President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office to reunite families that were split up under the Trump administration’s widely condemned practice of forcibly separating parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border to discourage illegal immigration. Thursday marked the two-year anniversary of the task force.
According to figures released by the Department of Homeland Security, 3,881 children were separated from their families from 2017 to 2021. About 74% of those have been reunited with their families: 2,176 before the task force was created and 689 afterward.
But that still leaves nearly 1,000 children. Of those, 148 are in the reunification process. The department pledged to continue the work until all separated families that can be found have the opportunity to reunite with their children.
The Trump administration separated thousands of migrant parents from their children as it moved to criminally prosecute people for illegally crossing the southwestern border. Minors, who could not be held in criminal custody with their parents, were transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. They were then typically sent to live with a sponsor, often a relative or someone else with a connection to the family.
Hundreds of families have sued the federal government.
Families can register for reunification services through a website and can get help with steps such as applying for humanitarian parole that would allow them to come to the U.S., as well as for behavioral health services to help them.
During a meeting Thursday with reporters, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas discussed efforts to address “the wounds” the separations had caused.
He describing meeting the mother of a teenager who had been separated from her mom when she was 13 and then reunited with her when she was 16. But Mayorkas said, the woman relayed how her teenage daughter “still could not understand how her mother would let her be separated. She didn’t understand the force behind the separation.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
“I don’t see a big bunch of donors coming behind Trump at this point,” said Andy Sabin, a metal mogul who gave over $100,000 to Trump over the years and who opened his Hamptons estate for a Trump fundraiser in 2019. “I wouldn’t give Trump a fucking nickel, and that hasn’t changed. As we get closer Trump is going to see the handwriting on the wall. Now, he may not care if he fucks everybody up. Trump worries only about Trump, so he may not care if we lose as long as he has his day in the park, but I don’t know any donor that wants to give a red nickel to Trump.”
Sabin isn’t alone. Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone who donated $3.7 million to Trump and Trump’ affiliated groups over the last several years, said after the midterms that “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders, and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.” Ken Griffiin, the CEO of Citadel who poured $1 million into a Trump PAC in 2018, also said after the midterms that “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” and announced his support for DeSantis.
He's already lost the Koch's and Club for Growth....it's starting to happen folks....he's going to burn everything down with him
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
“I don’t see a big bunch of donors coming behind Trump at this point,” said Andy Sabin, a metal mogul who gave over $100,000 to Trump over the years and who opened his Hamptons estate for a Trump fundraiser in 2019. “I wouldn’t give Trump a fucking nickel, and that hasn’t changed. As we get closer Trump is going to see the handwriting on the wall. Now, he may not care if he fucks everybody up. Trump worries only about Trump, so he may not care if we lose as long as he has his day in the park, but I don’t know any donor that wants to give a red nickel to Trump.”
Sabin isn’t alone. Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone who donated $3.7 million to Trump and Trump’ affiliated groups over the last several years, said after the midterms that “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders, and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.” Ken Griffiin, the CEO of Citadel who poured $1 million into a Trump PAC in 2018, also said after the midterms that “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” and announced his support for DeSantis.
He's already lost the Koch's and Club for Growth....it's starting to happen folks....he's going to burn everything down with him
And his de-base is going to pick up arms. Sister Sarah and her talk of “going boldly forth” against the woke crazy.
“I don’t see a big bunch of donors coming behind Trump at this point,” said Andy Sabin, a metal mogul who gave over $100,000 to Trump over the years and who opened his Hamptons estate for a Trump fundraiser in 2019. “I wouldn’t give Trump a fucking nickel, and that hasn’t changed. As we get closer Trump is going to see the handwriting on the wall. Now, he may not care if he fucks everybody up. Trump worries only about Trump, so he may not care if we lose as long as he has his day in the park, but I don’t know any donor that wants to give a red nickel to Trump.”
Sabin isn’t alone. Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone who donated $3.7 million to Trump and Trump’ affiliated groups over the last several years, said after the midterms that “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders, and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.” Ken Griffiin, the CEO of Citadel who poured $1 million into a Trump PAC in 2018, also said after the midterms that “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” and announced his support for DeSantis.
He's already lost the Koch's and Club for Growth....it's starting to happen folks....he's going to burn everything down with him
And his de-base is going to pick up arms. Sister Sarah and her talk of “going boldly forth” against the woke crazy.
And the magats have been consistently contributing for the last two years....buying his stupid hats, flags, shirts, coins, NFTs, etc.
There are only so many $5 checks one can write.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
“I don’t see a big bunch of donors coming behind Trump at this point,” said Andy Sabin, a metal mogul who gave over $100,000 to Trump over the years and who opened his Hamptons estate for a Trump fundraiser in 2019. “I wouldn’t give Trump a fucking nickel, and that hasn’t changed. As we get closer Trump is going to see the handwriting on the wall. Now, he may not care if he fucks everybody up. Trump worries only about Trump, so he may not care if we lose as long as he has his day in the park, but I don’t know any donor that wants to give a red nickel to Trump.”
Sabin isn’t alone. Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone who donated $3.7 million to Trump and Trump’ affiliated groups over the last several years, said after the midterms that “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders, and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.” Ken Griffiin, the CEO of Citadel who poured $1 million into a Trump PAC in 2018, also said after the midterms that “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” and announced his support for DeSantis.
He's already lost the Koch's and Club for Growth....it's starting to happen folks....he's going to burn everything down with him
And his de-base is going to pick up arms. Sister Sarah and her talk of “going boldly forth” against the woke crazy.
And the magats have been consistently contributing for the last two years....buying his stupid hats, flags, shirts, coins, NFTs, etc.
There are only so many $5 checks one can write.
They probably signed up for the auto monthly withdraw from their bank accounts and don't even realize it.
“I don’t see a big bunch of donors coming behind Trump at this point,” said Andy Sabin, a metal mogul who gave over $100,000 to Trump over the years and who opened his Hamptons estate for a Trump fundraiser in 2019. “I wouldn’t give Trump a fucking nickel, and that hasn’t changed. As we get closer Trump is going to see the handwriting on the wall. Now, he may not care if he fucks everybody up. Trump worries only about Trump, so he may not care if we lose as long as he has his day in the park, but I don’t know any donor that wants to give a red nickel to Trump.”
Sabin isn’t alone. Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone who donated $3.7 million to Trump and Trump’ affiliated groups over the last several years, said after the midterms that “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders, and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.” Ken Griffiin, the CEO of Citadel who poured $1 million into a Trump PAC in 2018, also said after the midterms that “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” and announced his support for DeSantis.
He's already lost the Koch's and Club for Growth....it's starting to happen folks....he's going to burn everything down with him
And his de-base is going to pick up arms. Sister Sarah and her talk of “going boldly forth” against the woke crazy.
And the magats have been consistently contributing for the last two years....buying his stupid hats, flags, shirts, coins, NFTs, etc.
There are only so many $5 checks one can write.
They probably signed up for the auto monthly withdraw from their bank accounts and don't even realize it.
Yeah if you sign up for the auto debit you get free junk mail for life
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Buh, buh, buh Hunter's laptop and the Brandon CRIME Family! GTFOOH. Nothing to see here except a declared candidate for POTUS and his son-in-law and former POOTWH Administration official, Jared Dear Boy. Buh, buh, buh, Hunter's laptop! And what was that about Hunter's lack of experience in the energy sector, again?
An investment fund overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman backs ventures that benefit the former president and his senior adviser, raising questions of conflict.
In early 2021, as Donald Trump exited the White House, he and his son-in-law Jared Kushner faced unprecedented business challenges. Revenue at Trump’s properties had plummeted during his presidency, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters made his brand even more polarizing. Kushner, whose last major business foray had left his family firm needing a $1.2 billion bailout, faced his own political fallout as a senior Trump aide.
But one ally moved quickly to the rescue.
The day after leaving the White House, Kushner created a company that he transformed months later into a private equity firm with $2 billion from a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kushner’s firm structured those funds in such a way that it did not have to disclose the source, according to previously unreported details of Securities and Exchange Commission forms reviewed by The Washington Post. His business used a commonly employed strategy that allows many equity firms to avoid transparency about funding sources, experts said.
A year after his presidency, Trump’s golf courses began hosting tournaments for the Saudi fund-backed LIV Golf. Separately, the former president’s family company, the Trump Organization, secured an agreement with a Saudi real estate company that plans to build a Trump hotel as part of a $4 billion golf resort in Oman.
The substantial investments by the Saudis in enterprises that benefited both mencame after they cultivated close ties with Mohammed while Trump was in office — helping the crown prince’s standing by scheduling Trump’s first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia, backing him amid numerous international crises and meeting with him repeatedly in D.C. and the kingdom, including on a finaltrip Kushner took to Saudi Arabia on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
New details about their relationship have emerged in recently published memoirs, as well as accounts in congressional testimony and interviews by The Post with former senior White House officials.Those revelations include Kushner’s writtenaccount of persuading Trumpto prioritize Saudi Arabia over the objections of top advisers and a former secretary of state’s assertion in a book that Trump believed the prince “owed” him.
They also underscore the crucial nature of Trump’s admission that he “saved” Mohammed in the wake of the CIA’s finding that the crown prince ordered the killing or capture of Post contributing opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Now, with Trump running for president again, some national security experts and two former White House officials say they have concerns that Trump and Kushner used their offices to set themselves up to profit from their relationship with the Saudis after the administration ended.
“I think it was an obvious opportunity for them to build their Rolodexes,” John Bolton, who was Trump’s national security adviser, said in an interview. “And I think they were probably hard at work at it, particularly Jared.”
“Why should Jared be worried about the Middle East?” Bolton said. “It’s a perfectly logical inference was that had something to do with business.”
Kushner declined to comment.
In his memoir, Kushner did not mention his new equity firm or the Saudi investment, and he has not publicly addressed whether he talked to Mohammed during the administration about doing business with him afterward. It is not known whether Kushner discussed business deals with Mohammed while in office.
A former administration official allied with Kushner, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, said there are numerous examples of top former government employees doing business with people they once dealt with while in public service. Kushner had such a broad agenda that it would be unfair to block business relationships with those he knew from his White House days, the formerofficial said.
Trump declined to comment. His spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in response: “President Trump is the most pro-America president in history and used his superior negotiating skills to ensure this country is never beholden to anyone.” Eric Trump, Trump’s son who is also the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in a statement that “LIV is doing incredible things for the game of golf and it should be no surprise that we were asked to host these amazing events.” Trump has also previously said he did tens of millions of dollars of business with Saudis before becoming president.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington and a spokesman for the Saudi Public Investment Fund did not respond to requests for comment.
Democrats who have launched congressional investigations into Trump’s and Kushner’s ties to Saudi Arabia said there is no precedent for how the two have relied so significantly on Saudi investments in their businesses after directly helping Mohammed while in office. The lawmakers expressed concernthat such business ties could leave them beholden to the crown prince if they return to the White House.
“The financial links between the Saudi royal family and the Trump family raise very serious issues,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and for several years has been investigating various ties between the Saudis, Trump and Kushner, “and when you factor in Jared Kushner’s financial interests, you are looking right at the cat’s cradle of financial entanglements.”
Those concerns come at a high-stakes moment in the fraught U.S.-Saudi relationship. The investments by the Saudis came as the U.S. State Department said in a 2021 report that there continued to be “significant human rights issues” in Saudi Arabia, citing “credible reports” of torture and executions for nonviolent offenses.President Biden, who has backed away from a campaign pledge to hold the kingdom to account for human rights abuses, clashed openly with Riyadh in the fall over cuts in oil production. Trump, if he is reelected, may be less likely to confront the Saudi regime in future crises due to his financial entanglements, experts say.
Shortly after Trump’s election in 2016, Kushner connected with Mohammed for the first time.
Both were ascendant young scions of powerful families. Kushner, a 35-year-old with no foreign policy experience, was tapped by Trump to work toward Middle East peace; Mohammed, a 31-year-old deputy crown prince, was eyeing a path to the throne that seemed blocked by the reigning crown prince.
Over the next four years, that relationship would prove extraordinarily beneficial to both men.
Mohammed would reaparms sales, a presumed green light to blockade his neighboring nation ofQatar — despite a major U.S. military base there — and a hands-off policy when he imprisoned an array of leading Saudi citizens for months in a high-end hotel, reportedly demanding billions in funds from some in exchange for their release.
Trump and Kushnerwould getMohammed’s support for an anti-terrorism center, arms purchases, and a deal normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and other nations.
Kushner was the key, making regular trips to Saudi Arabia and staying in close contact with Mohammed — to the concern of some White House colleagues. Two former senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said they often felt they were in the dark on sensitive diplomatic issues on which Kushner took the lead.
“I didn’t really know what Jared was doing with the Saudis,” one former administration official said. “That was part of the problem. We didn’t know what Jared was doing generally. And, you know, other governments had decided that you want to get close to Trump, the way to do it is through Jared.”
At the outset, the Saudis had decided the incoming Trump administration could offer a reset toU.S. relations with the kingdom, despite Trump’s campaigning by saying that “Islam hates us” and calling for a “Muslim ban” of immigrants, Kushner wrote in his memoir.
Kushner “was learning diplomacy on the fly,” he wrote in his memoir. Mohammed’s associates sensed Kushner’s inexperience during a post-election meeting.In a summary of the 2016 talkby Saudi officials reported by the Lebanese publication Al Akhbar, Mohammed’s advisers wrote: “Kushner made clear his lack of familiarity with the history of Saudi-American relations.”
It soon became clear that Kushner effectivelywas running foreign policy on Saudi Arabia.
In March 2017, Mohammed arrived in Washington and had lunch with Kushner and Trump at the White House. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson didn’t attend, and the meeting went against advice from Trump’s National Security Council. Tillerson could not be reachedfor comment.
That same month,KushneraskedTrump to make Saudi Arabia the site of his first foreign trip. Kushner said it could jump-start the administration’s Middle East policy by cultivating Mohammed to help forge a diplomatic breakthrough with Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Tillerson opposed rewarding the Saudis with the first trip,andTrump told Kushner that he planned to follow the secretary of state’s advice. As Kushner continued to push, he wrote, Trump told him, “Jared, read my lips: we’re not going to Saudi Arabia. Take no for an answer!”
It didn’t matter. As Kushner told it, he had seen Trump change his mind on other matters, so “I didn’t interpret his words as a hard no.”
Kushner wrote that he called Mohammed and told the prince, “Everyone here is telling me that I’m a fool for trusting you,” but after receiving assurances from the prince, he outlined a proposal to Trump: The Saudis would denounce terrorism in the region, sign deals that were supposed to create American jobs and purchase U.S. arms. Trump changed his no to a yes. The trip was on.
It was the first ofKushner’s many boons to Mohammed, who used Trump’s visit to aid his sudden rise over a rival to become crown prince later that year. At a dinner, Mohammed told Kushner about a Saudi plan to blockade Qatar, which has a large U.S. military base. Tillerson later told Congress that the conversation made him “angry” because he didn’t have a say, but Trump essentially endorsed the move on Twitter.
One of the starkest tests of the Trump administration’srelationship with Mohammedcame asa result of the prince’s ire withKhashoggi, a prominent journalist with ties to the royal family who had called for changes in the kingdom. Shortly after Trump’s election, Mohammed’s aides had ordered him to stop writing critically about the U.S.-Saudi relationship, but he refused and later relocated to the Washington areaand became a columnist for The Post.
In October 2018, an assassination team that had flown from Riyadh to Istanbul aboard two planes owned by the Public Investment Fund killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate there. After Turkey said Saudi Arabia was responsible, Kushner talked with Mohammed about how to respond.
The next month, the CIA concluded that Mohammed had “approved an operation” to kill or capture Khashoggi, which the prince denied.Mohammed’s years-long effort to rise to power was in grave danger.
But, as Trump later put it in a recorded interview, “I saved his ass,” according to “The Trump Tapes” by Post associate editor Bob Woodward. Trump refused to endorse the CIA’s conclusion, equivocated about Mohammed’s involvement, opposed releasing of the report and vetoed a congressional bill to block arms sales to the kingdom. The president sent Mike Pompeo, who had replaced Tillerson as secretary of state, to meet with the prince and remind him of his debt.
“My Mike, go and have a good time. Tell him he owes us,” Pompeo recalled in his 2023 memoir, “Never Give An Inch.” Pompeo did not respond to a request for comment.
It was a pivotal moment that halted efforts to isolate Mohammed, who is known as MBS, in Congress and around the world. “Without the absolute protection of Trump and Kushner, MBS would definitely have fallen,” said Abdullah Alaoudh, the director for the Gulf at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a group founded by Khashoggi. Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, said in a statement to The Post that Trump and Kushner “covered for the Crown Prince.”
Before Trump left office, Kushner flew to Saudi Arabia in early January 2021 for his final official meeting with Mohammed. On the public agenda was finalizing an agreement to end Riyadh’s blockade against Qatar.
Kushner flew home on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, and rushed to the White House.
Troubled businesses
As his administration ended, Trump’s brand was troubled. His family’s hotels, resorts and other properties had lost $120 million in revenue in 2020 thanks to the pandemic and his polarizing presidency. He faced multiple investigations into his business practices and actions seeking to overturn his 2020 defeat; then in December 2022, the Trump Organization was convicted of tax fraud.
Kushner, meanwhile, faced potential difficulties because of both his association with Trump and his own failings. Kushner’s family company had already required a bailout in 2018 from a Canadian firm because of his decision to buy a $1.8 billion office building in New York. An ongoing congressional investigation is looking into whether the bailout was partially financed by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Now, despite having no experience running a private equity fund, Kushner was in search of billions of dollars for his new venture.
Continued from previous post. Article has additional information and detail. Buh, buh, buh Hunter's laptop.
The day after the Trump administration ended, Kushner created a company called A Fin Managementand used that as a springboard tocreate a private equity fund later that yearcalled Affinity Partners. Such fundstypically use investor money to buy into emerging companies.
Kushner has not said when he first sought $2 billion from the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund. The four members of a five-person panel of the fund’s advisers who attended a meeting about the matter were “not in favor” of the investment, citing Kushner’s inexperience in private equity and the fact that the Saudis would bear most of the risk, the New York Times reported, citing confidential minutes of the panel’s meeting in June 2021 that have not been made public.
Shortly after that meeting, however, Mohammed led the full board in approving the investment, according to the Times report.
In March 2022, the Kushner-run companyfiled an investment adviser registration document called Form ADV with the SEC that requires only a vague report on where its money came from. Kushner’s company declared that $2.51 billion out of its total $2.54 billion in assets under management came from “non-United States persons.”
The form also asks whether the “type of client” is “sovereign wealth funds and foreign official institutions.” Kushner’s firm left that box blank, instead describing its client as pooled funds operated by his company, which subsequently confirmed the Times report that $2 billion had come from the Saudis.
Chad Mizelle, an adviser to Kushner’s company, said in a statement to The Post that “Affinity Partners’ Form ADV, like numerous other private equity firms, correctly states that it has pooled investment vehicles as clients.” An SEC spokesman declined to comment.
Kushner’s company stands to receive a $25 million management fee annually from the Saudi investment plus a share of the profits.
Kushner has made his work with Mohammed while in the White House a selling point for his business. In a presentation to investors, first reported by the Intercept,Kushner notes his work “managing Middle East peace efforts” and specifically cites the result of his Jan. 5, 2021, meeting with Mohammed, saying they had discussed lifting the Qatar blockade.
There’s little transparency in private equity firms like Kushner’s. Such funds are allowed to keep secret the names of their investors,which has led Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, to push for legislation requiring moredisclosure of foreign investments. The FBI said in 2020 that “threat actors likely use private placement of funds, including investments offered by hedge funds and private equity firms, to launder money.”
Kushner’s company, which is staffed by a number of former top administration officials, has so far allocated only about 15 percent ofits available cash — a strategic move as it waits for the economy to improve, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal business decisions.
Information about Trump’s possible Saudi payments is even more opaque. Before his political career, Trump had longclaimed a profitablehistory of dealmaking with the Saudis.
On the day he launched his campaign at Trump Tower in 2015, he said, “I love the Saudis. Many are in this building.” Later that year, he said at a campaign rally that “they spend $40 million, $50 million” buying his apartments. In August 2015, The Post reported, he established eight shell companies that included the name “Jeddah,” apparently referring to Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city, and four mentioned a hotel — but there’s no record that anything resulted, The Post reported.
Starting last year, LIV Golf hosted two tournaments at Trump properties, with recent court proceedings revealing that the Public Investment Fund covers 100 percent of tournament costs, according to coverage of the case.
A LIV Golf spokesman declined to comment, and a Public Investment Fund spokesman did not respond to requests to comment.
Ted Bishop, a former PGA president, said in an interview that a major tournament typically pays $2 million to $3 million to play on a course, not counting other revenue such as sponsorships, merchandise, and food and beverage.
Trump is slated to hold three more LIV tournaments on his properties this year.
And Kushner reportedly has raised at least another $500 million for his company from international investors since he filed the SEC form last year, bringing the total to around $3 billion.
He has not identified the source of that additional money.
Judge to release parts of Georgia special grand jury report
By KATE BRUMBACK
17 mins ago
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge on Monday ordered the partial release later this week of a special grand jury report into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as a section in which the grand jurors expressed concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath, will be released on Thursday, said Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney.
Any recommendations on who should or should not be prosecuted will remain secret for now to protect their due process rights, McBurney wrote.
McBurney's order came three weeks after hearing arguments from prosecutors, who urged the report be kept secret until they decide on charges, and a coalition of media organizations, which pressed for its release.
The release is a significant development in one of several cases that threaten legal jeopardy for the former president as he ramps up a 2024 White House campaign. The special grand jury spent about seven months hearing testimony from witnesses including high-profile Trump allies, such as attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and high-ranking Georgia officials, such as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp.
McBurney wrote that the report includes recommendations for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, including “a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia.” The special grand jury did not have the power to issue indictments, and it will ultimately be up to Willis to decide whether to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.
The special grand jury's final report was requested by Willis and is meant to inform her investigative decision-making process, McBurney wrote, adding that the panel's investigation was largely controlled by the district attorney and her team and was “a one-sided exploration."
There was “very limited due process” for people for whom the grand jurors recommended charges, McBurney wrote. Some may not have had the opportunity to appear before the panel, and those who did appear did not have the right to have their lawyers present or to offer any rebuttal.
For that reason, the judge concluded, it is not appropriate to release the full report at this time.
It is not clear if or when Willis will present the case to a regular grand jury with the purpose of getting one or more indictments. At a Jan. 24 hearing, she said decisions are "imminent” but did not elaborate.
Trump told The Associated Press last month that he did “absolutely nothing wrong.” He said he felt “very confident” that he wouldn’t be indicted.
At the January hearing, Willis had argued against the immediate release of the report, saying it could violate the rights of potential defendants and negatively affect the ability to prosecute those who may be charged with crimes.
“We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released,” Willis said during the hearing.
A group of news organizations, including the AP, argued in favor of releasing the report immediately in full, saying that public interest in the report is “extraordinary.”
“The discomfort of the prosecuting authority in disclosing court records isn’t enough to make them sealed,” said attorney Tom Clyde, representing the media. “It has to be significant, identifiable evidence that’s going to cause a problem.”
Willis said in an emailed statement Monday that she believes McBurney's order is “legally sound and consistent with my request” and that she has no plans to appeal. Clyde declined to comment.
Willis and her team began investigating two years ago, shortly after the release of a recording of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In that conversation, the then-president suggested that Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, could “find” the votes needed to overturn Trump’s narrow election loss in the state to Biden, a Democrat.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said on the call.
Since then, the investigation’s scope has broadened considerably. The special grand jury operated behind closed doors, as required by law, but public court filings and hearings related to its work provided a window into some of the topics Willis was exploring. Those included:
— Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election.
— A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
— False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Trump rape case: Judge denies former president's last-minute offer to provide DNA
A federal judge denied Trump's last-minute offer to provide DNA in the rape case against him.
Last week, Trump offered a sample to be tested against DNA found on E. Jean Carroll's dress.
But Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said the deadline for exchanging evidence has long passed.
A federal judge on Wednesday denied former President Donald Trump's last-minute offer to provide a DNA sample to be compared against the dress of his accuser.
Longtime Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll has two separate lawsuits against Trump, both connected to her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump has denied Carroll's allegations.
Soon after she filed her first lawsuit against Trump in 2019, claiming defamation, Carroll's attorneys asked Trump for a DNA sample to compare against male skin fragments found on the dress Carroll says she wore during the alleged assault. But Trump declined to turn over a sample until last week.
Last week, Trump's legal team made a last-minute offer to provide a DNA sample, just two months before the first trial is scheduled to start. But only on the condition that Carroll turn over the appendix of the lab report on the dress, which would contain the DNA genome of the unidentified male DNA on the dress.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan denied that offer on Wednesday.
Kaplan wrote in his ruling that Trump offered "no persuasive reason" about why he didn't make the DNA offer in a timely fashion, and "failed to demonstrate good cause to reopen discovery" long after the deadline to exchange evidence had passed.
Both Carroll lawsuits have April trial dates and may end up being tried at the same time.
"There is no justification for imposing Mr. Trump's new proposal on Ms. Carroll now that she has prepared for a trial on the entirely justified basis that there will be no DNA evidence," Kaplan wrote.
Kaplan has previously complained about Trump's legal team holding up the case with delay after delay. Most recently, he declined their request for a six-week delay on Carroll's second lawsuit, which alleges battery and a second act of defamation. The judge instead agreed to push the trial back just one week.
"Starting down the DNA road at this point almost inevitably would lead to further delay for sampling, testing, expert report writing, and depositions of experts. It almost surely would delay the trial again," Kaplan wrote.
Attorneys for Trump and Carroll declined to comment on the judge's ruling Wednesday.
Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge), wrote in a letter to the court last week that the offer from Trump was a "bad faith" delay tactic.
She said in her letter that while she and other lawyers first asked for Trump's DNA in February 2020, they eventually decided not to press him on the matter since the fight would likely hold up the case, which was a matter of concern because of their client's advanced age. Carroll is 79 years old.
And this. AS if we didn't know this already but the attorneys' involvement is interesting. Can you spell "obstruction" and "cover-up?"
FBI Investigation Into Donald Trump Reaches 'Big Turning Point'
Federal prosecutors have taken a "bold" and significant step in attempting to get one of Donald Trump's lawyers to answer questions about the classified documents found at the former president's home by circumnavigating attorney-client privilege, a legal expert has said.
Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the investigation into the sensitive materials found at Mar-a-Lago, is reportedly seeking to compel Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to further testify to a grand jury.
Corcoran has already answered questions in front of the Washington, D.C. grand jury as part of the investigation, but asserted attorney-client privilege to refuse to answer certain questions, reported The New York Times.
Attorney-client privilege is one of the most protected privileges there is and allows legal communications between a lawyer and their client to be confidential.
However, attorney-client privilege is voided under what is known as the crime-fraud exception, meaning it cannot be cited if a lawyer and his client are allegedly attempting to cover up or engage in a crime.
The Department of Justice is said to have cited crime-fraud exception in a sealed motion to Beryl Howell, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, indicating that it believes Trump or one of his allies may have used Corcoran's service to commit a crime.
"This is a bold escalation by Jack Smith to avoid the attorney/client privilege and otherwise, non-answers from Trump's lawyer," Andrew Lieb, attorney and managing partner of Lieb at Law, P.C., told Newsweek.
"If Judge Howell finds that the crime-fraud exception applies, she will have ruled that Trump's attorney's conversations with him are not protected from disclosure."
Lieb added that without such a ruling, there "would be no point" in the special counsel trying to question a lawyer as they merely could cite attorney-client privilege instead of responding.
"Regardless of what Judge Howell rules, expect an appeal as this is a big turning point in the case," Lieb said.
It is unclear what questions Corcoran refused to answer during his previous appearance before the grand jury, nor what crime specifically the DoJ thinks he is connected to.
Trump is accused of mishandling the classified materials found at his Florida home in August 2022, as well as purposely obstructing the federal attempt to retrieve all the documents.
It was previously reported that Corcoran drafted a letter to federal prosecutors, signed by fellow Trump attorney Christina Bobb, in June 2022, assuring that all classified documents had been handed over after the FBI issued a subpoena for their return.
In August, FBI agents raided Trump's Florida home, seizing more than 100 classified and top secret documents including some found inside a storage room which Trump's lawyers are said to have "explicitly prohibited" federal agents from searching in June.
Trump and Corcoran have been contacted for comment.
Judge to Trump: Too late to offer DNA to rebut rape claim
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Yesterday
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump missed his chance to use his DNA to try to prove he didn’t rape a longtime magazine advice columnist, a federal judge said Wednesday, clearing away a potential roadblock to an April trial.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected the 11th-hour offer by Trump’s legal team to provide a DNA sample to rebut claims E. Jean Carroll first made publicly in a 2019 book.
Kaplan said that lawyers for Trump and Carroll had over three years to make DNA an issue in the case and that both chose not to do so.
He said it would almost surely delay the trial scheduled to start April 25 to reopen the DNA issue four months after the deadline passed to litigate concerns over trial evidence and just weeks before trial.
Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, declined comment on the ruling. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, also declined to comment.
Carroll's lawyers have sought Trump's DNA sample for three years to compare it with stains found on the dress Carroll wore the day she says Trump raped her in an upscale Manhattan department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996. An analysis of DNA on the dress concluded it did contain traces of an unknown man's DNA.
Trump has denied knowing Carroll and said repeatedly, and sometimes angrily, that he never raped Carroll and that she was making the claim to stoke sales of her book.
After refusing to provide Trump's DNA sample, his lawyers recently switched tactics, saying they would provide his DNA if Carroll's lawyers turned over the full DNA report on the dress.
Kaplan wrote in an order that Trump had provided no persuasive reason to relieve him of the consequences of his failure to seek the full DNA report in a timely fashion.
And the judge noted that the report did not find evidence of sperm cells and that reopening the dispute would raise a “complicated new subject into this case that both sides elected not to pursue over a period of years.”
He said that a positive match of Trump's DNA to that on the dress would prove only that there had been an encounter between Trump and Carroll on a day when she wore the dress, but that it would not prove or disprove that a rape occurred and might prove entirely inconclusive.
Kaplan added: “His conditional invitation to open a door that he kept closed for years threatens to change the nature of a trial for which both parties now have been preparing for years. Whether Mr. Trump's application is intended for a dilatory purpose or not, the potential prejudice to Ms. Carroll is apparent."
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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LOL...I hate him but I love it when he trashes GOP frontrunners
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Biden administration task force designed to reunite children separated from their families during President Trump's presidency has reconnected nearly 700 children with their families, officials said Thursday.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office to reunite families that were split up under the Trump administration’s widely condemned practice of forcibly separating parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border to discourage illegal immigration. Thursday marked the two-year anniversary of the task force.
According to figures released by the Department of Homeland Security, 3,881 children were separated from their families from 2017 to 2021. About 74% of those have been reunited with their families: 2,176 before the task force was created and 689 afterward.
But that still leaves nearly 1,000 children. Of those, 148 are in the reunification process. The department pledged to continue the work until all separated families that can be found have the opportunity to reunite with their children.
The Trump administration separated thousands of migrant parents from their children as it moved to criminally prosecute people for illegally crossing the southwestern border. Minors, who could not be held in criminal custody with their parents, were transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. They were then typically sent to live with a sponsor, often a relative or someone else with a connection to the family.
JOE BIDEN
Biden hopes 'dark memory' of Nichols' death aids police bill
Biden's handwritten notes part of classified docs probe
3 charged with clashing with cops in separate Jan. 6 cases
Bill Clinton back at White House to push paid family leave
Hundreds of families have sued the federal government.
Families can register for reunification services through a website and can get help with steps such as applying for humanitarian parole that would allow them to come to the U.S., as well as for behavioral health services to help them.
During a meeting Thursday with reporters, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas discussed efforts to address “the wounds” the separations had caused.
He describing meeting the mother of a teenager who had been separated from her mom when she was 13 and then reunited with her when she was 16. But Mayorkas said, the woman relayed how her teenage daughter “still could not understand how her mother would let her be separated. She didn’t understand the force behind the separation.”
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Will be interesting to see if that story develops.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
LOL...this is going to be a great clown show. tRump is retruthing this...
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
This narrative is going to kill tRump....it's beautiful
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
stollen
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
lol...you know tRump is steaming
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
He's already lost the Koch's and Club for Growth....it's starting to happen folks....he's going to burn everything down with him
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
There are only so many $5 checks one can write.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
After helping prince’s rise, Trump and Kushner benefit from Saudi funds
In early 2021, as Donald Trump exited the White House, he and his son-in-law Jared Kushner faced unprecedented business challenges. Revenue at Trump’s properties had plummeted during his presidency, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters made his brand even more polarizing. Kushner, whose last major business foray had left his family firm needing a $1.2 billion bailout, faced his own political fallout as a senior Trump aide.
But one ally moved quickly to the rescue.
The day after leaving the White House, Kushner created a company that he transformed months later into a private equity firm with $2 billion from a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kushner’s firm structured those funds in such a way that it did not have to disclose the source, according to previously unreported details of Securities and Exchange Commission forms reviewed by The Washington Post. His business used a commonly employed strategy that allows many equity firms to avoid transparency about funding sources, experts said.
A year after his presidency, Trump’s golf courses began hosting tournaments for the Saudi fund-backed LIV Golf. Separately, the former president’s family company, the Trump Organization, secured an agreement with a Saudi real estate company that plans to build a Trump hotel as part of a $4 billion golf resort in Oman.
The substantial investments by the Saudis in enterprises that benefited both men came after they cultivated close ties with Mohammed while Trump was in office — helping the crown prince’s standing by scheduling Trump’s first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia, backing him amid numerous international crises and meeting with him repeatedly in D.C. and the kingdom, including on a final trip Kushner took to Saudi Arabia on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
New details about their relationship have emerged in recently published memoirs, as well as accounts in congressional testimony and interviews by The Post with former senior White House officials. Those revelations include Kushner’s written account of persuading Trump to prioritize Saudi Arabia over the objections of top advisers and a former secretary of state’s assertion in a book that Trump believed the prince “owed” him.
They also underscore the crucial nature of Trump’s admission that he “saved” Mohammed in the wake of the CIA’s finding that the crown prince ordered the killing or capture of Post contributing opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Now, with Trump running for president again, some national security experts and two former White House officials say they have concerns that Trump and Kushner used their offices to set themselves up to profit from their relationship with the Saudis after the administration ended.
“I think it was an obvious opportunity for them to build their Rolodexes,” John Bolton, who was Trump’s national security adviser, said in an interview. “And I think they were probably hard at work at it, particularly Jared.”
“Why should Jared be worried about the Middle East?” Bolton said. “It’s a perfectly logical inference was that had something to do with business.”
Kushner declined to comment.
In his memoir, Kushner did not mention his new equity firm or the Saudi investment, and he has not publicly addressed whether he talked to Mohammed during the administration about doing business with him afterward. It is not known whether Kushner discussed business deals with Mohammed while in office.
A former administration official allied with Kushner, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, said there are numerous examples of top former government employees doing business with people they once dealt with while in public service. Kushner had such a broad agenda that it would be unfair to block business relationships with those he knew from his White House days, the former official said.
Trump declined to comment. His spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in response: “President Trump is the most pro-America president in history and used his superior negotiating skills to ensure this country is never beholden to anyone.” Eric Trump, Trump’s son who is also the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in a statement that “LIV is doing incredible things for the game of golf and it should be no surprise that we were asked to host these amazing events.” Trump has also previously said he did tens of millions of dollars of business with Saudis before becoming president.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington and a spokesman for the Saudi Public Investment Fund did not respond to requests for comment.
Democrats who have launched congressional investigations into Trump’s and Kushner’s ties to Saudi Arabia said there is no precedent for how the two have relied so significantly on Saudi investments in their businesses after directly helping Mohammed while in office. The lawmakers expressed concern that such business ties could leave them beholden to the crown prince if they return to the White House.
“The financial links between the Saudi royal family and the Trump family raise very serious issues,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and for several years has been investigating various ties between the Saudis, Trump and Kushner, “and when you factor in Jared Kushner’s financial interests, you are looking right at the cat’s cradle of financial entanglements.”
Those concerns come at a high-stakes moment in the fraught U.S.-Saudi relationship. The investments by the Saudis came as the U.S. State Department said in a 2021 report that there continued to be “significant human rights issues” in Saudi Arabia, citing “credible reports” of torture and executions for nonviolent offenses. President Biden, who has backed away from a campaign pledge to hold the kingdom to account for human rights abuses, clashed openly with Riyadh in the fall over cuts in oil production. Trump, if he is reelected, may be less likely to confront the Saudi regime in future crises due to his financial entanglements, experts say.
Shortly after Trump’s election in 2016, Kushner connected with Mohammed for the first time.
Both were ascendant young scions of powerful families. Kushner, a 35-year-old with no foreign policy experience, was tapped by Trump to work toward Middle East peace; Mohammed, a 31-year-old deputy crown prince, was eyeing a path to the throne that seemed blocked by the reigning crown prince.
Over the next four years, that relationship would prove extraordinarily beneficial to both men.
Mohammed would reap arms sales, a presumed green light to blockade his neighboring nation of Qatar — despite a major U.S. military base there — and a hands-off policy when he imprisoned an array of leading Saudi citizens for months in a high-end hotel, reportedly demanding billions in funds from some in exchange for their release.
Trump and Kushner would get Mohammed’s support for an anti-terrorism center, arms purchases, and a deal normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and other nations.
Kushner was the key, making regular trips to Saudi Arabia and staying in close contact with Mohammed — to the concern of some White House colleagues. Two former senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said they often felt they were in the dark on sensitive diplomatic issues on which Kushner took the lead.
“I didn’t really know what Jared was doing with the Saudis,” one former administration official said. “That was part of the problem. We didn’t know what Jared was doing generally. And, you know, other governments had decided that you want to get close to Trump, the way to do it is through Jared.”
At the outset, the Saudis had decided the incoming Trump administration could offer a reset to U.S. relations with the kingdom, despite Trump’s campaigning by saying that “Islam hates us” and calling for a “Muslim ban” of immigrants, Kushner wrote in his memoir.
Kushner “was learning diplomacy on the fly,” he wrote in his memoir. Mohammed’s associates sensed Kushner’s inexperience during a post-election meeting. In a summary of the 2016 talk by Saudi officials reported by the Lebanese publication Al Akhbar, Mohammed’s advisers wrote: “Kushner made clear his lack of familiarity with the history of Saudi-American relations.”
It soon became clear that Kushner effectively was running foreign policy on Saudi Arabia.
In March 2017, Mohammed arrived in Washington and had lunch with Kushner and Trump at the White House. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson didn’t attend, and the meeting went against advice from Trump’s National Security Council. Tillerson could not be reached for comment.
That same month, Kushner asked Trump to make Saudi Arabia the site of his first foreign trip. Kushner said it could jump-start the administration’s Middle East policy by cultivating Mohammed to help forge a diplomatic breakthrough with Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Tillerson opposed rewarding the Saudis with the first trip, and Trump told Kushner that he planned to follow the secretary of state’s advice. As Kushner continued to push, he wrote, Trump told him, “Jared, read my lips: we’re not going to Saudi Arabia. Take no for an answer!”
It didn’t matter. As Kushner told it, he had seen Trump change his mind on other matters, so “I didn’t interpret his words as a hard no.”
Kushner wrote that he called Mohammed and told the prince, “Everyone here is telling me that I’m a fool for trusting you,” but after receiving assurances from the prince, he outlined a proposal to Trump: The Saudis would denounce terrorism in the region, sign deals that were supposed to create American jobs and purchase U.S. arms. Trump changed his no to a yes. The trip was on.
It was the first of Kushner’s many boons to Mohammed, who used Trump’s visit to aid his sudden rise over a rival to become crown prince later that year. At a dinner, Mohammed told Kushner about a Saudi plan to blockade Qatar, which has a large U.S. military base. Tillerson later told Congress that the conversation made him “angry” because he didn’t have a say, but Trump essentially endorsed the move on Twitter.
One of the starkest tests of the Trump administration’s relationship with Mohammed came as a result of the prince’s ire with Khashoggi, a prominent journalist with ties to the royal family who had called for changes in the kingdom. Shortly after Trump’s election, Mohammed’s aides had ordered him to stop writing critically about the U.S.-Saudi relationship, but he refused and later relocated to the Washington area and became a columnist for The Post.
In October 2018, an assassination team that had flown from Riyadh to Istanbul aboard two planes owned by the Public Investment Fund killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate there. After Turkey said Saudi Arabia was responsible, Kushner talked with Mohammed about how to respond.
The next month, the CIA concluded that Mohammed had “approved an operation” to kill or capture Khashoggi, which the prince denied. Mohammed’s years-long effort to rise to power was in grave danger.
But, as Trump later put it in a recorded interview, “I saved his ass,” according to “The Trump Tapes” by Post associate editor Bob Woodward. Trump refused to endorse the CIA’s conclusion, equivocated about Mohammed’s involvement, opposed releasing of the report and vetoed a congressional bill to block arms sales to the kingdom. The president sent Mike Pompeo, who had replaced Tillerson as secretary of state, to meet with the prince and remind him of his debt.
“My Mike, go and have a good time. Tell him he owes us,” Pompeo recalled in his 2023 memoir, “Never Give An Inch.” Pompeo did not respond to a request for comment.
It was a pivotal moment that halted efforts to isolate Mohammed, who is known as MBS, in Congress and around the world. “Without the absolute protection of Trump and Kushner, MBS would definitely have fallen,” said Abdullah Alaoudh, the director for the Gulf at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a group founded by Khashoggi. Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, said in a statement to The Post that Trump and Kushner “covered for the Crown Prince.”
Before Trump left office, Kushner flew to Saudi Arabia in early January 2021 for his final official meeting with Mohammed. On the public agenda was finalizing an agreement to end Riyadh’s blockade against Qatar.
Kushner flew home on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, and rushed to the White House.
Troubled businesses
As his administration ended, Trump’s brand was troubled. His family’s hotels, resorts and other properties had lost $120 million in revenue in 2020 thanks to the pandemic and his polarizing presidency. He faced multiple investigations into his business practices and actions seeking to overturn his 2020 defeat; then in December 2022, the Trump Organization was convicted of tax fraud.
Kushner, meanwhile, faced potential difficulties because of both his association with Trump and his own failings. Kushner’s family company had already required a bailout in 2018 from a Canadian firm because of his decision to buy a $1.8 billion office building in New York. An ongoing congressional investigation is looking into whether the bailout was partially financed by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Now, despite having no experience running a private equity fund, Kushner was in search of billions of dollars for his new venture.
Saudi Arabia, however, soon invested in both men.
Continues..........................
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Continued from previous post. Article has additional information and detail. Buh, buh, buh Hunter's laptop.
The day after the Trump administration ended, Kushner created a company called A Fin Management and used that as a springboard to create a private equity fund later that year called Affinity Partners. Such funds typically use investor money to buy into emerging companies.
Kushner has not said when he first sought $2 billion from the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund. The four members of a five-person panel of the fund’s advisers who attended a meeting about the matter were “not in favor” of the investment, citing Kushner’s inexperience in private equity and the fact that the Saudis would bear most of the risk, the New York Times reported, citing confidential minutes of the panel’s meeting in June 2021 that have not been made public.
Shortly after that meeting, however, Mohammed led the full board in approving the investment, according to the Times report.
In March 2022, the Kushner-run company filed an investment adviser registration document called Form ADV with the SEC that requires only a vague report on where its money came from. Kushner’s company declared that $2.51 billion out of its total $2.54 billion in assets under management came from “non-United States persons.”
The form also asks whether the “type of client” is “sovereign wealth funds and foreign official institutions.” Kushner’s firm left that box blank, instead describing its client as pooled funds operated by his company, which subsequently confirmed the Times report that $2 billion had come from the Saudis.
Chad Mizelle, an adviser to Kushner’s company, said in a statement to The Post that “Affinity Partners’ Form ADV, like numerous other private equity firms, correctly states that it has pooled investment vehicles as clients.” An SEC spokesman declined to comment.
Kushner’s company stands to receive a $25 million management fee annually from the Saudi investment plus a share of the profits.
Kushner has made his work with Mohammed while in the White House a selling point for his business. In a presentation to investors, first reported by the Intercept, Kushner notes his work “managing Middle East peace efforts” and specifically cites the result of his Jan. 5, 2021, meeting with Mohammed, saying they had discussed lifting the Qatar blockade.
There’s little transparency in private equity firms like Kushner’s. Such funds are allowed to keep secret the names of their investors, which has led Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, to push for legislation requiring more disclosure of foreign investments. The FBI said in 2020 that “threat actors likely use private placement of funds, including investments offered by hedge funds and private equity firms, to launder money.”
Kushner’s company, which is staffed by a number of former top administration officials, has so far allocated only about 15 percent of its available cash — a strategic move as it waits for the economy to improve, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal business decisions.
Information about Trump’s possible Saudi payments is even more opaque. Before his political career, Trump had long claimed a profitable history of dealmaking with the Saudis.
On the day he launched his campaign at Trump Tower in 2015, he said, “I love the Saudis. Many are in this building.” Later that year, he said at a campaign rally that “they spend $40 million, $50 million” buying his apartments. In August 2015, The Post reported, he established eight shell companies that included the name “Jeddah,” apparently referring to Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city, and four mentioned a hotel — but there’s no record that anything resulted, The Post reported.
Starting last year, LIV Golf hosted two tournaments at Trump properties, with recent court proceedings revealing that the Public Investment Fund covers 100 percent of tournament costs, according to coverage of the case.
A LIV Golf spokesman declined to comment, and a Public Investment Fund spokesman did not respond to requests to comment.
Ted Bishop, a former PGA president, said in an interview that a major tournament typically pays $2 million to $3 million to play on a course, not counting other revenue such as sponsorships, merchandise, and food and beverage.
Trump is slated to hold three more LIV tournaments on his properties this year.
And Kushner reportedly has raised at least another $500 million for his company from international investors since he filed the SEC form last year, bringing the total to around $3 billion.
He has not identified the source of that additional money.
After helping MBS’s rise, Trump and Kushner benefit from Saudi funds - The Washington Post
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ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge on Monday ordered the partial release later this week of a special grand jury report into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as a section in which the grand jurors expressed concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath, will be released on Thursday, said Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney.
Any recommendations on who should or should not be prosecuted will remain secret for now to protect their due process rights, McBurney wrote.
McBurney's order came three weeks after hearing arguments from prosecutors, who urged the report be kept secret until they decide on charges, and a coalition of media organizations, which pressed for its release.
The release is a significant development in one of several cases that threaten legal jeopardy for the former president as he ramps up a 2024 White House campaign. The special grand jury spent about seven months hearing testimony from witnesses including high-profile Trump allies, such as attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and high-ranking Georgia officials, such as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp.
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McBurney wrote that the report includes recommendations for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, including “a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia.” The special grand jury did not have the power to issue indictments, and it will ultimately be up to Willis to decide whether to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.
The special grand jury's final report was requested by Willis and is meant to inform her investigative decision-making process, McBurney wrote, adding that the panel's investigation was largely controlled by the district attorney and her team and was “a one-sided exploration."
There was “very limited due process” for people for whom the grand jurors recommended charges, McBurney wrote. Some may not have had the opportunity to appear before the panel, and those who did appear did not have the right to have their lawyers present or to offer any rebuttal.
For that reason, the judge concluded, it is not appropriate to release the full report at this time.
It is not clear if or when Willis will present the case to a regular grand jury with the purpose of getting one or more indictments. At a Jan. 24 hearing, she said decisions are "imminent” but did not elaborate.
Trump told The Associated Press last month that he did “absolutely nothing wrong.” He said he felt “very confident” that he wouldn’t be indicted.
At the January hearing, Willis had argued against the immediate release of the report, saying it could violate the rights of potential defendants and negatively affect the ability to prosecute those who may be charged with crimes.
“We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released,” Willis said during the hearing.
A group of news organizations, including the AP, argued in favor of releasing the report immediately in full, saying that public interest in the report is “extraordinary.”
“The discomfort of the prosecuting authority in disclosing court records isn’t enough to make them sealed,” said attorney Tom Clyde, representing the media. “It has to be significant, identifiable evidence that’s going to cause a problem.”
Willis said in an emailed statement Monday that she believes McBurney's order is “legally sound and consistent with my request” and that she has no plans to appeal. Clyde declined to comment.
Willis and her team began investigating two years ago, shortly after the release of a recording of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In that conversation, the then-president suggested that Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, could “find” the votes needed to overturn Trump’s narrow election loss in the state to Biden, a Democrat.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said on the call.
Since then, the investigation’s scope has broadened considerably. The special grand jury operated behind closed doors, as required by law, but public court filings and hearings related to its work provided a window into some of the topics Willis was exploring. Those included:
— Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election.
— A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
— False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020.
— The copying of data and software from election equipment in rural Coffee County by a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies.
— Alleged attempts to pressure Fulton County elections worker Ruby Freeman into falsely confessing to election fraud.
— The abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021.
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Trump rape case: Judge denies former president's last-minute offer to provide DNA
A federal judge on Wednesday denied former President Donald Trump's last-minute offer to provide a DNA sample to be compared against the dress of his accuser.
Longtime Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll has two separate lawsuits against Trump, both connected to her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump has denied Carroll's allegations.
Soon after she filed her first lawsuit against Trump in 2019, claiming defamation, Carroll's attorneys asked Trump for a DNA sample to compare against male skin fragments found on the dress Carroll says she wore during the alleged assault. But Trump declined to turn over a sample until last week.
Last week, Trump's legal team made a last-minute offer to provide a DNA sample, just two months before the first trial is scheduled to start. But only on the condition that Carroll turn over the appendix of the lab report on the dress, which would contain the DNA genome of the unidentified male DNA on the dress.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan denied that offer on Wednesday.
Kaplan wrote in his ruling that Trump offered "no persuasive reason" about why he didn't make the DNA offer in a timely fashion, and "failed to demonstrate good cause to reopen discovery" long after the deadline to exchange evidence had passed.
Both Carroll lawsuits have April trial dates and may end up being tried at the same time.
"There is no justification for imposing Mr. Trump's new proposal on Ms. Carroll now that she has prepared for a trial on the entirely justified basis that there will be no DNA evidence," Kaplan wrote.
Kaplan has previously complained about Trump's legal team holding up the case with delay after delay. Most recently, he declined their request for a six-week delay on Carroll's second lawsuit, which alleges battery and a second act of defamation. The judge instead agreed to push the trial back just one week.
"Starting down the DNA road at this point almost inevitably would lead to further delay for sampling, testing, expert report writing, and depositions of experts. It almost surely would delay the trial again," Kaplan wrote.
Attorneys for Trump and Carroll declined to comment on the judge's ruling Wednesday.
Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge), wrote in a letter to the court last week that the offer from Trump was a "bad faith" delay tactic.
She said in her letter that while she and other lawyers first asked for Trump's DNA in February 2020, they eventually decided not to press him on the matter since the fight would likely hold up the case, which was a matter of concern because of their client's advanced age. Carroll is 79 years old.
Trump rape case: Judge denies former president's last-minute offer to provide DNA (msn.com)
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FBI Investigation Into Donald Trump Reaches 'Big Turning Point'
Federal prosecutors have taken a "bold" and significant step in attempting to get one of Donald Trump's lawyers to answer questions about the classified documents found at the former president's home by circumnavigating attorney-client privilege, a legal expert has said.Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the investigation into the sensitive materials found at Mar-a-Lago, is reportedly seeking to compel Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to further testify to a grand jury.
Corcoran has already answered questions in front of the Washington, D.C. grand jury as part of the investigation, but asserted attorney-client privilege to refuse to answer certain questions, reported The New York Times.
Attorney-client privilege is one of the most protected privileges there is and allows legal communications between a lawyer and their client to be confidential.
However, attorney-client privilege is voided under what is known as the crime-fraud exception, meaning it cannot be cited if a lawyer and his client are allegedly attempting to cover up or engage in a crime.
The Department of Justice is said to have cited crime-fraud exception in a sealed motion to Beryl Howell, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, indicating that it believes Trump or one of his allies may have used Corcoran's service to commit a crime.
"This is a bold escalation by Jack Smith to avoid the attorney/client privilege and otherwise, non-answers from Trump's lawyer," Andrew Lieb, attorney and managing partner of Lieb at Law, P.C., told Newsweek.
"If Judge Howell finds that the crime-fraud exception applies, she will have ruled that Trump's attorney's conversations with him are not protected from disclosure."
Lieb added that without such a ruling, there "would be no point" in the special counsel trying to question a lawyer as they merely could cite attorney-client privilege instead of responding.
"Regardless of what Judge Howell rules, expect an appeal as this is a big turning point in the case," Lieb said.
It is unclear what questions Corcoran refused to answer during his previous appearance before the grand jury, nor what crime specifically the DoJ thinks he is connected to.
Trump is accused of mishandling the classified materials found at his Florida home in August 2022, as well as purposely obstructing the federal attempt to retrieve all the documents.
It was previously reported that Corcoran drafted a letter to federal prosecutors, signed by fellow Trump attorney Christina Bobb, in June 2022, assuring that all classified documents had been handed over after the FBI issued a subpoena for their return.
In August, FBI agents raided Trump's Florida home, seizing more than 100 classified and top secret documents including some found inside a storage room which Trump's lawyers are said to have "explicitly prohibited" federal agents from searching in June.
Trump and Corcoran have been contacted for comment.
Oopsy.
FBI Investigation Into Donald Trump Reaches 'Big Turning Point' (msn.com)
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NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump missed his chance to use his DNA to try to prove he didn’t rape a longtime magazine advice columnist, a federal judge said Wednesday, clearing away a potential roadblock to an April trial.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected the 11th-hour offer by Trump’s legal team to provide a DNA sample to rebut claims E. Jean Carroll first made publicly in a 2019 book.
Kaplan said that lawyers for Trump and Carroll had over three years to make DNA an issue in the case and that both chose not to do so.
He said it would almost surely delay the trial scheduled to start April 25 to reopen the DNA issue four months after the deadline passed to litigate concerns over trial evidence and just weeks before trial.
Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, declined comment on the ruling. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, also declined to comment.
Carroll's lawyers have sought Trump's DNA sample for three years to compare it with stains found on the dress Carroll wore the day she says Trump raped her in an upscale Manhattan department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996. An analysis of DNA on the dress concluded it did contain traces of an unknown man's DNA.
Trump has denied knowing Carroll and said repeatedly, and sometimes angrily, that he never raped Carroll and that she was making the claim to stoke sales of her book.
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After refusing to provide Trump's DNA sample, his lawyers recently switched tactics, saying they would provide his DNA if Carroll's lawyers turned over the full DNA report on the dress.
Kaplan wrote in an order that Trump had provided no persuasive reason to relieve him of the consequences of his failure to seek the full DNA report in a timely fashion.
And the judge noted that the report did not find evidence of sperm cells and that reopening the dispute would raise a “complicated new subject into this case that both sides elected not to pursue over a period of years.”
He said that a positive match of Trump's DNA to that on the dress would prove only that there had been an encounter between Trump and Carroll on a day when she wore the dress, but that it would not prove or disprove that a rape occurred and might prove entirely inconclusive.
Kaplan added: “His conditional invitation to open a door that he kept closed for years threatens to change the nature of a trial for which both parties now have been preparing for years. Whether Mr. Trump's application is intended for a dilatory purpose or not, the potential prejudice to Ms. Carroll is apparent."
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
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