kushner — President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser — appears to have paid almost no federal income taxes, according to confidential financial documents reviewed by The New York Times. 

His low tax bills are the result of a common tax-minimizing maneuver that, year after year, generated millions of dollars in losses for Mr. Kushner, according to the documents. But the losses were only on paper — Mr. Kushner and his company did not appear to actually lose any money. The losses were driven by depreciation, a tax benefit that lets real estate investors deduct a portion of the cost of their buildings from their taxable income every year.  (our emphasis)

That's a tax "benefit" that a Democratic Congress and future Democratic president need to close up real tight.

Gabrielle Gurley discusses transportation hurdles as a Republican voter suppression tactic (and what some jurisdictions are doing):

Some urban and suburban voters can experience polling place access challenges that affect turnout if they live in areas underserved by transit or are plagued by traffic congestion. Rural voters often have higher turnout rates, since traffic is not a factor in getting to a polling place—provided they own a vehicle. 

Lining up reliable transportation on Election Day matters because the votes add up. The harder it is to get to a polling place, the fewer people turn out to vote. A 2011 UC Berkeley study found that the consolidation of Los Angeles County polling places for the 2003 gubernatorial recall election produced a hefty drop in turnout in part because of transportation challenges. 

The highest transportation hurdles emerge from deliberate strategies to keep people from voting. In the voter-suppression canon, deterring a few hundred people can make all the difference in the world in determining who controls government and who doesn’t. Republican local and state officials work overtime to increase the transportation headaches of young people, the elderly, African Americans, Latinos, and others who want to vote.  (our emphasis)

Charles Pierce on the latest Republican/ Fox "News" GOTV fear- mongering about imaginary "mobs" of Democrats (a.k.a., people standing up for their rights), and how "mobs" played a critical role in the genesis of our country:

I've been thinking a lot about mobs recently. The word's been getting tossed around a lot these days, mostly by Republicans, who were inconvenienced over one weekend in their attempt to put a credible accused sex offender, and the Edward Scissorhands of the topiary of the truth, on the Supreme Court. The word is being tossed around even by the president*, who's been entertaining mobs ever since he rode down the golden escalator in 2015, and by his mouthpiece, Rudy Giuliani, who once ginned up a police mob to intimidate the sitting mayor of New York City. 

An endless stream of Republican coat holders, hangers-on, cabana boys, and congressmen, but I repeat myself, have shown up on TV and in back of podiums talking about the angry mobs of women that made it hard for them to get to the cafeteria. And I was thinking how similar it was to this earlier exercise of mob rule.  

Dolt 45's slur of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Native American ancestry blows up.  Now we demand to see evidence that he doesn't have orangutan genes (and that he not renege on his pledge to donate $1 million to charity if proven wrong -- yeah, that'll be the day):

Senator Elizabeth Warren has released a DNA test that provides “strong evidence’’ she had a Native American in her family tree dating back 6 to 10 generations, an unprecedented move by one of the top possible contenders for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. 

Warren, whose claims to Native American blood have been mocked by President Trump and other Republicans, provided the test results to the Globe on Sunday in an effort to defuse questions about her ancestry that have persisted for years. She planned an elaborate rollout Monday of the results as she aimed for widespread attention. 

The analysis of Warren’s DNA was done by Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor and expert in the field who won a 2010 MacArthur fellowship, also known as a genius grant, for his work on tracking population migration via DNA analysis. 

You can check out Sen. Warren's video response here.  Meanwhile, someone who is intimately familiar with junk, gutter snipe and human canker sore Kellyanne "Con" Conway, is inferring Warren's DNA test is "junk science." They never stop, and neither should we.

Finally, we end with our weekly recommendation to check out the link round- up at Infidel 753. Always an interesting place to spend some time.

The Pocket Princeling

It would appear that Trump crime family princeling Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner has a cozy new address (allegedly!):

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly bragged about having White House senior counsel Jared Kushner “in his pocket” and may have used highly sensitive intelligence from the President’s Daily Briefing in his violent crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia, The Intercept reported Wednesday. 

Three sources told The Intercept that Kushner had revealed names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince. 

“The Saudi figures named in the President’s Daily Brief were among those rounded up; at least one was reportedly tortured,” The Intercept explained. 

Mohammed bin Salman also was said to have told UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed that Kushner was “in his pocket.” 

Kushner communicates with both the Saudi and Emirati crown princes via Whats-App. A source claims that Kushner’s lawyers have since told him not to use the app for government business.  (our emphasis)

The crime family's callow princeling's main charge from his dimbulb father- in- law has been to "bring peace to the Middle East." How living in the pocket of a Saudi despot achieves that remains to be seen. But it certainly would make sense if your main purpose was to advance business opportunities for your family ("pay for peace"?).

Kushner reportedly also maintains residences in the pockets of Russian thug Vladimir Putin and Israel's kindred Trumper Bibi Netanyahu.

We eagerly await Special Counsel Robert Mueller lowering the boom on the princeling for his involvement in Russian cyber meddling in the 2016 election, though if he ends up in Mueller's pocket, it would be as a cooperating witness.

BONUS:  Retired Army four star Gen. Barry McCaffrey no doubt reflects the views of many in the diplomatic corps:

“Putting Jared Kushner, a 30-something person with no foreign policy experience or defense policy experience, as a leading representative of the United States is simply outrageous,” McCaffrey told MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.” [snip] 

“It just has no precedent, in my view, in American government in modern times,” McCaffrey added. “This is the personalization of a family business dealing with U.S. policy.”

Enlisting the U.S. Government in developing your crime family business might not turn out to be such a good career move, eh?

(Photo:  The princeling and his host)

Firehose Fatigue, Cont.

It's been almost a month, but we're experiencing another bout of "firehose fatigue," that exhausting condition resulting from keeping track of the unprecedented awfulness of the rotted- out regime of Donald "Rump" Trump. We're not alone, though.

Rachel Maddow catalogues just one day of news focused solely on the Trump- Russia scandal, saying

“Each one of them a big enough deal that in any other administration, it would be the focus of months of attention and scandal and congressional investigation, but in this administration, it’s all you can do to finish reading one of the huge scoops that broke this afternoon and this evening before another one comes flying down the barrel right behind it.”

No Rump- ordered action to counteract ongoing Russian cyber warfare on our election systems, Rump naming a person directly involved in his compromised 2016 digital campaign, his former campaign deputy director about to spill the beans to avoid felony charges, etc., etc.

Then we have the ongoing "only the best people" Rump has hired to deconstruct our government. Dana Milbank labored in the swamp and snarked:

Because he has been hiring too few people related by blood, marriage or friendship, he has wound up with unreliable “professionals.” A study by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution found that first-year turnover of senior Trump administration officials was 34 percent, much higher than under any other president in nearly 40 years. 

The obvious solution: more use of the friends-and-family plan. A family-based system may not work for immigration, but it works perfectly for staffing a presidency. I have this from an independent authority: Eric Trump. He said last year that nepotism is “a beautiful thing.”

Rump's jobs- for- friends- and- family efforts have placed a former Rump golf caddy, a former wedding planner, a home improvement contractor, a model and, of course, his incompetent, weaselly children and their incompetent, weaselly spouses in high positions in the government (when they're not grifting or colluding with Russia).

But, the most egregious hire may turn out to be Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner, the callow, entitled princeling who has apparently been the target of foreign governments who want to manipulate him to their advantage.  Republican strategist Rick Wilson lays into Mr. Ivanka Trump:

The knowledge that every foreign intelligence agency in the world saw Kushner’s desperation for cash no doubt set America’s beleaguered counterintelligence community into a state of raw panic. The fact that Kushner is up to his hot-yogaed ass in dealings with Sergei Kislyak and was a key member of the infamous Trump Tower meeting in which Russia offered a quid for a still mysterious quo is just the icing on that cake.

Steven Colbert also had his take on Mr. Ivanka Trump's security clearance issues and the lack of interest on Rump's part to counteract Russian meddling (see post below).

Firehose fatigue is setting in, but we have just enough energy to give you this Tweet from another Republican strategist, Steve Schmidt, reminding us that the rot extends beyond the Rump regime, throughout the Republican Party:

There has never been a President who refuses to defend America. Ever. He has been abetted by a deeply corrupted Republican majority in Congress and a profoundly dishonest right wing propaganda campaign. Their perfidy affronts the memory of all those who died so that we are free

— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) February 27, 2018

BONUS:  Charles P. Pierce is living the same Groundhog Day nightmare.

Tweets Of The Day - Doing The Kushner Shuffle

Those documents just need a little more "massaging," eh?

JUST IN: Jared Kushner delays Senate deadline for documents in Russia investigation battle https://t.co/OHIWx162jY pic.twitter.com/NAweKLg1Tz

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) November 27, 2017

Kushner doesn’t meet Senate deadline for Russia documents. pic.twitter.com/f2Pa7BWxPS

— Schooley (@Rschooley) November 27, 2017

So much to hide, so little time.

Let's Play Indictment Roulette!

Here's the challenge:  Which of these Trumpkins do you think will be the next one(s) indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller (you can opine in the comments):

- Former National Security Advisor Michael "Jack D. Ripper" Flynn and his son

- Rump son-in-law Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner

- Rump Commerce Secretary "Offshore Wilbur" Ross

- Other (must name)

Vote early and often!

It's A Day Ending In "Y," So There's A Trump Bombshell Twofer

That hole keeps getting deeper. Someone might want to take the shovel out of nitwit self- incriminator Donald "Rump" Trump's hands:

President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting. 

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” 

Mr. Trump added, “I’m not under investigation.” (our emphasis)

Consciousness of guilt? Continuing collusion with Russia? Obstruction of justice? All of the above? Also, Comey's "crazy, a real nut job?"  Hoo boy. Pot, meet kettle.

Then, there's this:

The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official. (our emphasis)

Excuse me =cough=Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner?=cough=. Maybe it was someone who urged Rump to fight the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, to take the Russia pressure off (him)=cough=Kushner?=cough=. Nasty cough. Who's been in the news recently about dealing with a state- owned Russian bank to finance a Rump hotel in Toronto and who forgot to mention he'd met with Russian spy master/ Ambassador Sergey Kislyak?  I guess we'll just have to wait and see who's this person of significant interest =cough=it's Kushner!=cough=.

Bannon Vs. Kushner - Trump Chooses (UPDATED)

Saturday Night Live's cold open killed:



UPDATE: "Sean 'Spicy' Spicer" delivers "his" Easter/ Passover message: