Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump Organization, Already Under Indictment, Faces New Criminal Inquiry

The investigation, by the Westchester County district attorney’s office, increases the legal scrutiny of the former president and his family business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/nyregion/trump-westchester-golf-club-investigation.html

[Rick Plant]

You can't make this stuff up. The GOP has turned into a deranged conspiracy cult believing in pure delusion.

Photos show QAnon believers gathering in Dallas -- where they believe JFK Jr. will reveal he's still alive
https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-jfk-jr/

[Rick Plant]

No surprise since MAGA is a violent cult.

An 'alarming finding' -- but no surprise: Many Republicans now ready to support violence

New public opinion research from the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute, part of its 12th annual American Values Survey, has returned alarming findings.

Close to one-third of Republicans in the survey, or 30%, agreed with the statement that "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country." That was more than the combined total of Democrats and independents who say the same thing (at 11% and 17%, respectively).

PRRI CEO and founder Robert Jones said the large proportion of Republicans who appear ready to endorse political violence is "a direct result of former President Trump calling into question the election." Jones noted that according to the same survey, more than two-thirds of Republicans (68%) claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump, as opposed to only 26% of independents and 6% of Democrats.

The study also found that 39% of those who believed that Trump had won the 2020 election endorsed potential violence, compared to only 10% of those who rejected election misinformation. There were also signs of a split based on media consumption, with 40% of Republicans who trust far-right news sources agreeing taht violence could be necessary, compared to 32% of those who trust Fox News and 22% among those who trust mainstream outlets. In addition, respondents who said violence may be necessary are more likely to report feeling like strangers in their country, to say American culture has mostly worsened since the 1950s and to believe that God has granted America a special role in human history.

This study comes out just before Tuesday's "off-off-year" 2021 elections, with the national media focused on the race for governor in the swing state of Virginia. Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin has floated baseless conspiracy theories about the election and allowed surrogates to perpetuate Trump's Big Lie, while maintaining some distance from the most extreme claims. Youngkin has said the disgraced former president's endorsement is an "honor" and Trump has repeatedly urged his supporters to vote for Youngkin. The unexpectedly close race between Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe in a state that has largely trended Democratic since 2008 could provide an important symbolic victory for Republicans.

The PRRI survey is not the first indicator that the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 may represents a trend rather than an anomaly. Ashli Babbitt, a Jan. 6 rioter killed by a Capitol police officer while attempting to force her way into a secure area, has been turned into a martyr by both Trump and many of his followers. At a recent rally in Virginia, Republicans pledged allegiance to a flag that was supposedly at the Capitol during that riot, and speakers called for Trump supporters to "monitor" election workers and officials. One Virginia election official recently described how Republican poll watchers in his state have acted with "a level of energy and sometimes aggression" and said he had received "very personal attacking, trolling emails accusing me, pre-election, of fraud and even making specific allegations of what the fraud would be."

Indeed, the idea that hypothetical voter fraud could justify violence is, in itself, something new on the American political scene. There have been accusations of fraudulent elections throughout American history — some valid, some bogus — but Trump and his supporters are alone in suggesting violence. (Of course, there was one other presidential election that led to violence: The election of 1860, which sparked the Civil War.) Trump's team lost virtually all the dozens of court cases filed over the 2020 election, and their attempt to get the results overturned was unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court. Even former Attorney General Bill Barr and many key Republican legislators rejected Trump's claims of fraud, meaning that anyone who insists Trump was the real winner presumably thinks that the nefarious conspiracy included dozens of high-ranking Republicans.

Jones, the PRRI CEO, did not mention that additional context, but perhaps did not have to. He described the results of the group's new survey "an alarming finding," adding: "I've been doing this a while, for decades, and it's not the kind of finding that as a sociologist, a public opinion pollster, that you're used to seeing."

https://www.rawstory.com/american-values/

[Rick Plant]

The GOP has been taking illegal Russian money for years.

GOP campaigns took $7.35 million from oligarch linked to Russia

Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank.

Aug. 3, 2017

During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.

Marco Rubio's Conservative Solutions PAC and his Florida First Project received $1.5 million through Blavatnik's two holding companies. Other high dollar recipients of funding from Blavatnik were PACS representing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker at $1.1 million, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at $800,000, Ohio Governor John Kasich at $250,000 and Arizona Senator John McCain at $200,000.

In January, Quartz reported that Blavatnik donated another $1 million to Trump's Inaugural Committee. Ironically, the shared address of Blavatnik's companies is directly across the street from Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York.

Len Blavatnik, considered to be one of the richest men in Great Britain, holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and the U.K. He is known for his business savvy and generous philanthropy, but not without controversy.

In 2010, Oxford University drew intense criticism for accepting a donation of 75 million pounds from Blavatnik for a new school of government bearing his name. Faculty, alumni and international human rights activists claimed the university was selling its reputation and prestige to Putin's associates.

Blavatnik's relationships with Russian oligarchs close to Putin, particularly Oleg Deripaska, should be worrisome for Trump and the six GOP leaders who took Blavatnik's money during the 2016 presidential campaign. Lucky for them no one has noticed. Yet.

Oleg Deripaska is the founder and majority owner of RUSAL, the world's second largest aluminum company, based in Russia. Len Blavatnik owns a significant stake in RUSAL and served on its Board until November 10, 2016, two days after Donald Trump was elected.

Deripaska controls RUSAL with a 48 percent majority stake through his holding company, EN+ Group, and the Russian government owns 4.35 percent stake of EN+ Group through its second-largest state owned bank, VTB. VTB was exposed in the Panama papers in 2016for facilitating the flow of billions of dollars to offshore companies linked to Vladimir Putin and is under sanctions by the U.S. government.

Deripaska has been closely connected to the Kremlin since he married into Boris Yeltsin's family in 2001, which literally includes him in the Russian clan known as "The Family."According to the Associated Press, starting in 2006, Deripaska made annual payments of $10 million to Paul Manafort through the Bank of Cyprus to advance Putin's global agenda.

Len Blavatnik's co-owner in RUSAL is his long-time business partner, Viktor Vekselberg, another Russian oligarch with close ties to  Putin. Blavatnik and Vekselberg hold their 15.8 percent joint stake in RUSAL in the name of Sual Partners, their offshore company in the Bahamas. Vekselberg also happens to be the largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus.

Another oligarch with close ties to Putin, Dmitry Rybolovlev, owns a 3.3 percent stake in the Bank of Cyprus. Rybolovlev is known as "Russia's Fertilizer King" and has been in the spotlight for several months as the purchaser of Trump's 60,000 square-foot mansion in Palm Beach. Rybolovlev bought the estate for $54 million more than Trump paid for the property at the bottom of the crash in the U.S. real estate market.

The convoluted web that links Putin's oligarchs to Trump's political associates and top Republicans is difficult to take in.

Trump and Putin have a common approach to governance. They rely heavily on long-term relationships and family ties. While there have been tensions between Putin and Deripaska over the years, the Kremlin came to Deripaska's rescue in 2009 when he was on the verge of bankruptcy by providing a $4.5 billion emergency loan through state-owned Vnesheconombank (VEB), where Putin is chair of the advisory board.

VEB, known as President Putin's "pet bank," is now in crisis after sanctions applied by Europe and U.S. in 2014 have isolated it from the international banks that were the sources of its nearly $4 billion in hard currency loans that, according to Bloomberg, mature this year and in 2018.

Russia's international currency reserves are near a 10-year low, which has put further pressure on the president of VEB, Sergey Gorkov, to find sources of international rescue capital. Notably, it was Gorkov who met secretly with Jared Kushner in December at Trump Tower. Kushner's failure to report the meeting with Gorkov has drawn the attention of the Senate intelligence committee that now wants to question Kushner about the meeting.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/03/gop-campaigns-took-7-35-million-from-oligarch-linked-to-russia/

[Rick Plant]

Trump Will Be Hauled in for Questioning in Summer Zervos Lawsuit, Judge Says

A New York state judge on Monday gave former U.S. President Donald Trump a Dec. 23 deadline to undergo questioning in a defamation lawsuit filed by a former contestant on "The Apprentice" after he denied her sexual assault accusations.

Justice Jennifer Schecter of the New York state court in Manhattan said Trump must submit to a deposition, after his lawyer said Trump planned to countersue his accuser, Summer Zervos, under a state law designed to encourage free speech.

Schecter ruled after a conference where the planned countersuit was announced, and lawyers for Trump and Zervos accused their opponents of stalling.

"He just cannot delay this case any longer," Zervos' lawyer Moira Penza said at the conference.

Zervos had sued Trump in January 2017, but the case remains unresolved in part because Trump argued while in the White House that a sitting president could not be sued.

That issue became moot after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, which made Trump a private citizen, New York's highest court ruled in March.

In a statement, Trump's new lawyer, Alina Habba, said the trial court "made its position clear today - Ms. Zervos must comply with the court's directive and produce all relevant and outstanding discovery. In the meantime, we will be vigorously defending the President against this frivolous lawsuit."

Lawyers for Zervos were not immediately available for comment. Any deposition of Zervos must also occur by Dec. 23.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Zervos had accused Trump of subjecting her to unwanted kissing and groping when she sought career advice in 2007, two years after her appearance on his reality television show.

She sued Trump after he called such allegations by women "lies" and retweeted a post calling Zervos' claims a "hoax."

Zervos has sought a retraction or an apology, plus compensatory and punitive damages. Trump has denied Zervos' claims and called her case politically motivated.

Habba said Trump would file a counterclaim under New York's "anti-SLAPP" law, which is meant to deter lawsuits designed to punish or harass defendants for speaking out on public issues and was expanded last November to cover more speech.

SLAPP stands for "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation."

Former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll is also suing Trump for defamation, after he denied having raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

Trump has denied defaming Carroll, and resisted giving a deposition or providing DNA evidence. He has also denied claims by several other women of improper sexual conduct.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judge-says-trump-can-be-deposed-former-apprentice-contestants-lawsuit-2021-10-04/

[Joe Elliott]

You can't make this stuff up. The GOP has turned into a deranged conspiracy cult believing in pure delusion.

Photos show QAnon believers gathering in Dallas -- where they believe JFK Jr. will reveal he's still alive
https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-jfk-jr/

They believe that JFK and Jackie and JFK Jr. will all appear in Dealey Plaza. And declare Trump as President. Apparently, Trump will not be reinstated as President by the Supreme Court, as Mike Lindell has been predicting, but by a higher court, the Kennedys.

Maybe they made a mistake. Dealey Plaza was a logical place to assemble. But maybe they should have assembled on a boat off Massachusetts.

[Rick Plant]

Manhattan DA convenes new grand jury for Trump Organization case -- and fresh charges may be coming



The Manhattan District Attorney's office is convening a new grand jury related to its probe of the Trump Organization, thus opening up the possibility for new charges against the former president's company.

The Washington Post reports that the new grand jury was seated last week and is "expected to meet three days a week over six months," where it will hear evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing at the Trump Organization.

And earlier grand jury convened by the Manhattan DA charged Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg with committing tax fraud.

As to what issues the grand jury will be deliberating, the Post's sources say that is "was expected to examine how former president Donald Trump's company valued its assets," which the paper notes "appears to be a separate issue than the one described in indictments from the first grand jury, which has dealt with allegations that Weisselberg and other Trump executives evaded taxes on their pay by systematically hiding some of their compensation from the IRS."

Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen testified before Congress in 2019 that Trump would deliberately manipulate the values of his assets to score more favorable tax treatments.

https://www.rawstory.com/manhattan-da-trump-organization/

[Rick Plant]

'Potentially much more serious': CNN legal analyst breaks down new probe into Trump Organization

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has convened a second grand jury in its investigation of the Trump Organization, and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said it appears as though investigators are looking into something that could implicate former President Donald Trump.

Toobin began by explaining that the criminal case against Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg seems like an effort to get him to flip on his longtime boss rather than directly press charges on Trump himself.

"The Weisselberg case is really a small potatoes case," he said. "It is very bad news for Weisselberg personally, but the amounts of money it issued, the kinds of crime, paying for a car and not paying taxes on it, paying for tuition at his grandchildren's school, not paying taxes on it -- it is a criminal case but it is certainly not one that really implicates the former president."

Turning his attention to the new grand jury probe, however, Toobin argued that it's much more potentially perilous for Trump.

"The investigation of the double booking -- you know, giving one valuation to tax authorities, one valuation to banks -- that's a potentially much more serious case, also one that potentially implicates the former president," he said.