First review of my new book, THE MONEY KINGS (11/14/23, @AAKnopf), is in:

"Schulman...delivers an ambitious and captivating group portrait of Jewish financial dynasties ‘with profound legacies’…. Full of vivid personalities and intriguing tales"
publishersweekly.com/9780451493545
8 years in the making, THE MONEY KINGS is the Gilded Age saga of the founding families of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros, Kuhn Loeb, and J & W Seligman & Co. Together they left a seismic imprint on 20th century. Yet their role in the rise of modern finance was just the start /2

Good morning from the Our Rights, Our Courts forum in Concord, NH Only major candidate not on this morning's lineup: Biden.

NEW: Donald Trump has never explained a mysterious $50 million-plus loan. @russchoma spent months investigating and uncovered information suggesting this debt may be evidence of tax fraud. bit.ly/2k4QEXZ @russchoma This is a complicated—but important!—story, so allow me to unpack it a bit in a short thread

NEW from me, @DavidCornDC and @dfriedman33: Meet “Prince Charles,” the Chinese mystery man who has emerged as a key figure in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago security debacle motherjones.com/politics/2019/… Charles Lee (Li Weitian) ran a group called the United Nations Chinese Friendship Association that has ties to China’s United Front Work Department. That will be significant to counterintelligence investigators examining the Mar-a-Lago situation

A Buddhist artist from China + a $20,000 @KFC Zinger carved out a meteorite + $237,000 in donations to Trump and the GOP = one of the weirdest stories about a top GOP donor I’ve ever worked on.

New from @davidcorndc @russchoma and me: motherjones.com/politics/2019/… Cheng Gao, who started making large contributions to Trump and the RNC in the final weeks of the ’16 election, has puzzled campaign finance-watchers for a while. On FEC disclosure forms he is listed as a “Buddhist artist” affiliated with a company called “Dharma Joy”

The headline on NBC’s interview with Cindy Yang (“Ex-spa owner denies selling access to Trump…”) is baffling. In the footage that aired, she wasn’t asked about this. Nor was she asked about her company’s website, which explicitly offered opportunities to “interact with the president…and other political figures.”

MORE on Cindy Yang from me, @DavidCornDC, & @dfriedman33. Yang is a senior official of two groups with ties to the Chinese government motherjones.com/politics/2019/… Here's what @Susan_Hennessey and @sam_vinograd said yesterday about Yang's Mar-a-Lago access-peddling. This seems worth underscoring, especially in light of Yang's affiliations.

NEW: Cindy Yang, the founder of the Florida spa where Bob Kraft was busted for soliciting prostitution, wasn’t just posing for selfies with members of Trumpworld. She's been selling Chinese business executives access to Trump and his family at Mar-a-Lago
motherjones.com/politics/2019/… Yang’s company is promoting an upcoming event at Mar-a-Lago featuring Trump’s sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau. The co. bills it as “a once-in-a-lifetime publicity opportunity” where "Chinese elites" will have the chance to mingle with Trump Grau and members of Congress

"You need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited
my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower
negotiations before I gave it." "He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that
wasn’t a 'shithole.' This was when Barack Obama was President of the
United States."

The Wohl/Burkman saga has been widely reported as an effort to pay women to level phony assault charges against Mueller. At least as far as “Lorraine Parsons” goes, it actually appears to have been an attempt to bait the media into reporting this motherjones.com/politics/2018/… Why do I say this? Because Burkman has been confidently asserting that Parsons “doesn’t exist.” And because Wohl and his faux intel co. (which Burkman claims to have done business with) appear to have played some role in the “Parsons” overtures

SCOOP: Randy Credico, who Roger Stone claims was his backchannel to WikiLeaks, says Stone offered to assist him with his legal expenses. “He wanted me to be quiet. He wanted me to go along with his narrative.” bit.ly/2DsJFkh Stone also offered to assist Credico find work, including possibly hiring him to write jokes for Stone to use on his InfoWars show

Sen. Chuck Grassley is currently holding hostage the nomination of a top counterintelligence official because he is trying to force the Justice Department to release classified records concerning the Russia probe motherjones.com/politics/2018/… It's part of an ongoing GOP effort to undercut the Russia investigation—and has rather serious national security consequences.

The nominee, William Evanina, is interim director of @NCSCgov, created post-9/11 to aid interagency intelligence sharing

Some interesting history on the Foreign Agents Registration Act, under which Sam Patten was charged today, courtesy of MoJo's @dfriedman33
motherjones.com/politics/2018/… Prior to 2017, when Mueller charged Paul Manafort & Rick Gates with FARA-related crimes, the DOJ had brought just 7 cases—in 50-plus years.

So in theory Trump’s campaign manager could be convicted of bank & tax fraud and Trump's onetime personal lawyer could reach a plea deal on bank & tax fraud charges all in the same afternoon. Just another Tuesday Oh wow and I forgot about Trump's rally tonight, where I'm sure he will completely maintain his composure

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1031872877514121216

Roger Stone's super PAC paid the mother of the Manhattan Madam during the 2016 campaign. Why? bit.ly/2PhCihp Here's how Stone responded when we asked him about this $4,900 consulting payment

A few observations about the Koch-Trump feud. /1
cnn.com/2018/08/02/pol… Charles Koch didn’t accidentally stumble into this fight—he wanted it. At the recent donor summit, Koch officials went out of their way to highlight his warning shot to Republican candidates and disagreements with Trump trade policy /2

We just published the first excerpt from @davidcorndc & @isikoff’s new #RussianRouletteBook. It focuses on what really happened during Trump’s infamous 2-day visit to Moscow in 2013.

Here are some of my favorite nuggets
bit.ly/2G5ftcI Trump and Emin Agalarov celebrated their deal to bring Miss Universe to Moscow at a raunchy Vegas nightclub known for risque performances such as this one

Republicans are trying mightily to make the Russia scandal go away in the new year & closing the House and Senate intel probes is just the start.

New from @dfriedman33 motherjones.com/politics/2018/… @dfriedman33 House intel Dems say Paul Ryan is pressing his Republican colleagues to wrap up the Russia investigation. Trey Gowdy tells us Ryan has asked him about the "time frame," but insists he doesn't consider this pressure to conclude the probe.

Here’s Politico reporting on House Republicans plotting to discredit the Mueller investigation and the FBI. politico.com/story/2017/12/…

Here’s Politico, the next day, participating in that plan. politico.com/story/2017/12/… This Politico story is still bugging me, so indulge me a moment. /1