What's the world without a good old Trump thread?!
A better world.
But that would be because there never had been Trump.
So, you're saying there won't be a remake of Its A Wonderful Life, with Trump as the main character?
Haha! What's most humorous about that is that I never did like that movie. I'm sure it's a fine movie and all and I don't mean to be slighting it, but it's a film I just never could stand to watch. I've avoided seeing long enough now that I only vaguely remember it and couldn't tell you much about it.
I only hope I can say those same things about Trump some day.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
i honestly do not think he is living rent free in our heads. he is CONSTANTLY in the news and doing things to make the news. he sucks all the oxygen out of the room, so unfortunately we have to think and talk about him.
i can't wait for the day when he is retired and no longer a threat to the country.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
i honestly do not think he is living rent free in our heads. he is CONSTANTLY in the news and doing things to make the news. he sucks all the oxygen out of the room, so unfortunately we have to think and talk about him.
i can't wait for the day when he is retired and no longer a threat to the country.
He’s currently a 17 point front runner over Deathsantis for the 2024 race for POTUS. But if the radical libs would just ignore him, he’d go away.
Did you see POOTWH tacking to the Center with his call to leave social security and Medicare alone? POOTWH’s become a radical lib and if anyone thinks he’d stay there for four more years upon being elected is an even bigger sucker than I could imagine.
What's the world without a good old Trump thread?!
A better world.
But that would be because there never had been Trump.
So, you're saying there won't be a remake of Its A Wonderful Life, with Trump as the main character?
Haha! What's most humorous about that is that I never did like that movie. I'm sure it's a fine movie and all and I don't mean to be slighting it, but it's a film I just never could stand to watch. I've avoided seeing long enough now that I only vaguely remember it and couldn't tell you much about it.
I only hope I can say those same things about Trump some day.
I actually really like that movie. Watch it ever few years at Christmas. Just as amusing as any other part is how outdated it is.
While seeing how the world is if he hadn’t been born, many of his family and friends are dead or in jail as a result of him not being there, the most dramatic scene is when he finds out what happens to his wife. She’s an “old maid” and librarian. Revealed with the shocking music and all. It’s just funny that in the 40s, that was the worst fate of all, even worse than not being there to save his brother from drowning as a kid.
We had a guy with a F**k Biden (astericks on flag) flag in his yard until just a few weeks ago. It was pretty tattered so I'm assuming he didn't feel the need to buy another one and just trashed it.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018) The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
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; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,288
We had a guy with a F**k Biden (astericks on flag) flag in his yard until just a few weeks ago. It was pretty tattered so I'm assuming he didn't feel the need to buy another one and just trashed it.
Bummer, but I can imagine you were glad to see it go away!
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
We had a guy with a F**k Biden (astericks on flag) flag in his yard until just a few weeks ago. It was pretty tattered so I'm assuming he didn't feel the need to buy another one and just trashed it.
We had a guy with a F**k Biden (astericks on flag) flag in his yard until just a few weeks ago. It was pretty tattered so I'm assuming he didn't feel the need to buy another one and just trashed it.
probably hanging in his garage like some busted ass war relic like a flag that was in a battle or something.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Ooooooooo, please do tell POOTWH! Please? From “Truth” Social:
The White House just announced that there are no LOGS or information of any kind on visitors to the Wilmington house and flimsy, unlocked, and unsecured, but now very famous, garage. Maybe they are smarter than we think! This is one of seemingly many places where HIGHLY CLASSIFIED documents are stored (in a big pile on the damp floor). Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service. I have INFO on everyone
Ooooooooo, please do tell POOTWH! Please? From “Truth” Social:
The White House just announced that there are no LOGS or information of any kind on visitors to the Wilmington house and flimsy, unlocked, and unsecured, but now very famous, garage. Maybe they are smarter than we think! This is one of seemingly many places where HIGHLY CLASSIFIED documents are stored (in a big pile on the damp floor). Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service. I have INFO on everyone
Trump Uses Monterey Park Mass Shooting to Defend Jan. 6 Rioters
"[Ten] dead in California shooting, horrible gun wielding ANTIFA protest against our great police in Atlanta - Nothing will happen to them despite night of rage and destruction," Trump's post read. "Yet our January 6th protestors, over a Rigged Election, have had their lives ruined despite nobody killed except true Patriot Ashli B. This situation will be fully rectified after 2024 Election. Thank you!"
Former President Donald Trump posed for picture with former Philly mob boss Joey Merlino at South Florida golf club
Former President Donald Trump's campaign won't say if he knew he was posing with the former head of the Philly mob for a photo at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course this month.
They share an affinity for golf and an aversion to cooperating witnesses who “flip” to help federal investigators.
But former president Donald Trump and former Philly mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino don’t have much to say about how they wound up in a photo together at a South Florida golf course.
Trump posed for the photo with Merlino earlier this month at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach. The two, along with an unidentified third man, flash Trump’s customary “thumbs-up” hand signs and smiles while wearing golfing attire.
Former President Donald Trump (center) posed for this picture earlier this month with former Philly mob boss Joey Merlino (right) and an unidentified friend (left) of Merlino.Obtained by The Inquirer
Does Trump know Merlino? Or at least who he was?
His presidential campaign won’t say.
to renew concerns among Trump loyalists eager to help him retake the White House next year that he still lacks the sort of protective political infrastructure that would prevent a candidate for president from taking a picture with a convicted mobster whose last stint in federal prison ended in mid-2020.
“President Trump takes countless photos with people. That does not mean he knows every single person he comes in contact with,” said a Trump spokesperson after The Inquirer shared a copy of the photo with his campaign.
The spokesperson did not respond when asked if Trump knew Merlino, or his background.
Trump later complained about the outcry, claiming he didn’t know Fuentes or about his fiercely bigoted ideology. Still, Democrats and Republican critics railed about the dinner and Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, called on him to apologize.
In the slightly blurry photo, Merlino wears a gray polo shirt, dark shorts, and sneakers. A source who provided the photo and requested anonymity to discuss it, said the third man pictured is a friend of Merlino’s. That man also wears a polo shirt, shorts, and sneakers along with a red “Keep America Great” baseball cap.
Trump is shown wearing a white polo shirt, dark pants, white golf shoes and a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.
Merlino has made clear in the past that he admires Trump. It is unclear if Trump feels the same.
Trump and Merlino were well-known and on the rise in the Philadelphia region in the 1990s — for very different reasons.
Trump was a prominent New York real estate developer with a growing collection of casinos in Atlantic City in the 1990s.
Merlino was a leader of a violent crew on his way up to being boss of an organized crime operation active in Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
Trump’s casino empire was eventually mired in bankruptcy, but his star continued to rise, with increased fame from a reality television series the following decade and then a successful run for president in 2016.
Merlino was convicted in 2001 in a racketeering case and served a decade in federal prison. He had claimed more recently to have left that life behind, moving to Boca Raton in Florida to work as maître d’ at an Italian restaurant named after him.
The restaurant closed after Merlino’s most recent run-in with the feds, which led to a two-year sentence in October 2018 when he pleaded guilty to a gambling-related charge. Merlino, after being sentenced, echoed comments from Trump at the time that were critical of witnesses who cooperate with federal investigators.
“President Trump is right — they’ve got to outlaw the flippers,” said Merlino, who was released from prison in July 2020.
Trump in August 2018 said the practice of prosecutors “flipping” people accused of crimes into witnesses who testify against others “almost ought to be illegal” after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to a campaign finance crime — paying women to keep quiet about affairs they had with Trump —and implicated his former client.
Merlino was pulled into Trump’s orbit in the weeks after the 2020 general election when a website known for trafficking in misinformation falsely claimed he had been paid $3 million to help Joe Biden win Philadelphia with thousands of fake ballots.
The claim was swiftly debunked by several media organizations, including Fox News. Even Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, called the claim “far-fetched.”
Still, it caused Merlino some agita.
“Joey is a Trumper and any allegation of fixing this is just completely fiction,” an attorney for Merlino told Fox News at the time, adding that his client “is against cooperating witnesses and against making uncorroborated deals with snitches, which is what the president is against.”
We had a guy with a F**k Biden (astericks on flag) flag in his yard until just a few weeks ago. It was pretty tattered so I'm assuming he didn't feel the need to buy another one and just trashed it.
probably hanging in his garage like some busted ass war relic like a flag that was in a battle or something.
Back in 2012 we had an Obama sign in our yard. One day our doorbell rang and my wife answered...some guy in the hood pulled up the sign and brought it to the front door and said that the neighborhood association didn't allow political signs. Pretty sure we were the only Obama sign but there were several McCain signs all around that he wasn't concerned about. My wife pointed that out to him.
I put it back out and didn't have any incidents surprisingly. It's just funny how the Fuck Biden flag hung there for so long in such a nice neighborhood.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018) The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
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; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
Trump Uses Monterey Park Mass Shooting to Defend Jan. 6 Rioters
"[Ten] dead in California shooting, horrible gun wielding ANTIFA protest against our great police in Atlanta - Nothing will happen to them despite night of rage and destruction," Trump's post read. "Yet our January 6th protestors, over a Rigged Election, have had their lives ruined despite nobody killed except true Patriot Ashli B. This situation will be fully rectified after 2024 Election. Thank you!"
Former President Donald Trump posed for picture with former Philly mob boss Joey Merlino at South Florida golf club
Former President Donald Trump's campaign won't say if he knew he was posing with the former head of the Philly mob for a photo at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course this month.
They share an affinity for golf and an aversion to cooperating witnesses who “flip” to help federal investigators.
But former president Donald Trump and former Philly mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino don’t have much to say about how they wound up in a photo together at a South Florida golf course.
Trump posed for the photo with Merlino earlier this month at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach. The two, along with an unidentified third man, flash Trump’s customary “thumbs-up” hand signs and smiles while wearing golfing attire.
Former President Donald Trump (center) posed for this picture earlier this month with former Philly mob boss Joey Merlino (right) and an unidentified friend (left) of Merlino.Obtained by The Inquirer
Does Trump know Merlino? Or at least who he was?
His presidential campaign won’t say.
to renew concerns among Trump loyalists eager to help him retake the White House next year that he still lacks the sort of protective political infrastructure that would prevent a candidate for president from taking a picture with a convicted mobster whose last stint in federal prison ended in mid-2020.
“President Trump takes countless photos with people. That does not mean he knows every single person he comes in contact with,” said a Trump spokesperson after The Inquirer shared a copy of the photo with his campaign.
The spokesperson did not respond when asked if Trump knew Merlino, or his background.
Trump later complained about the outcry, claiming he didn’t know Fuentes or about his fiercely bigoted ideology. Still, Democrats and Republican critics railed about the dinner and Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, called on him to apologize.
In the slightly blurry photo, Merlino wears a gray polo shirt, dark shorts, and sneakers. A source who provided the photo and requested anonymity to discuss it, said the third man pictured is a friend of Merlino’s. That man also wears a polo shirt, shorts, and sneakers along with a red “Keep America Great” baseball cap.
Trump is shown wearing a white polo shirt, dark pants, white golf shoes and a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.
Merlino has made clear in the past that he admires Trump. It is unclear if Trump feels the same.
Trump and Merlino were well-known and on the rise in the Philadelphia region in the 1990s — for very different reasons.
Trump was a prominent New York real estate developer with a growing collection of casinos in Atlantic City in the 1990s.
Merlino was a leader of a violent crew on his way up to being boss of an organized crime operation active in Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
Trump’s casino empire was eventually mired in bankruptcy, but his star continued to rise, with increased fame from a reality television series the following decade and then a successful run for president in 2016.
Merlino was convicted in 2001 in a racketeering case and served a decade in federal prison. He had claimed more recently to have left that life behind, moving to Boca Raton in Florida to work as maître d’ at an Italian restaurant named after him.
The restaurant closed after Merlino’s most recent run-in with the feds, which led to a two-year sentence in October 2018 when he pleaded guilty to a gambling-related charge. Merlino, after being sentenced, echoed comments from Trump at the time that were critical of witnesses who cooperate with federal investigators.
“President Trump is right — they’ve got to outlaw the flippers,” said Merlino, who was released from prison in July 2020.
Trump in August 2018 said the practice of prosecutors “flipping” people accused of crimes into witnesses who testify against others “almost ought to be illegal” after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to a campaign finance crime — paying women to keep quiet about affairs they had with Trump —and implicated his former client.
Merlino was pulled into Trump’s orbit in the weeks after the 2020 general election when a website known for trafficking in misinformation falsely claimed he had been paid $3 million to help Joe Biden win Philadelphia with thousands of fake ballots.
The claim was swiftly debunked by several media organizations, including Fox News. Even Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, called the claim “far-fetched.”
Still, it caused Merlino some agita.
“Joey is a Trumper and any allegation of fixing this is just completely fiction,” an attorney for Merlino told Fox News at the time, adding that his client “is against cooperating witnesses and against making uncorroborated deals with snitches, which is what the president is against.”
Will POOTWH pardon him! More importantly, how much did POOTWH and Billy DISbarred know and when did they know it?
Former senior FBI official accused of working for Russian he investigated
Charles McGonigal, a former counterintelligence chief, is charged with money laundering and other counts connected to oligarch Oleg Deripaska
NEW YORK — The former head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division in the New York Field Office has been indicted in two federal jurisdictions on charges related to improper foreign ties, including for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Russians by trying to get billionaire Oleg Deripaska removed from the sanctions list, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Charles McGonigal, 54, who has been retired from the FBI since Sept. 2018, has been indicted in federal court in Manhattan on money laundering, violating sanctions and other charges in connection to his alleged ties to Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal had been tasked with investigating Deripaska, whose own indictment for sanctions violations was unsealed in September.
Separately, McGonigal, 55, was accused in a nine-count indictment in federal court in Washington of hiding his receipt of $225,000 from a former Albanian intelligence agent living in New Jersey. He was also accused of hiding foreign travel and contacts with senior leaders in countries including Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia where the former Albanian agent had business interests.
Prosecutors alleged that from at least August 2017 and beyond his retirement from the FBI, McGonigal failed to disclose to the FBI his relationship with the former Albanian security official, described as “Person A” in charging papers.
McGonigal’s alleged involvement with Deripaska may impact a significant push by the Justice Department to hit wealthy Russians with economic sanctions for conducting business in the U.S., an effort that accelerated last year with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The twin indictments are also a black eye for the FBI, alleging that one of their most senior and trusted intelligence officials was taking secret cash payments and undermining the bureau’s overall intelligence-gathering mission.
Current and former U.S. officials who know and have worked with McGonigal said they were shocked by the charges. As an FBI agent at his level, McGonigal had knowledge of an extraordinary amount of sensitive information, potentially including investigations of foreign spies or U.S. citizens suspected of working on behalf of foreign governments, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the work McGonigal did. One former official said that McGonigal had worked with the CIA on counterintelligence matters.
According to the New York indictment, a law firm retained McGonegal to work as a consultant an investigator on the effort to get Deripaska removed from the sanctions list. He was listed as a consultant and arranged for $25,000 monthly payments to be sent to an account controlled by another person, a government interpreter who was a former Russian diplomat. The interpreter, Sergey Shestakov, was also charged.
McGonigal’s career as a top official in the FBI gave him access to classified information including a then-secret list of Russian prospects for sanctioning by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Justice Department said. That list that included Deripaska before the sanctions were actually imposed.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that McGonigal and Shestakov “should have known better” given their experience in government service. Both defendants are expected to appear in court Monday afternoon.
U.S. Attorney Michael C. Graves of Washington, D.C. called the alleged cover-up of foreign contacts and financial relationships a “gateway to corruption” and credited the FBI with its handling of the “delicate and difficult” investigation of a former senior assistant director.
“McGonigal is alleged to have committed the very violations he swore to investigate while he purported to lead a workforce of FBI employees who spend their careers protecting secrets and holding foreign adversaries accountable,” said FBI Los Angeles Field Office Director Donald Alway, who announced the charges with Graves and the leaders of the Washington FBI and Justice Department national security division.
McGonigal faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the two D.C. counts of falsification of records and documents, and up to five years in prison for each of seven counts of concealing material facts or making false statements. The most serious charge in the New York indictment also carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.
Comments
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
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; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
i can't wait for the day when he is retired and no longer a threat to the country.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Did you see POOTWH tacking to the Center with his call to leave social security and Medicare alone? POOTWH’s become a radical lib and if anyone thinks he’d stay there for four more years upon being elected is an even bigger sucker than I could imagine.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
I am pretty confident that he will declare bankruptcy again before he kicks off.
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
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; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
I thank God, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Pope Francis, Joseph Smith, and Mother Nature that I do not have neighbors put that shit up in their yard.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
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; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
Bummer, but I can imagine you were glad to see it go away!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
The White House just announced that there are no LOGS or information of any kind on visitors to the Wilmington house and flimsy, unlocked, and unsecured, but now very famous, garage. Maybe they are smarter than we think! This is one of seemingly many places where HIGHLY CLASSIFIED documents are stored (in a big pile on the damp floor). Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service. I have INFO on everyone
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
HILARIOUS
Trump Uses Monterey Park Mass Shooting to Defend Jan. 6 Rioters
"[Ten] dead in California shooting, horrible gun wielding ANTIFA protest against our great police in Atlanta - Nothing will happen to them despite night of rage and destruction," Trump's post read. "Yet our January 6th protestors, over a Rigged Election, have had their lives ruined despite nobody killed except true Patriot Ashli B. This situation will be fully rectified after 2024 Election. Thank you!"
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-uses-monterey-park-mass-shooting-defend-jan-6-rioters-1775580
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/donald-trump-joey-merlino-philadelphia-mob-photo-golf-club-20230123.html
Former President Donald Trump posed for picture with former Philly mob boss Joey Merlino at South Florida golf club
Former President Donald Trump's campaign won't say if he knew he was posing with the former head of the Philly mob for a photo at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course this month.
They share an affinity for golf and an aversion to cooperating witnesses who “flip” to help federal investigators.
But former president Donald Trump and former Philly mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino don’t have much to say about how they wound up in a photo together at a South Florida golf course.
Trump posed for the photo with Merlino earlier this month at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach. The two, along with an unidentified third man, flash Trump’s customary “thumbs-up” hand signs and smiles while wearing golfing attire.
Does Trump know Merlino? Or at least who he was?
His presidential campaign won’t say.
“President Trump takes countless photos with people. That does not mean he knows every single person he comes in contact with,” said a Trump spokesperson after The Inquirer shared a copy of the photo with his campaign.
The spokesperson did not respond when asked if Trump knew Merlino, or his background.
Trump sparked outrage when he dined Nov. 22 at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach private club and residence, with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who had shown up with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who was under fire then for a series of antisemitic remarks.
That now-notorious dinner happened just one week after Trump announced his third bid for president.
Trump later complained about the outcry, claiming he didn’t know Fuentes or about his fiercely bigoted ideology. Still, Democrats and Republican critics railed about the dinner and Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, called on him to apologize.
The fall out prompted Trump’s campaign to enact new protocols for vetting and approving people he met with. Those protocols were not apparently followed at Trump’s golf course this month.
Merlino did not respond to requests for comment.
In the slightly blurry photo, Merlino wears a gray polo shirt, dark shorts, and sneakers. A source who provided the photo and requested anonymity to discuss it, said the third man pictured is a friend of Merlino’s. That man also wears a polo shirt, shorts, and sneakers along with a red “Keep America Great” baseball cap.
Trump is shown wearing a white polo shirt, dark pants, white golf shoes and a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.
Merlino has made clear in the past that he admires Trump. It is unclear if Trump feels the same.
Trump and Merlino were well-known and on the rise in the Philadelphia region in the 1990s — for very different reasons.
Trump was a prominent New York real estate developer with a growing collection of casinos in Atlantic City in the 1990s.
Merlino was a leader of a violent crew on his way up to being boss of an organized crime operation active in Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
Trump’s casino empire was eventually mired in bankruptcy, but his star continued to rise, with increased fame from a reality television series the following decade and then a successful run for president in 2016.
Merlino was convicted in 2001 in a racketeering case and served a decade in federal prison. He had claimed more recently to have left that life behind, moving to Boca Raton in Florida to work as maître d’ at an Italian restaurant named after him.
The restaurant closed after Merlino’s most recent run-in with the feds, which led to a two-year sentence in October 2018 when he pleaded guilty to a gambling-related charge. Merlino, after being sentenced, echoed comments from Trump at the time that were critical of witnesses who cooperate with federal investigators.
“President Trump is right — they’ve got to outlaw the flippers,” said Merlino, who was released from prison in July 2020.
Trump in August 2018 said the practice of prosecutors “flipping” people accused of crimes into witnesses who testify against others “almost ought to be illegal” after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to a campaign finance crime — paying women to keep quiet about affairs they had with Trump —and implicated his former client.
Merlino was pulled into Trump’s orbit in the weeks after the 2020 general election when a website known for trafficking in misinformation falsely claimed he had been paid $3 million to help Joe Biden win Philadelphia with thousands of fake ballots.
Jordan Sekulow, an attorney who had served in late 2019 and early 2020 on Trump’s legal team for his first impeachment, gave that false claim a public boost by tweeting a link to the website.
The claim was swiftly debunked by several media organizations, including Fox News. Even Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, called the claim “far-fetched.”
Still, it caused Merlino some agita.
“Joey is a Trumper and any allegation of fixing this is just completely fiction,” an attorney for Merlino told Fox News at the time, adding that his client “is against cooperating witnesses and against making uncorroborated deals with snitches, which is what the president is against.”
I put it back out and didn't have any incidents surprisingly. It's just funny how the Fuck Biden flag hung there for so long in such a nice neighborhood.
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
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; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Former senior FBI official accused of working for Russian he investigated
Charles McGonigal, a former counterintelligence chief, is charged with money laundering and other counts connected to oligarch Oleg Deripaska
NEW YORK — The former head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division in the New York Field Office has been indicted in two federal jurisdictions on charges related to improper foreign ties, including for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Russians by trying to get billionaire Oleg Deripaska removed from the sanctions list, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Charles McGonigal, 54, who has been retired from the FBI since Sept. 2018, has been indicted in federal court in Manhattan on money laundering, violating sanctions and other charges in connection to his alleged ties to Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his role at the FBI, McGonigal had been tasked with investigating Deripaska, whose own indictment for sanctions violations was unsealed in September.
Separately, McGonigal, 55, was accused in a nine-count indictment in federal court in Washington of hiding his receipt of $225,000 from a former Albanian intelligence agent living in New Jersey. He was also accused of hiding foreign travel and contacts with senior leaders in countries including Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia where the former Albanian agent had business interests.
Prosecutors alleged that from at least August 2017 and beyond his retirement from the FBI, McGonigal failed to disclose to the FBI his relationship with the former Albanian security official, described as “Person A” in charging papers.
McGonigal’s alleged involvement with Deripaska may impact a significant push by the Justice Department to hit wealthy Russians with economic sanctions for conducting business in the U.S., an effort that accelerated last year with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The twin indictments are also a black eye for the FBI, alleging that one of their most senior and trusted intelligence officials was taking secret cash payments and undermining the bureau’s overall intelligence-gathering mission.
Current and former U.S. officials who know and have worked with McGonigal said they were shocked by the charges. As an FBI agent at his level, McGonigal had knowledge of an extraordinary amount of sensitive information, potentially including investigations of foreign spies or U.S. citizens suspected of working on behalf of foreign governments, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the work McGonigal did. One former official said that McGonigal had worked with the CIA on counterintelligence matters.
According to the New York indictment, a law firm retained McGonegal to work as a consultant an investigator on the effort to get Deripaska removed from the sanctions list. He was listed as a consultant and arranged for $25,000 monthly payments to be sent to an account controlled by another person, a government interpreter who was a former Russian diplomat. The interpreter, Sergey Shestakov, was also charged.
McGonigal’s career as a top official in the FBI gave him access to classified information including a then-secret list of Russian prospects for sanctioning by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Justice Department said. That list that included Deripaska before the sanctions were actually imposed.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that McGonigal and Shestakov “should have known better” given their experience in government service. Both defendants are expected to appear in court Monday afternoon.
U.S. Attorney Michael C. Graves of Washington, D.C. called the alleged cover-up of foreign contacts and financial relationships a “gateway to corruption” and credited the FBI with its handling of the “delicate and difficult” investigation of a former senior assistant director.
“McGonigal is alleged to have committed the very violations he swore to investigate while he purported to lead a workforce of FBI employees who spend their careers protecting secrets and holding foreign adversaries accountable,” said FBI Los Angeles Field Office Director Donald Alway, who announced the charges with Graves and the leaders of the Washington FBI and Justice Department national security division.
McGonigal faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the two D.C. counts of falsification of records and documents, and up to five years in prison for each of seven counts of concealing material facts or making false statements. The most serious charge in the New York indictment also carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/01/23/mcgonigal-deripaska-indictment-fbi/
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The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
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; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2