THREAD: This report is the culmination of nearly 4yrs of work, and it paints a damning picture of a corrupt president fixated on the personal financial benefits he might derive from his time in office
2/ Since day one of the Trump administration, @CREWcrew has been tracking the constant stream of conflicts of interest stemming from President Trump's decision not to divest his businesses.
3/ From the earliest days of his presidency, Trump has used his office to promote his businesses, signaling to special interest groups, political allies and foreign governments, that the way to curry favor with his administration is through his businesses.
4/ Special interests and foreign groups have heeded the call, holding more than 143 lavish events at Trump properties -- personally enriching the president while getting access to high-level Trump officials, including cabinet secretaries and, sometimes, Trump himself.
5/ Special interest groups -- representing payday lenders, energy companies, private prisons and more -- have likely spent millions at Trump properties, with great returns.
7/ And Trump’s political allies -- many of whom, as members of Congress, have a constitutional responsibility to hold the president accountable -- have wholeheartedly embraced the arrangement, making hundreds of visits to his properties, spending millions that Trump profits from.
8/ Then there are Trump's own visits. Remember these promises Trump made back in 2016, saying that he wouldn't have time to visit his properties or play golf if he was elected president?
9/ As president, Trump has made 503 visits to his properties, including 303 to his private golf clubs -- all at an immense cost to American taxpayers, which he benefits from: At least $1.1 million in taxpayer money has been paid directly to his businesses washingtonpost.com/politics/secre…
10/ This gets at the central lie of Trump's claim that he works for free: Not divesting his businesses hasn't just created massive conflicts of interest, but it has earned him an annual income of over $400 million as president.
That's 1000x more than the salary he "donates."
11/ Unlike any other modern president, Trump has forced the Americans to ask if the decisions and policies his administration is implementing are because they’re best the nation, or because they personally benefit him.
Trump’s Truth Social got an $8 million cash injection that it never disclosed from an unknown source tied to a shady, porn-friendly bank in the Caribbean run by a Russian entrepreneur who has recently started buying up multimillion dollar houses in Miami washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
For those playing along at home, the front runner to be the Party of Family Values’ nominee for president not only had an affair with a porn star while his third wife nursed his fifth child, but his company is also propped up by money tied a bank that facilitates porn payments
Try to imagine the orgasmic frenzy that would erupt on the right of Joe Biden had a failing company kept alive by an anonymous $8 million investment tied to a shady bank run by Russians that helps process payments for the porn industry
My first question is WHICH TX school shooting is he talking about? Uvalde? Santa Fe? Or did he mean to say Tennessee? Which is what the tweet that I presume he was referring to was about?
If you didn’t see the outpouring of protest and rage after all of these shootings, especially Tennessee, then I would strongly encouraging you to reevaluate your news diet.
The George Santos indictment appears to raise one of the threads of the early Santos saga that I hadn't thought about in a while: Redstone Strategies, the company that Santos appears to have variously described as an LLC, a super PAC, and a dark money group to different donors
On the left is NYT description where Santos describes Redstone as a super PAC ("independent expenditure only cmte"), and the right is the indictment showing that the money went to a "company #1" (i.e. not a super PAC).
Even if it was a super PAC, it would have been illegal for Santos to ask for that much money from a donor on behalf of the super PAC.
Crow calls the ProPublica report a "political hit job" by a group that's "funded by leftists." But ProPublica—which was founded by a former WSJ publisher and managing editor—provided Crow a detailed list of questions and printed his responses in full dallasnews.com/news/2023/04/1…
“It’s worth noting that he and Justice Thomas were given detailed, written questions in advance of our stories. Thomas declined to respond. Crow’s answers were included in full. He questioned none of the facts we reported.” - Stephen Engelberg, editor in chief of ProPublica
Reporter: Would Crow be friends with Thomas if he weren’t a Supreme Court justice?
Crow: “It’s an interesting, good question. I don’t know how to answer that. Maybe not. Maybe yes. I don’t know.”
As Republicans in Congress dig into the minutia of Hunter Biden's business deals in China, they remain completely unperturbed by the millions in income from China that Trump kept hidden during his presidency, even lying about when he closed his Chinese bank account
"And: House Oversight was handed documents showing how foreign actors spent money with the Trump Organization as they sought to influence Trump’s administration, while he was in office. But under Comer’s leadership, that document production ended." washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…
1/ One of several notable details from Trump's financial disclosure obtained by @CREWcrew today was this valuation of Seven Springs. It potentially VASTLY overstates the actual value of the property, which is important because the NY AG is currently suing him for potential fraud
2/ Notice that the reported valuation of the property is "Over $50 million." It caught my eye because the Seven Springs property is the subject of a lawsuit filed last September by @NewYorkStateAG alleging potential financial fraud by Trump's businesses ag.ny.gov/press-release/…
3/ The NY AG lawsuit referenced the Trump Organization's valuations of the property, stating that "All of these values were a fiction, totally unsupported by the development history of the property and contradicted by every professional valuation of the property."