Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Criminal Donald

[Rick Plant]

Trump's unused mansion falls under investigation for possible tax fraud



The latest financial disclosures filed by Donald Trump raise new questions about a large tax break he got on a Batman-like estate north of New York City.

The former president reduced his tax bill on the land listed as Seven Springs LLC by more than $3.5 million in 2015, when he first entered politics, and new filings show the property earned him less than $2,500 in the form of a vaguely labeled "rebate," although he valued the land at $50 million, reported The Daily Beast.

“There has been an enormous amount of valuation abuse," said Nancy Assaf McLaughlin, a national expert on conservation easements, who was speaking generally because she did not know the details of Trump's property. "People will come up with a ‘before value’ that exceeds anything a willing buyer would pay, using ‘subdivision development analysis’ and coming up with a hypothetical subdivision of lots."

“It has no relation to what somebody would actually pay you for that property on the open market," added McLaughlin, a law professor at the University of Utah. “Income tax deduction is inappropriately lucrative in those cases."

Trump has reported no income on the estate since he started filing federal disclosure forms required by some executive branch officials, and an expert compared his arrangement to a rancher who decided to leave their land to sit unused.

“Many ranchers are earning next to nothing on their farmland, but as soon as they give it up, they get a very generous tax break relative to what they were earning," said James Vercammen, a land economist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "You’re going to learn a lot more from the tax break than what you’d earn from the land itself."

Trump had hoped to build a golf course and several mansions on the property, but local residents opposed any land development, so he instead cashed in on the tax break -- and New York attorney general Letitia James is now investigating the value he placed on the underdeveloped land.

“When an appraiser comes back with values that are lower than what Trump wants, he’ll get fired, won’t get paid, or they’ll hire another,” said a source who had seen some of Trump's transactions in recent years. “He’s extracted the highest possible he can find.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-trumps-dubious-tax-break-for-donated-land-paid-off

[Rick Plant]

Donald Trump’s problem isn’t just that he hires inept attorneys. It’s that his attorneys end up so compromised, they have trouble even remaining on the case. Evan Corcoran, Trump’s attorney in the DOJ classified documents case, has had to recuse himself because he’s now a grand jury witness for the prosecution. And now Trump may be about to lose one of his attorneys in the Manhattan criminal case.

It was reported last month that Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina allegedly interacted with Stormy Daniels back in 2018 about potentially representing her in the Trump hush money case. That story went cold in the media universe, but as often tends to happen, the story has remained alive and well in the legal universe.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office is now demanding more information from Tacopina, according to Law And Crime. This makes it clear that Bragg is not simply going to let this alleged conflict of interest go. It’s ultimately up to the judge in the case to decide whether to force Tacopina off the case, and it looks like Bragg is still building up the evidence to make that argument to the judge.

We’ll see if Bragg is ultimately able to convince the judge to remove Tacopina. But at this rate Trump could well end up needing yet another attorney to replace yet another attorney. At this point we’ve lost track of how many attorneys Trump has blown through, and it remains mystifying why any attorney would want to be anywhere near any of his cases. They all keep losing as badly as he as he does.

[Rick Plant]

Newly revealed tape of Ted Cruz has him telling Fox host to listen to 'actual facts' in 2020 coverage



Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was recorded in a call with Fox News and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo urging her to stick to the facts in her coverage of the 2020 election.

"It can't just be, you know somebody tweeted this. It's got to be demonstrable facts that can be laid out with evidence because that's what a court of law is gonna look to, not just an allegation but actual facts," Cruz said in the tape that was given exclusively to MSNBC's Ari Melber on Thursday.

But Cruz went on to take another route, going to the floor of Congress to proclaim that lawmakers could not in good faith certify the 2020 election if there were questions about it.

"Let me be clear, I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election. All of us are faced with two choices, both of which are lousy," Cruz told his colleagues. "One choice is vote against the objection. And tens of millions of Americans will see a vote against the objection as a statement that voter fraud doesn’t matter, isn’t real and shouldn’t be taken seriously. And a great many of us don’t believe that. On the other hand, most, if not all of us believe we should not set aside the results of an election just because our candidate may not have prevailed. And so I endeavored to look for door number three, a third option. And for that, I look to history to the precedent of the 1876 election, the Hayes Tilden election where this Congress appointed an electoral commission to examine claims of voter fraud, five house members, five senators, five Supreme Court justices, examined the evidence and rendered a judge judgment."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Federal judge declines to 'excuse' Trump from rape case



U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan declined to excuse Donald Trump from a defamation trial brought by author E. Jean Carroll after she claimed the former president raped her.

In an order issued on Thursday, Kaplan said that he would not grant Trump's request to be excused from the trial but would not order him to appear.

"First, the Court neither excuses nor declines to excuse Mr. Trump from attending the trial or from testifying in this case," Kaplan wrote. "As far as the Court is aware, Mr. Trump is under no legal obligation to be present or to testify. The plaintiff has made clear that she does not intend to call him as a witness. The decision whether to attend or to testify is his alone to make. There is nothing for the Court to excuse."

The judge also expressed skepticism at claims by Trump's attorneys that the former president's absence was "by design, avoids the logistical burdens that his presence, as the former president, would cause the courthouse."

"As it would do for any person with business before the Court, the Court will do everything within its power to enable Mr. Trump to exercise that right [to testify]," Kaplan said. "Moreover, it is entirely confident that the United States Marshals Service and the City of New York will do their parts in securing that right to Mr. Trump, just as they repeatedly have done in other cases involving security concerns."

Kaplan observed that Trump has been aware of the April 25 trial date for some time.

"There has been quite ample time within which to make whatever logistical arrangements should be made for his attendance, and certainly quite a bit more time than the five or six days between his recent indictment on state criminal charges and his arraignment on that indictment approximately one block from the location of the trial of this case," the judge remarked. "Mr. Trump is free to attend, to testify, or both. He is free also to do none of those things."

Kaplan also said attorneys were forbidden from telling the jury why Trump may or may not testify.

"In the meantime, there shall be no reference by counsel for Mr. Trump in the presence of the jury panel or the trial jury to Mr. Trump's alleged desire to testify or to the burdens that any absence on his part allegedly might spare, or might have spared, the Court or the City of New York," he said.

AFP


Judge rules Trump can't claim 'logistical burdens' if he decides not to attend upcoming trial in NYC
The trial, in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll, is scheduled to start Tuesday.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-upcoming-trial-nyc-due-logistical-burdens-attorney/story?id=98709037

[Rick Plant]

Only 52% of Republicans support Donnie which proves he isn't even really popular in his own party. 

[Rick Plant]

Trump-appointed judge concealing multimillion-dollar stock holding from financial disclosures: report



The Texas-based federal judge who ruled to revoke the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the abortion drug mifepristone is redacting personal wealth disclosures in an unusual move, reported CNN on Friday.

"In his 2020 and 2021 annual disclosures, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk wrote that he held between $5 million and $25 million in 'common stock' of a company – a significant majority of the judge’s personal wealth," reported Casey Tolan and Isabelle Chapman. "The name of the company he held stock in is redacted, despite the fact that federal law only allows redactions of information that could 'endanger' a judge or their family member."

"CNN obtained a previous financial disclosure for Kacsmaryk – which is not available online – from 2017, when he was a judicial nominee," the report continued. "On that unredacted form, Kacsmaryk reported owning about $2.9 million in stock in the Florida-based supermarket company Publix. It’s not clear whether that’s the same holding as the redacted stock, although Publix’s share price had significantly increased by 2020 and 2021 and the company is no longer listed on his more recent disclosures. Redactions are approved by a judicial committee. The redacted holding accounted for at least 85% of Kacsmaryk’s total reported wealth in 2021, and potentially more."

This is not the first time Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who presides over a district court in Amarillo and is specifically chosen by right-wing litigants for favorable rulings, has attempted to skirt transparency. While the abortion pill case was being heard, he tried to conceal the hearing date from the public, citing the safety of court officers, only reversing after backlash from reporters.

Subsequent reporting has shown he also concealed information about his far-right legal writings and talk radio interviews while being confirmed in the Senate.

On Friday evening, the Supreme Court fully stayed Kacsmaryk's ruling against mifepristone authorization, pending a broader hearing by higher courts.

Read More Here: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/politics/judge-kacsmaryk-financial-holdings-abortion-pill/index.html