It is no wonder
our disgraced, twice-impeached and twice rejected Caesar Disgustus clung to
tenaciously to his ill-gotten political office.
He was making money hand-over-fist while pretending to be the ‘stable
genius’ at the helm of the nation. It
was all about grift, how he could line his pockets using the Oval Office if not
as an extortion racket then at least an ATM machine.
MSN just published
an article by Anna Schecter of NBC about a report issued by the House Oversight
Committee on the uses Caesar Disgustus put to the property leased to his
company by the Federal Government while he stank up the oval office. I’m referring here to tRUMP International
Hotel in Washington D.C. which his company operated during his maladministration. The following is the article in its entirety:
Trump
D.C. hotel receipts reveal $10,500-a-night rooms for foreign officials seeking
to influence U.S. policy
Anna Schecter
During Donald
Trump’s presidency, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
Qatar, Turkey, China and Malaysia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at the
Trump International Hotel in Washington at the same time they were trying to
influence U.S. foreign policy, according to investigative findings released
Monday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Hotel receipts
obtained by the Oversight Committee show that the then-prime minister of
Malaysia and his delegation spent $259,724 at the hotel during a one-week stay
in September 2017, including a $10,000 room and $1,500 “Personal Trainer” for
embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak, and $9,229 for “Coffee Break[s].” At the
time, Razak was unsuccessfully lobbying the Trump administration to drop an
investigation into a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund he had co-founded.
The Saudi
Ministry of Defense spent $85,961 during a one-week stay in March 2018,
including renting several $10,500 suites, according to the Oversight Committee findings.
The Saudi revenues for the Trump hotel came during a period when Saudi Arabia
and the UAE were lobbying the Trump administration to support them during their
blockade against economic rival Qatar.
For their part
Qatari officials and connected companies spent at least $307,941 at the Trump
hotel from late 2017 through mid-2018, according to the Oversight Committee’s
findings. actually
spends, meaning it saves a fortune because if they were to Trump hotels
charged Secret Service more than five times recommended government rate.
The hotel
ledgers were released to the Oversight Committee by the Trump Organization’s
former accounting firm Mazars USA as part of the committee’s ongoing
investigation into the former president's businesses and potential conflicts of
interest. The bulk of the ledgers released Monday show line-item charges for
rooms, room service, laundry, restaurant meals and banquets incurred during the
fall of 2017 through the spring of 2018.
The House
Oversight Committee chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D.-N.Y., detailed the new
findings in a letter Monday to acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall of the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
“These
documents sharply call into question the extent to which President Trump was
guided by his personal financial interest while in office rather than the best
interests of the American people,” Maloney said.
In the letter
she requests presidential records from NARA that could be related to attempts
by foreign governments and lobbyists working on their behalf to influence the
Trump administration by spending money at the Trump Hotel. A spokesperson for
NARA said, "We are in receipt of the letter and will respond in accordance
with the Presidential Records Act (PRA)."
Trump handed
over day-to-day control of the D.C. hotel to his sons during his presidency. In
a statement, Eric Trump said, “As a company, we went to tremendous lengths to
avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, not due to any legal
requirement, but because of the respect we have towards the office of the
presidency. We walked away from billions of dollars in new deals, ceased all
international expansion, engaged with an outside ethics advisor to review any
material transactions and furthermore, have voluntarily donated all profits
from foreign government patronage at our properties back to the United States
Treasury on an annual basis. Moreover, my father is the first president in
history to donate his annual salary back to the United States government. No
president has made a greater financial sacrifice for the benefit of the
country.”
The Malaysian
expenditures at the Trump Hotel were the most extensive in a one-week period
found by the Oversight Committee to date.
The Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)
was under investigation by the Justice Department for embezzling billions in
funds and laundering them through American financial institutions to buy
exclusive properties in the U.S., a yacht, and fine art by Monet and van Gogh.
The Justice
Department proceeded with its civil forfeiture and returned hundreds of
millions of dollars to the Malaysian people in 2021. Razak was voted out of
office in 2018 and in August of this year a Malaysian court ordered him to
begin a 12-year prison sentence for his conduct related to 1MDB. A spokesperson
for the Malaysian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Elliott Broidy,
a Republican fundraiser and Trump ally who was later convicted of acting as an
unregistered foreign agent for Malaysia and other countries, also spent more
than $5,000 at the hotel during the week the Malaysian delegation stayed there,
according to hotel receipts obtained by the Oversight Committee. As part of his
plea, Broidy admitted to illegally lobbying Trump and then-Attorney General
Jeff Sessions to drop the civil forfeiture proceedings against 1MBD
Broidy spent
another $2,970 at the Trump International Hotel in October 2017 while lobbying
on behalf of the UAE during the Qatar blockade, according to the Oversight Committee.
In January 2021, Broidy was pardoned by Trump. Broidy did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
In total, Saudi
Arabia and the UAE spent at least $164,929 at the Trump Hotel from the latter
part of 2017 through the middle of 2018. Spokespeople for the embassies of
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.
In May of 2017,
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Washington. According to the
Oversight Committee, documents
from Mazars show the Turkish Embassy sponsored two stays at the Trump hotel
around the time of Erdoğan’s visit. Hotel records show an account for the
“Embassy of Turkey Delegation” was closed on May 9, 2017, and an account for
the “Embassy of Turkey” was closed on May 23, 2017, according to the Oversight
Committee. The documentation obtained did not show how much the embassy spent
at the hotel during either of these stays.
The documents
did show that a lobbyist for Turkey, Trump donor Brian Ballard, spent $21,209
over 37 nights at the Trump hotel from September 2017 to April 2018, according
to the Oversight Committee.
In a statement,
Ballard said, “Prior to purchasing a residence in Washington in 2018, I stayed
at a number of hotels in Washington, including the Trump Hotel, and paid fair
market rates for those nights. There is nothing unusual, newsworthy or
noteworthy about that fact.”
The Turkish
Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In August 2017,
the Embassy of China delegation spent $19,391 at the Trump International Hotel,
less than three months before Trump’s visit to Beijing, according to the
committee’s findings.
The committee
noted that the casino magnate Steve Wynn, a Trump friend who had significant
business interests in China, stayed at the Trump hotel twice in the fall of
2017, spending $9,370. The Justice Department sued Wynn seeking to compel him
to retroactively register as an agent of China. Last month a judge dismissed
the lawsuit. Spokespeople for the Chinese Embassy and Wynn did not immediately
respond to requests for comment.
Maloney said
Mazars continues to share Trump hotel-related ledgers with the Oversight
Committee.
In a statement,
Mazars said, “Due to our industry’s professional obligations Mazars cannot
discuss any clients — current or former, the status of our relationships, or
the nature of our services in a public forum without client consent or as
required by law. We remain committed to fulfilling all of our professional and
legal obligations."
This article
was originally published on NBCNews.com
Here are yet more
examples of foreign governments, foreign nationals, and more than a few domestic
interests meeting the extortionist price for access. Grift and Graft. As tRUMP observer David Kay Johnston has
observed from when tRUMP and larvae stepped out of their limousines during the Inaugural
Parade back from the swearing-in at the Capitol to the White House and stood
before their newly minted hotel, the message was clear. It was pay to play.
This underscores
the outrage of Robert Mueller accepting the prohibition imposed by Rosenstein
that investigating tRUMP’s finances were off limits to the special
counsel. It has always been about the
money. Bailing tRUMP out of his
financial collapse in the late 80’s is how the Rooskies got their clutches into
him. Failure to follow the money,
including Manhattan D.A Alvin Bragg’s
complete dereliction of duty constitutes a monumental failure of justice.
Why it has taken
six years and we still don’t have his tax returns strains the bounds of
justice. The wheels of justice turn much
too slow, especially for our Orange Mussolini for justice delayed is justice
denied.
Indict. Prosecute.
Convict. Imprison.
_____________
1.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-d-c-hotel-receipts-reveal-10-500-a-night-rooms-for-foreign-officials-seeking-to-influence-u-s-policy
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