The Malignant Fascist's Imperial Ambitions

 

The delusional and corrupt Malignant Fascist's sick obsession with acquiring Greenland has reached another level, with an oil drilling company aligned with him placing drilling equipment on their territory without permission. From The Guardian:

"An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities.

As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast.

That has prompted Greenland’s government to issue a 'strong warning' that no approval had been granted to land the kit. 'All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority – before they are carried out,' the government said in a statement. [snip]

Executives of Greenland Energy, a Texas company set up last year, have claimed that $1tn of crude may lie beneath the Jameson Land region. They announced plans to spend $60m drilling two wells to find out.

Although Greenland stopped issuing new oil licences in 2021 on environmental grounds, a UK company called 80 Mile had secured exploration rights in Jameson Land. Greenland Energy’s corporate filings say it will take a majority stake in the project in exchange for funding the exploration, though it still needs government permission to proceed." (our emphasis)

Although the lying MF had previously claimed the U.S. needed Greenland for his "Golden Dome" national security boondoggle, it's clear that the oil and mineral resources are what has him violating Greenland's rights with arrogance and lawlessness.  Greenland is also part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a staunch ally and member of NATO, and will likely weigh in against any unauthorized drilling as should NATO.

It follows a pattern of the MF seeing other nations with mineral wealth as future U.S. acquisitions.  When Maduro was brought out of oil-rich Venezuela, the MF imposed an imperial system where the nominal head of government essentially reports to him, while oil flows into U.S. tankers for sale on the market with no apparent accountability.  It's pure theft and on brand for the MF, but it needs to end, and a new Congress must find a way to end it.

(Illustration: via Politico)

 

QOTD -- Dripping With Corruption

 

“This administration is dripping with corruption from top to bottom, but rushing a settlement to steal $1.7 billion taxpayer dollars for a slush fund before a judge can toss your junk lawsuit would be among the most corrupt acts in American political history...

“This lawsuit has never been anything more than a shakedown of the American people by a crook president and his crook lawyers.”  -- Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, commenting on the corrupt deal the Malignant Fascist's "Justice" Department is cooking up to line the pockets of some of the worst MAGAt seditionist, crooks, and charlatans.

 

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had a stern message for Republican officials threatening to arrest lawmakers who were involved in a confrontation at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Newark, New Jersey.

The congresswoman accused President Donald Trump’s administration of illegally preventing a group of Garden State Democrats from touring the facility, where Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for trespassing on Friday.

Afterwards, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the government was looking into arresting three congress members who joined Baraka during the visit.

“They’re using public intimidation because they know that they cannot come for us all,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a livestream on social media Saturday night.

She argued that the protesting politicians were exercising “their legal and constitutional obligation to conduct oversight,” and it was Trump officials who were actually in the wrong.

“If anyone is breaking the law in this situation, it’s not members of Congress, it’s the Department of Homeland Security,” she said. “It’s people like Tom Homan and Secretary Kristi Noem.”

Ocasio-Cortez then warned, “You lay a finger on Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman or any of the Representatives that were there… we’re going to have a problem.”

The congresswoman said the lawmakers were “legally required to be granted access and they legally cannot be inhibited from accessing these facilities to conduct their constitutional obligation to investigate and conduct oversight.”

“So if Kristi Noem wants to break the law, that’s on her,” she continued. “But it sure as hell is not someone like Rep. Robert Menendez that needs to be arrested.”...

Fighters, not huggers!

The bad:

President Donald Trump's administration's suggestion of suspending habeas corpus rights has been criticized by legal experts, with a Boston professor telling Newsweek that classifying the immigration situation as an invasion as justification was "absurd."

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said on Friday that the White House was exploring ways to expand its legal power to deport undocumented migrants, including suspending habeas corpus, the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.  [snip]

"The Constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion," Miller told reporters outside the White House on Friday.

Lawrence Friedman, a professor at New England Law in Boston and author of Modern Constitutional Law, told Newsweek that "the whole notion that the immigration issue constitutes an 'invasion' strikes me as absurd; and worse than absurd, as a blow to the very fabric of American democracy."

Georgetown University Law Center professor Steve Vladeck wrote in a Substack blog that Miller's statement is both "wrong" and "profoundly dangerous," while former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin said suspending habeas corpus would be a "wild step."

The comments came after U.S. District Judge William Sessions on Friday ordered the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student from Turkey who was detained in late March, pending a final decision on her claim that she has been illegally detained.

In his post, Vladeck wrote that Miller was "being slippery" about the actual text of the Constitution.

"The Suspension Clause does not say habeas can be suspended during any invasion; it says, 'The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.'

The last part, he wrote, is "not just window-dressing; again, the whole point is that the default is for judicial review except when there is a specific national security emergency in which judicial review could itself exacerbate the emergency. The emergency itself isn't enough."

He wrote that Miller "also doesn't deign to mention that the near-universal consensus is that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus—and that unilateral suspensions by the president are per se unconstitutional."

Vladeck added that Miller is "suggesting that the administration would (unlawfully) suspend habeas corpus if (but apparently only if) it disagrees with how courts rule in these cases. In other words, it's not the judicial review itself that's imperiling national security; it's the possibility that the government might lose. That's not, and has never been, a viable argument for suspending habeas corpus."

Anyone who doesn't see where they're going with this lives in a Panglossian bubble.

The ugly:

The Trump administration is preparing to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar as a gift to be used by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One for presidential travel until shortly before Trump leaves office, according to four sources familiar with the planning.

Two of the sources also confirm that ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation once the president ends his second term.

According to one of the sources, the arrangement will be done according to U.S. and international laws, in observance of ethics rules. That official said it will take some time for the plane to be delivered to Trump but that the president will discuss the arrangement during his visit to Qatar this week.

Another one of the sources said the idea of gifting Trump this specific plane has been under discussion for “quite some time” and that when the formal offer was made more recently, the president “happily accepted.” [snip]

"Trump must seek Congress’ consent to take this $300 million gift from Qatar. The Constitution is perfectly clear: no present “of any kind whatever” from a foreign state without Congressional permission. A gift you use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift (and a grift)," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote in a post on X. [snip]

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., when even further, calling the move "corrupt" and "unconstitutional."

"I don’t know who needs to hear this, but NO, Donald Trump cannot accept a $400 million flying palace from the royal family of Qatar. Not only is this farcically corrupt, it is blatantly unconstitutional," Sanders wrote.

It comes ahead of the president’s first foreign trip of his second term, in which he will travel to Saudi Arabia this week and also make stops in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

What president in our history would think to do this?  Why the president who's a world class con artist, convicted fraud felon, corrupt nitwit, grifter, liar, cheat, would- be lawless dictator, and traitor (and so much more), that's who!

Trump Crime Family's "Rush To Cash In"

 

The New York Times continues its valuable investigative reporting on the corruption that is endemic to the Trump Crime Family (gift link):

A contest of sorts has played out across Europe, the United States and the Middle East in recent days as President Trump’s two older sons have pursued a blitz of family moneymaking ventures capitalizing on their father’s name and power, each seemingly trying to outdo the other.

It is a rush to cash in that involves billions of dollars with few precedents in American history.

A luxury hotel in Dubai. A second high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two cryptocurrency ventures based in the United States. A new golf course and villa complex in Qatar. And a new private club in Washington. In many cases these new deals promoted over the last week will personally benefit not only Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., but also President Trump himself.  [snip]

The marathon of deal making has been so rapid that many elements have drawn limited public attention in the United States, despite most of it being out in the open. That is in part because the sons appeared before mostly fawning crowds but also because President Trump, his appointees and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk were making headlines with their own steady stream of norm-breaking controversies.

“There’s nothing like it,” said Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University historian who has written books on Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald R. Ford, addressing the financial conflicts of interest that have emerged in Mr. Trump’s second term.

Both Trump sons are involved in a wide range of family business ventures. Eric Trump, the president’s middle son, runs the Trump Organization, the main family business, which specializes in real estate. He also serves on the board of a holding company that oversees World Liberty Financial, the family’s crypto firm, and recently joined forces with his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., to start a Bitcoin mining operation, American Bitcoin.

The White House has said there are no ethics issues because Mr. Trump’s sons run the businesses. “The president’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said. “There are no conflicts of interest.”

But Mr. Trump’s financial disclosure report, which he is legally required to file, shows that he still personally benefits financially from most of these ventures... (our emphasis)

We'll stop there so you can go read the rest of the article, which details how profits from the "deal making" benefit the convicted fraudster Malignant Fascist himself.  That many of these deals involve the ultimate scam that is cryptocurrency fits nicely into the MF's modus operandi.  Other deals reek of thinly disguised "pay to play" schemes (i.e., bribes).  None of this includes the on- going scams and schemes and influence-buying associated with the MF (Open Secrets has the details as of 2024).

We saw in the first Malignant Fascist regime that the Emoluments Clause meant nothing to this crime family.  In 2024, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee identified $7,886,072 that the MF accepted from foreign governments in violation of the Emoluments Clause, adding "...this is a fraction of your unconstitutional collections from foreign governments and that we do not yet know the complete sum of foreign money you accepted while in office..."  Surprisingly, their strongly- worded letter got no response from then- candidate MF.

If anyone is under the illusion that something will be done to stop this blatantly corrupt "rush to cash in," we'd like to know where you've been for the last 4 years.

BONUS:

 

Yes, Trump’s crypto grifts, well reported in NYT, reveal unprecedented corruption. But they also reveal that the people who can ruin the economy are in effect shorting the US dollar.

— Timothy Snyder (@timothysnyder.bsky.social) May 5, 2025 at 10:35 AM

BONUS II:

 

The Qatar Economic Forum is hosting a public session on how to profit off of Trump’s bribery and corruption schemes.

[image or embed]

— Khashoggi's Ghost (@urocklive1.bsky.social) May 4, 2025 at 6:25 PM

BONUS III:

(Brendan Loper, The New Yorker)

 

(Photo illustration:  Oliver Munday; photograph by Skynesher / Getty (hands)

Trump Cuts Ties With Giuliani Over Legal Fees

Deadbeat Don proves once again that loyalty is a one- way street:

Former President Trump has reportedly cut ties with his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and has been annoyed with Giuliani’s requests for financial compensation in his efforts to overturn the election results.

An excerpt of “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency” by Michael Wolff published in The Times of London on Monday documents Trump’s frustration over his fruitless attempts to challenge his loss to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.

The excerpt adds to Giuliani’s reportedly unsuccessful attempts at getting paid for legal work amid Trump’s refusal to concede and falsehoods of a stolen election.

“Trump is annoyed that he tried to get paid for his election challenge work,” Wolff wrote, according to The Times.

Giuliani reportedly has “gotten only the cold shoulder” when asking Trump for payment, and has been “cast out, cut off” by Trump’s family.

Of course, we're rooting for everyone in this tale of narcissism, greed and sycophancy to go bust, then go to jail. 

Rudy "Toot Toot" is facing a $1.3 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over his "election challenge work," which primarily consisted of accusing that company of rigging its voting machines. The same behavior caused Toot Toot's law license to be suspended in New York State.  Oh, and the Justice Department is investigating whether Toot Toot violated foreign lobbying laws.  That Trump is irked that Toot Toot couldn't pull a rabbit out of his hat to keep him in office is another sign of  Trump's ignorance and his delusions.

The malignant former guy is, of course, infamous for decades of stiffing contractors, not paying campaign debts, and bullying lenders to forgive debt.  Yet he still manages to find suckers that assume they won't be suckered. In the case of Toot Toot's exile from Trumpworld, it's also likely a case of Trump distancing himself from someone whose legal exposure is even greater than his at the moment.

More Trump Efforts To Overturn Election Results Documented

The House Oversight Committee has released emails providing more evidence of criminal interference by the former guy in trying to overturn the 2020 election results:

New emails released Tuesday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee reveal a pressure campaign by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to push Justice Department officials to overturn the 2020 election results.

Documents obtained by the committee show that Trump, his then-chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani repeatedly pressured senior DOJ officials in December and January to advance baseless election fraud conspiracy theories in an effort to keep Trump in power.

Minutes before Trump announced that William Barr was stepping down as attorney general, the president’s assistant sent an email to Barr’s replacement, then-Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, on behalf of Trump that alleged a “Cover-up is Happening regarding the voting machines in Michigan.”

“Michigan cannot certify for Biden,” the December 2020 email to Rosen stated. [snip]

In a statement Tuesday, Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said the documents showed Trump “tried to corrupt our nation’s chief law enforcement agency in a brazen attempt to overturn an election that he lost.”

“Those who aided or witnessed President Trump’s unlawful actions must answer the Committee’s questions about this attempted subversion of democracy,” Maloney said. “My Committee is committed to ensuring that the events leading to the violent January 6 insurrection are fully investigated.”  (our emphasis)

It was a brazen, desperate effort by the former guy and his lickspittle cronies that was apparently a line even the corrupt Attorney General William "Low" Barr wouldn't cross, hence the pressure on his successor Rosen.

The former guy's desperate attempts to overthrow the election weren't limited to Michigan, of course. The Fulton County, GA, District Attorney has an ongoing investigation into the January 2 call the former guy made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, in which he asked Raffensberger to "find" enough votes to overturn the already- certified election results in that state.

This is not accountability for show or for accountability's sake.  It's to expose and punish behavior that strikes at the core of our democracy.  It needs to be pursued, and anyone who is criminally liable should be held accountable in a court of law.

Report: Trump Owes Chinese State Bank Millions

If you were looking for an answer to why corrupt con man and pathological liar Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump has been so solicitous of Chinese President Xi, you could start with the fact that the Trump Organization owes the state-owned Bank of China $211 million in loans, due to be paid back in 2022. From the linked article:

"In 2012, his real estate partner refinanced one of Trump’s most prized New York buildings for almost $1 billion. The debt includes $211 million from the state-owned Bank of China — its first loan of this kind in the U.S. — which matures in the middle of what could be Trump’s second term, financial records show. 

Steps away from Trump Tower in Manhattan, the 43-story 1290 Avenue of the Americas skyscraper spans an entire city block. Trump owns a 30 percent stake in the property valued at more than $1 billion, making it one of the priciest addresses in his portfolio, according to his financial disclosures.

Trump’s ownership of the building received a smattering of attention before and after his 2016 campaign. But the arrangement with the Bank of China — and its impending due date in 2022 — has gone largely unnoticed." (our emphasis)

"The arrangement with the Bank of China....has gone largely unnoticed," thanks to our broken, horse race touting Beltway media.

This deal makes Trump a major debtor to a bank controlled by a foreign adversary. It also blows up his campaign's attack line about former VP Joe Biden's son Hunter profiting from business in China due to his father's position (hilarious, considering Ivanka "Made In China" Trump's grifting, not to mention her hubby Master Jared's grab for China's money).

If the Biden campaign, Dems and their allies don't beat the drums on this issue, it'll be political malpractice.

(photo: Reuters / K. Lamarque. "Thanks for the loan. Now how can I help you?")

Supreme Court Hearing Trump Tax And Business Cases Later In March

We're reminded today of upcoming oral arguments before the (Republican) Supreme Court in two cases involving the subpoenaing of his tax and business financing documents that inept crime family boss Donald "Donny Small Hands" Trump doesn't want anyone to see.  Really doesn't want anyone to see.  (This would be the definition of "consciousness of guilt.") His attorneys and the untrustworthy William "Low" Bar- led "Justice" Department have come up with specious arguments that are tailored to one person, who is apparently above the law and beyond all accountability:

Three different committees of Congress, as well as New York State prosecutors, have issued subpoenas to President Donald Trump’s accountants and bankers for his tax and business records. Trump has sued to stop the accountants and bankers from complying. He has lost twice at the district-court level and twice at the appeals-court level. Now he is looking to the conservative majority on the Supreme Court to rescue him.

On March 31, the court will hear oral arguments in the cases of Trump v. Mazars and Trump v. Deutsche Bank. The decision will be rendered sometime between then and the court’s summer break. [snip]

Plainly, there is something in those documents that Trump dreads letting the world see. We now seem on track to one of three possible outcomes of this dispute.

The first is that precedent and law prevail. Trump loses his lawsuit against his accountants and bankers, and the subpoenaed documents are surrendered to Congress.

The second is that the political imperative to save Trump that swayed Rao will sway the conservative justices on the Supreme Court—and that Trump’s secrets will be protected by a 5–4 decision.

The third is that Trump loses—but continues to devise new delays to thwart the subpoenas and defy not only Congress but also the courts.

Every one of these possible outcomes leads to explosive controversy in the summer before the 2020 election.

The tax and business documents held by his accounting firm (Mazars) and the bank records of Putin- oligarch- friendly Deutsche Bank are cans of worms that doubtless confirm what most sentient observers have noted about Trump's long, corrupt career and his affinity for and protection of (benefactor) Putin.  Should the (Republican) Supreme Court decide, once again, to protect Trump from investigation by Congress and other watchdogs, it will be the final signal that we're no longer a country of laws and custom, and that truly will be sowing the wind for the whirlwind to follow.

Dems Investigate Trump Meddling In Merger

Sociopath and would-be dictator Donald "Rump" Trump (a.k.a. Individual-1) hates the media for not portraying him in the way Fux "News" does. He especially hates CNN for their round-the-clock, mostly critical coverage of him. Rump's gone so far as to try to ban White (Supremacist) House reporter Jim Acosta from the grounds, only to reinstate his credentials after the White House Correspondents Association pushed back.

Vengeful Rump still has it in for CNN, and reportedly he recently tried to derail the merger between AT&T and CNN's parent company Time Warner. Now, Dems in the House of Representatives, led by House Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) have asked the White (Supremacist) House and the Justice Department to turn over documents related to the proposed merger, to determine Rump's role and whether he interfered to harm Time Warner / CNN. From Reuters:

"[Nadler and Cicilline] wrote that if accurate, Trump’s involvement would  'constitute a grave abuse of power.' Last week, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling rejecting a Justice Department challenge to the deal filed in November 2017."

Every day, Rump manages to abuse his authority to punish "enemies," and reward friends. But unlike the past two years, he has a potent adversary to bring him up short: the chairs of the House committees.