#schneiderman

Back when Donald Trump woke up one day in March and decided to ask forty-six U.S. Attorneys for their immediate resignations, many suspected that it was merely cover for getting rid of Preet Bharara in particular. He’d busted Russian and Turkish nationals with alleged connections to Trump, and was presumably going after Trump himself next. But Bharara refused to resign, buying him an extra day or two before being fired – and now we know why.

“I’m told by my source that Bharara took that time while still in office to collect and transfer all Trump files to [New York State Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman,” revealed Washington insider Claude Taylor today (link). This helps explain several things. One is why Preet Bharara bought himself an extra bit of time by refusing to abide by Trump’s request to resign; he needed that time to pull his accumulated evidence together and get it to Schneiderman. The other is why Schneiderman ended up hiring Bharara’s former right hand man Howard Master (NY Daily News) just ten days later, in a move that could not have been coincidental.

This also explains why Schneiderman is now reportedly bringing state level RICO charges against Trump and his associates (link). Preet Bharara had likely been working on a federal level RICO case against Trump at the time Trump fired him. So why would Bharara give the evidence to a state level official instead of a fellow federal official?

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Cracks in the Foundation

The New York State attorney general’s office filed a scathingly worded lawsuit on Thursday taking aim at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, accusing the charity and the Trump family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.

The lawsuit, which seeks to dissolve the foundation and bar President Trump and three of his children from serving on nonprofit organizations, was an extraordinary rebuke of a sitting president. The attorney general also sent referral letters to the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission for possible further action, adding to Mr. Trump’s extensive legal challenges.

The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, culminated a nearly two-year investigation of Mr. Trump’s charity, which became a subject of scrutiny during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. While such foundations are supposed to be devoted to charitable activities, the petition asserts that Mr. Trump’s was often improperly used to settle legal claims against his various businesses, even spending $10,000 on a portrait of Mr. Trump that was hung at one of his golf clubs.

The foundation was also used to curry political favor, the lawsuit asserts. During the 2016 race, the foundation became a virtual arm of Mr. Trump’s campaign, email traffic showed, with his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, directing its expenditures, even though such foundations are explicitly prohibited from political activities.

The attorney general’s office is seeking the Trump Foundation to pay $2.8 million in restitution, the amount raised for the foundation at a 2016 Iowa political fund-raiser. At the time, Mr. Trump skipped a Republican debate and set up his own event to raise money for veterans, though he used the event to skewer his opponents and celebrate his own accomplishments.

Mr. Trump immediately attacked the lawsuit, characterizing it in a Twitter post as an attempt by the “sleazy New York Democrats” to damage him by suing the foundation, and vowing not to settle the case — much as he did when the same office filed a lawsuit accusing Trump University. (Mr. Trump in 2016 paid a $25 million settlement to resolve the inquiry.)[...]

The Trump Foundation has been in legal limbo since after the election, when the president wanted to dissolve it amid growing controversy about its practices. But in late 2016, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Amy Spitalnick, said the foundation “cannot legally dissolve” while it is under investigation.

This house of cards is starting to fall...

Michael Cohen may have info on women ‘sexually victimized’ by Eric Schneiderman

The FBI raid on Michael Cohen may have captured details about two women who say they had been “sexually victimized” by ousted state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a lawyer claimed Friday.

Upstate legal professional Peter Gleason wrote a letter to Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood — who’s overseeing a assessment of paperwork seized within the raid on President Trump’s “fixer” — asking her…

A Snake or Attorney General ?

It’s Friday and time for our almost weekly shoot the shit. I hope you all had a productive and uneventful week. For our new readers, a shoot the shit is a social event where we present topics that are either humorous, outrageous or informative. As readers, you don’t need to know a thing about the topic and you’re free to make totally uninformed comments without any support, you can also use…

A Snake or Attorney General ?

It’s Friday and time for our almost weekly shoot the shit. I hope you all had a productive and uneventful week. For our new readers, a shoot the shit is a social event where we present topics that are either humorous, outrageous or informative. As readers, you don’t need to know a thing about the topic and you’re free to make totally uninformed comments without any support, you can also use…