Tuesday, August 06, 2024

Crooked Clarence belongs in prison

The crooked Supreme Court and its crooked judges led by the crookedest of all Clarence Thomas.  UPI reports:


Clarence Thomas continues to conceal international travel covered by a wealthy Republican donor, a top Democratic senator said as he revealed a previously undisclosed trip the Supreme Court justice and his wife enjoyed more than a decade ago aboard Harlan Crow's private jet.

Citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection records, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a letter Monday that Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, flew round trip aboard Crow's private jet from Hawaii to New Zealand in November of 2010.

The letter was addressed to Crow's lawyers in demand of financial and travel records concerning their client to see if personal trips involving Thomas were being used to evade paying taxes.

"I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill," Wyden said.



Here is the letter in full:


Michael D. Bopp
Partner
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
1050 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036-5306
Dear Mr. Bopp,
Thank you for your February 29th letter on behalf of your client, Harlan Crow, replying to
requests for information related to the Senate Committee on Finance’s (“The Committee”) investigation
into the tax treatment of the use of Mr. Crow’s superyacht and private aircraft. Unfortunately, your
evasive response has only heightened my concerns that Mr. Crow and his associates were involved in a
scheme to avoid paying taxes by claiming business deductions on personal travel. In particular, your
response did not address the simple question of whether Mr. Crow claimed any tax deductions on
expenses related to yacht and private aircraft use by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that you
have stated were for “personal hospitality”.
I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant
gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill. This concern is only heightened by the Committee’s
recent discovery of additional undisclosed international travel on Mr. Crow’s private jet by Justice
Thomas. As I consider legislative solutions to curb potentially abusive deductions, I am offering you one
final opportunity to address the tax treatment of yacht and jet trips involving Justice Thomas. I am also
offering you the chance to substantiate that the holding company for your client’s yacht, Rochelle
Charter, was genuinely engaged in for profit yacht chartering activities and not merely an entity used to
write off the cost of the Crow family’s luxurious lifestyle.
I. Refusal to clarify the tax treatment of yacht and private jet trips lavished on a public
official in the context of “personal hospitality”
As you are aware, your prior responses to the Committee state that all trips Justice Thomas took
on the Michaela Rose and private jets owned or chartered by Mr. Crow were in the context of “personal
hospitality”. Personal trips do not serve as a business purpose, which is required under tax laws to permit
costs associated with the trips to be tax deductible. On several occasions, I have asked directly how many
times Justice Thomas traveled aboard the Michaela Rose and private jets paid for by Mr. Crow, and
whether Mr. Crow deducted the costs of these particular trips on tax filings. These should not be difficult
questions to answer. The possibility that Mr. Crow may have lavished secret gifts on a sitting Supreme 
Court justice and then impermissibly reduced his taxable income by millions of dollars with impunity
requires legislative scrutiny.
I am also concerned that I have so far been unable to even determine the full extent of the
potential tax abuse at issue. Neither Mr. Crow nor Justice Thomas have disclosed the full scale of the
Thomas’s use of the Michaela Rose and private jets courtesy of Mr. Crow, even as the Congress
continues to uncover additional international private jet travel with Mr. Crow that Justice Thomas failed
to disclose on his ethics filings. For example, the Committee obtained international flight records showing
that on November 19, 2010, Justice Thomas and his wife flew from Hawaii to New Zealand on Mr.
Crow’s private jet, before flying back from New Zealand to Hawaii on the jet a week later on November
27, 2010.1
 Mr. Crow was also a passenger on these flights. To date, Justice Thomas has never disclosed
this private jet travel on any financial disclosure forms, even though Justice Thomas has amended
disclosures to reflect other international travel on Mr. Crow’s private jet.
Furthermore, it was revealed just a few weeks ago that Justice Thomas enjoyed complimentary
use of private jets paid for by Mr. Crow on 17 different occasions since 2016, with 9 of those flights
coming in the last three years. 2
 While Justice Thomas has only recently updated his financial disclosures
to include an eight-day voyage aboard the Michaela Rose in Indonesia in 2019, Justice Thomas still has
not disclosed other trips on the Michaela Rose. Public reports show evidence that Justice Thomas was a
passenger aboard the Michaela Rose in Greece, New Zealand and elsewhere.3

Additionally, a relative of Justice Thomas has stated that he personally witnessed Justice Thomas
travel aboard the Michaela Rose in the Caribbean, Russia and the Baltics, with the trip to Russia also
including helicopter ride(s).4
 The fact a Supreme Court Justice accepted free travel to Russia paid for by a
billionaire and failed to disclose the trip as required by law is undoubtedly concerning and merits
continued investigation. Other government officials have been charged for making false statements on
financial disclosures for less serious violations than the evidence suggests Justice Thomas committed.5
 I
seek to understand the means and scale of Mr. Crow’s undisclosed largesse to Justice Thomas to inform
several pieces of legislation that the Committee is drafting, including but not limited to: reforms to the tax
code concerning filing requirements for gift tax returns, audit requirements for Supreme Court Justices,
and comprehensive ethics reform that would strengthen the Ethics in Government Act and other laws
related to the disclosure of complimentary private jet and yacht travel by Supreme Court Justices.
1 Manifest, Arrivals and Departure Information for Private Aircraft N-900GX Housed in U.S. Customs and Border
Protection’s Automated Targeting System (ATS). Senate Finance Committee staff reviewed these records, which
identified Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia Thomas as passengers on N-900GX private aircraft
departing on November 19, 2010 from PHOG airport in Hawaii and landing in NZAA airport in New Zealand and
returning on November 27, 2010 from NZAA airport in New Zealand to PHOG airport in Hawaii.
2
 U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Durbin Reveals Omissions of Gifted Private Travel to Justice Clarence
Thomas from Harlan Crow (June 2024) https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/releases/durbin-reveals-omissionsof-gifted-private-travel-to-justice-clarence-thomas-from-harlan-crow.
3
 ProPublica, Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire (Apr. 2023) https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomasscotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow.
4
 ProPublica, Clarence Thomas had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition. (May 2023)
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-school-tuition-scotus
5
 In 2016, the Department of Justice prosecuted a former Drug Enforcement Agency official for false statements
under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 for failing to disclose gifts of private air travel received from 2010 through 2014. Also in
2016, the Department of Justice charged a Department of Veterans Affairs official under § 1001 for failing to
disclose approximately $21,000 in gifts consisting in part of airline tickets and resort services. In 2010, the
Department of Justice prosecuted a Department of Housing and Urban Development official under U.S.C. § 1018
for his failure to disclose luxury sports tickets from someone with business before his agency. The officials pleaded
guilty and received criminal sentences.
II. Ample evidence indicates that Mr. Crow’s yacht chartering business has long lacked a for
profit motive
Second, I’d like to address your admission that the Michaela Rose has never been chartered out to
any individuals or entities unrelated to Mr. Crow.6
 In fact, based on the Committee’s investigation, it
appears that the Michaela Rose has never been available for charter to any potential customers that did
not include Mr. Crow’s family or businesses owned and controlled by the Crow family.7
 This is not how a conventional business operates and casts doubt on whether Rochelle Charter was in fact engaged in forprofit activities as defined by the tax code. Furthermore, such a payment structure raises questions as to whether payments made by Crow affiliated entities to use the yacht were truly arm’s length transactions.

For example, according to reports Rochelle Charter reported losses for more than 10 years, each
year from 2003 – 2015, while it was still organized as an S corporation, racking up $8 million in losses
during that period.8
 In turn, those losses were then used to help Mr. Crow avoid paying millions in taxes
by offsetting income.9
 It remains unclear whether Rochelle Charter ever turned a profit during that period,
and how Rochelle Charter’s gross income compared to its losses over the same period. Additionally, it
remains unclear what business income supports Mr. Crow’s efforts to write off $1.8 million worth of
expenses, including renovations, in 2014. 10 Simply put, a business owner with a genuine profit motive
would not operate a business at a loss for more than a decade with no potential for growth and no
discernable effort to turn a profit.
As it stands, IRS regulations specify that the history of income, losses and profits is a key factor
used to determine whether a chartering business has a profit motive. While the regulations recognize that
profitable businesses may suffer periods of losses, particularly at the start of an enterprise or unforeseen
natural disasters or depressed economic conditions, sustained losses over a long period may suggest a
lack of a profit motive.11 In Hylton v. Commissioner, the court wrote that “a record of large losses over
many years and the unlikelihood of achieving profitability are persuasive evidence that a taxpayer did not
have such an [for profit] objective.” 12
These factors have played a major role in previous efforts by the IRS to successfully disallow
large deductions associated with yachting and other business associated with activities that have a heavy
-----------------------
6 Letter from Michael Bopp on behalf of client, Harlan Crow, to Senator Ron Wyden, Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Feb. 29, 2024. (At pg. 3: “Rochelle Charter’s business has historically involved chartering the Michaela Rose to the extensive network of entities affiliated with the Crow family, as well as to members of the Crow family on occasions when they choose to charter the boat for personal or other non-business purposes.”) 7 Id. (At pg. 7. “As discussed above, Rochelle Charter offers chartering services at fair market rates to both members of the Crow family and to various affiliated businesses for use by them and their employees.”) 8 ProPublica, How Harlan Crow Slashed his Tax Bill by Taking Clarence Thomas on Superyacht Cruises (July 2023) https://www.propublica.org/article/harlan-crow-slashed-tax-bill-clarence-thomas-superyacht 9 Id. 10 Id. 11 26 CFR § 1.183-2 (Activity not Engaged in for Profit Defined - (6) The taxpayer's history of income or losses with respect to the activity. A series of losses during the initial or start-up stage of an activity may not necessarily be an indication that the activity is not engaged in for profit. However, where losses continue to be sustained beyond the period which customarily is necessary to bring the operation to profitable status such continued losses, if not explainable, as due to customary business risks or reverses, may be indicative that the activity is not being engaged in for profit. If losses are sustained because of unforeseen or fortuitous circumstances which are beyond the control of the taxpayer, such as drought, disease, fire, theft, weather damages, other involuntary conversions, or depressed market conditions, such losses would not be an indication that the activity is not engaged in for profit. A series of years in which net income was realized would of course be strong evidence that the activity is engaged in for profit.) 12 Hylton v. Comm’r, 112 T.C.M. (CCH) 701, 729 (2016). 




element of personal enjoyment and recreation. For example, in Steiner v. Commissioner, the IRS disallowed large income tax deductions for expenses associated with a couple’s yacht charter activity. Among the reasons cited by the IRS was that “the charter activity was unprofitable each year of its operation.”13 Similarly, in Hylton v. Commissioner, the court disallowed large deductions from horse breeding expenses in large part because the business generated losses of $17 million compared gross income of just $1.2 million over a 17 year period.14 Additionally, IRS regulations specify that if a taxpayer has substantial income from sources other than the charter activity (particularly if the losses from the activity generate substantial tax benefits), such facts may also indicate that the yacht chartering activity may lack a for profit motive.15 In Steiner, the court wrote that during the years at issue, the family had “significant income and claimed sizable tax benefits from the losses generated by the charter activity.”16 Similarly, in Hylton the court wrote that the individual received $89 million in other income while claiming tax benefits from losses related to the horse breeding business.17 

I believe these fact patterns mirror that of Rochelle Charter’s own financial record of sustained
losses and lack of profits over the course of a decade, but I am writing to offer you another chance to
credibly distinguish this conduct from that disallowed by the courts. Absent further explanation, the
information that has emerged involving Rochelle Charter and Mr. Crow has all the markings of a tax
scheme to write off the cost of operating and maintaining a pleasure yacht used entirely for the Crow
family’s enjoyment. Rochelle Charter racked up losses over a decade and then used those losses to
generate a tax benefit for Mr. Crow by reducing his taxable income by millions of dollars. To any
objective observer, these facts do not paint a picture of a legitimate yacht charter business engaged in for
profit. As it stands, I believe these facts may constitute either unacceptable tax avoidance, or worse,
outright tax evasion. It is of the upmost importance that this Committee continue to investigate and close
off opportunities for the ultra-wealthy to gain dubious tax breaks on their luxury spending.
III. Conclusion
As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, I have long been concerned that the ultrawealthy may be engaged in abusive tax schemes to use luxury assets like superyachts and private aircrafts
to illegally or inappropriately reduce their taxable income. The tax code makes clear that the use of a
superyacht or private jet for personal purposes is not a legitimate business use and therefore any related
costs cannot be claimed as a deduction. Any effort to mischaracterize expenses from trips involving
personal hospitality as business expenses is a run of the mill tax scam, plain and simple. 
--------------------------
13 Steiner v. Comm’r, 117 T.C.M. (CCH) 1114, 1119 (2019). 14 Hylton v. Comm’r, 112 T.C.M. (CCH) 701, 729 (2016) “Petitioner’s ownership and operation of HQH generated substantial losses from 1998 – 2014, which she used to offset taxable income from other sources. Although losses in the formative years of a business are not inconsistent with a profit objective, the goal must be to realize a profit on the entire operation, which presupposes sufficient future net earnings from the activity to recoup the losses. In the present case, petitioner owned and operated HQH for 17 years and claimed losses of $17.378 million compared with reporting gross income before expenses of $1.279 million over the same period.” 15 26 CFR § 1.183-2 - Activity not engaged in for profit defined. ((b) (8) The financial status of the taxpayer. The fact that the taxpayer does not have substantial income or capital from sources other than the activity may indicate that an activity is engaged in for profit. Substantial income from sources other than the activity (particularly if the losses from the activity generate substantial tax benefits) may indicate that the activity is not engaged in for profit especially if there are personal or recreational elements involved.) 16 Steiner v. Comm’r, 117 T.C.M. (CCH) 1114, 1119 (2019)

17 Hylton v. Comm’r, 112 T.C.M. (CCH) 701, 729 (2016)

Unfortunately, your prior responses to the Committee have done nothing to address concerns that personal trips aboard Mr. Crow’s superyacht and private jets for lavish vacations, including complimentary private jet travel for Justice Thomas, may have been used to help Mr. Crow avoid or evade paying federal taxes. This is not a particularly complicated matter. Mr. Crow could easily clarify for the Committee whether tax deductions were claimed on superyacht and private jet use by Justice Thomas, but he refuses to do so. This is particularly troubling in light of the Committee’s discovery of additional lavish international travel by Justice Thomas at Mr. Crow’s expense that Justice Thomas has failed to properly disclose. This is unfortunately a situation without precedent in our nation’s history. For decades, Justice Thomas has failed to disclose complimentary use of Mr. Crow’s superyacht and private jet(s), concealing from the American people millions of dollars’ worth of gifts in a manner that likely violated federal law. These trips may have also been used to help Mr. Crow avoid or evade paying a substantial amount of federal income taxes. 
Accordingly, the Committee seeks to understand the means and scale of Mr. Crow’s undisclosed
largesse to Justice Thomas to inform several pieces of legislation that the Committee is drafting. This
legislation includes, but is not limited to: reforms to the tax code concerning filing requirements for gift
tax returns, audit requirements for Supreme Court Justices, and comprehensive ethics reform that would
strengthen the Ethics in Government Act and other laws related to the disclosure of complimentary
private jet and yacht travel by Supreme Court Justices. Please provide answers to the following questions
no later than August 26, 2024:
1. For tax year 2010 – 2022, please provide any financial statements for Rochelle Charter prepared
for creditors, shareholders or other stakeholders. If financial statements are not available, please
provide a copy of the trial balance or profit and loss statement for the years at issue.
2. For tax years 2010 – 2022 please identify the revenue reported by Rochelle Charter attributable to
unrelated third parties (here meaning any individuals or entities that do not include related parties
as identified under section 267 of the Internal Revenue Code).
3. For tax years 2020 – 2022, for each year please provide gross income before expenses, expenses
and losses reported on Form 1120S, 1120, 1065 and 1040, as applicable.
4. For all years between 2010 and 2014 provide copies of all yacht charter agreements or contracts
to charter out the Michaela Rose. This should include the price charged for each charter, the
individual or entity chartering the yacht, as well as the method used to determine the price
charged.
5. Please provide copies of any service agreements or contracts that govern related-party charters for
the Michaela Rose including agreements to charter the Michaela Rose for use by any Crow
family members, Crow family businesses or their employees.
6. Has Rochelle Charter ever formally engaged any yacht brokers, charter brokerage companies or

other agents with the intent to charter the Michaela Rose out to any parties unrelated to Crow
family or Crow family businesses? If so, please identify them, when they were first engaged and
whether those services ever resulted in any yacht chartering business with individuals or entities
unrelated to the Crow family

7. While Rochelle Charter was still an S corporation did it ever report a profit? If so, for each year
Rochelle Charter reported a profit please specify how much.
8. Did Justice Thomas ever reimburse Mr. Crow for November 2010 round trip flights aboard Mr.
Crow’s private jet from Hawaii to New Zealand? Please also clarify whether Justice Thomas also
traveled on any private jets paid for by Mr. Crow from Washington, D.C. or elsewhere in the U.S.
to Hawaii prior to departing to New Zealand.
9. When Justice Thomas traveled with Mr. Crow to New Zealand in November 2010, did the trip to
New Zealand also include Justice Thomas as a passenger on any voyages aboard the Michaela
Rose or any other yachts owned or chartered by Mr. Crow?
10. Has Mr. Crow ever paid for Justice Thomas and his family to travel to Russia? If so, please
provide a detailed description of the trip, including a list of countries visited (including any
nations in the Baltics), whether the trip involved any private jet, yacht and helicopter travel.
Please also provide a cost estimate for the trip. 


11. Please provide a detailed list of all instances in which Justice Clarence Thomas has been a guest
aboard Mr. Crow’s superyacht, the Michaela Rose. For each of these trips, please provide the
following:
a. The date, location and duration of stay for each instance in which Justice Thomas was a
guest aboard the Michaela Rose
b. For each instance in which Justice Thomas traveled aboard the Michaela Rose, please
indicate whether any trade or business:
i. Included the value of the use of the yacht as a taxable fringe benefit to the
owner(s)
ii. Depreciated the yacht to the extent of qualified business use
iii. Deducted operating costs (e.g. fuel, labor, food, renovations/upgrades, etc.)
attributable to these particular trips; or,

12. Please provide a detailed list of all flights Justice Clarence Thomas has taken on any private jets
under Mr. Crow's ownership or control or under the ownership and control of any entities in
which Mr. Crow is a partner, director or officer, including Crow Holdings and its subsidiaries.
For each of these flights, please include the following information:
a. The date, point of departure and final destination for each flight.
b. Whether Justice Thomas ever made any reimbursements for his travel on the private jet to
the individual or entity that paid for the flight.
c. For each flight on which Justice Thomas was a passenger, please indicate whether any
trade or business:
i. Included the value of the flights as a taxable fringe benefit to the owner(s),
ii. Depreciated the private jet to the extent of qualified business use,
iii. Deducted operating costs (e.g., fuel, labor, food, etc.) attributable to these
particular trips; or,
iv. For flights that are used for personal reasons as well as mixed use reasons (i.e.,
both personal and business reasons), whether logs were kept to determine and 

substantiate proper income inclusion (e.g., all employee travelers, number of
family members or guests accompanying the employee, weight class of the
aircraft, distance flown, flight hours, etc.).
13. For each of the following instances where Mr. Crow paid for Justice Thomas to travel by private
jet, please indicate whether any trade or business affiliated with Mr. Crow or members of the
Crow family deducted any costs attributable to these particular trips:

a. November 2010 private jet flight from Hawaii to New Zealand
b. November 2010 private jet flight from New Zealand to Hawaii
c. February 2016 private jet flight from Washington, D.C. to New Haven, CT
d. February 2016 private jet flight from New Haven, CT to Washington, D.C.
e. May 2017 private jet flight from St. Louis, MO, to Kalispell, MT
f. May 2017 private jet flight from Kalispell, MT to Dallas, TX
g. March 2019 private jet flight from Washington, DC, to Savannah, GA
h. March 2019 private jet flight from Savannah, GA to Washington, D.C.
i. June 2019 private jet flight(s) from Washington D.C. to Indonesia (CBP flight records
reviewed by the Committee indicate there was a stopover at PGUM airport in Guam
before reaching final destination)
j. July 2019 private flight(s) from Indonesia to Washington, D.C. (CBP flight records
reviewed by the Committee indicate there was a stopover at PGUM airport in Guam
before reaching final destination).
k. June 2021 private jet flight from Washington, DC, to San Jose, CA
l. June 2021 private jet flight from San Jose, CA to Washington D.C.
m. October 2021 private jet flight from Washington, D.C. to New York City
n. October 2021 private jet flight from New York City to Washington, D.C.
o. February 2022 private jet flight from Dallas, TX to Washington, D.C.
p. May 2022 private jet flight from Washington, D.C. to Dallas, TX
q. May 2022 private jet flight from Dallas, TX to Washington, D.C.
r. July 2022 private jet flight from Washington, D.C. to upstate New York

s. July 2022 private jet flight from upstate New York to Washington, D.C.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. Please don’t hesitate to contact Patricio Gonzalez
from my staff if you have any questions or wish to discuss this request.
Sincerely,
Ron Wyden
United States Senator
Chairman, Committee on
Finance


He's a crook.  Not only should he not be on the bench, he should be in prison.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, August 6, 2024.  Convicted Felon Donald Trump is now accused of accepting a ten-million-dollar bribe from the government of Egypt, five US troops are injured in Iraq, Kamala Harris is set to name her running mate today, and much more.


Last week, two 23-year-old Americans died in Iraq.  Spc Travis Jordan Pameni and Spc Owen James Elliott's deaths are under investigation by the DoD.   This morning,  Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart (AFR) report, "At least five US personnel were injured in an attack against a military base in Iraq on Monday, US officials told Reuters, as the Middle East braced for a possible new wave of attacks by Iran and its allies following last week’s killing of senior members of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah."  Karwan Faidhi Dri (RUDAW) adds, "A local official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Rudaw that the rockets were launched from the industrial subdistrict of al-Haqlaniyah in Haditha district. The source added that the target appeared to be Iraq’s Ain al-Asad airbase, but the initial rockets failed to hit the site."  US President Joe Biden Tweeted the following:



For those who don't click on the link to expand the Tweet, here it is in full:


Earlier,
@VP
and I were briefed in the Situation Room on developments in the Middle East. We received updates on threats posed by Iran and its proxies, diplomatic efforts to de-escalate regional tensions, and preparations to support Israel should it be attacked again. We also discussed the steps we are taking to defend our forces and respond to any attack against our personnel in a manner and place of our choosing.



In other White House and Middle East news, let's drop back to yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!



AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn now to a major investigation by The Washington Post into Donald Trump’s relationship with the Egyptian government, which reportedly tried to funnel $10 million in cash to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The cash weighed about 200 pounds when it was withdrawn from a state-run bank in Cairo at the request of an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service, just five days before Trump took office as president in 2017. The Post reports Trump earlier gave the same amount to his own campaign, and investigators suspected Trump expected to be repaid by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. But questions about the transaction went unanswered by the Justice Department under Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr, who closed the case, citing, quote, “a lack of sufficient evidence” — a decision one DOJ official called “jaw-dropping.”

For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by one of the reporters who broke this story. Carol Leonnig is the national investigative reporter for The Washington Post who focuses on White House and government accountability. Her new piece is headlined “$10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt.”

Carol, thanks so much for being with us. Why don’t you start off with how you began this story in The Washington Post?

CAROL LEONNIG: My colleague Aaron Davis and I began this work while we were doing research for a book about the Justice Department under Donald Trump and under President Biden. In that research, we discovered far more details than we expected about an incredibly secretive probe. This probe began in early 2017 with what investigators at the Department of Justice called “jaw-dropping intelligence.”

The CIA alerted the Department of Justice days after Donald Trump was elected that they had what they considered pretty reliable information from an informant indicating that the president of Egypt planned or wanted to or ordered $10 million injected into Donald Trump’s — then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign to help him get reelected. That would be illegal, and hiding that money would be money laundering. And if Donald Trump had taken that money, it would potentially be bribery and compromise of a sitting president by a foreign government.

DOJ investigators saw this as extremely disturbing and worrisome and eventually alerted top officials at the department who decided that Robert Mueller should take on the investigation. He had just newly been appointed in May of 2017 and was looking into foreign interference by Russia in the 2016 election, and now they wanted him to also look at this secret matter. Nothing about this was ever known to the public at the time.

What happened next, in the next phase, was that Mueller’s team, almost as they are shutting down their office in 2019, finally win a lengthy appeals court battle, a secret one, that closed down the federal courthouse in D.C. to sort of conceal the nature of the debate inside the hearing room. They obtain a record that seems to corroborate the intelligence. It shows that there was a $10 million cash withdrawal, very mysterious, people walking out of a bank branch near the Cairo airport with a large portion of all the U.S. bills then in the entire Egyptian banking system in duffel bags. No one signs for it. It comes out of a spy-linked account. And the reason this was so important, Amy, was, obviously, $10 million in cash walking out of a bank is a big deal, but it came out of the account linked to Egypt’s spy agency, essentially Egypt’s CIA. And that is what the original intelligence suggested, that el-Sisi, the president of Egypt, wanted to use his spy agency to get the money to Trump.

So, these things were lining up, but Mueller is leaving the building. He is now closing shop in early 2019 and hands off this investigation to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. The boss of this investigation ultimately is the new attorney general, Bill Barr. It’s run by the U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, who tells her investigators, “This is pretty impressive stuff,” but she wants to brief Barr on the matter. An investigation of a sitting president has to be briefed to the attorney general. But she returns from meeting with him and reviewing the evidence at the CIA with a different posture. Investigators feel that she’s done a 180. She was supportive of them continuing this investigation, and now she is telling them she doesn’t want to approve their subpoena for Trump’s bank records. These records were key, in their view, to determine: Did the money from Cairo that was mysteriously withdrawn five days before Donald Trump was elected, did it somehow return in some form to any of Donald Trump’s personal or campaign accounts? And they were blocked from doing that.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Carol Leonnig, talk about the meeting that at-the-time presidential candidate Donald Trump had with Sisi on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that took place in the fall, months before President Trump took office.

CAROL LEONNIG: Yes. This meeting was very interesting to investigators later. And here are the two reasons why. Donald Trump was trying to burnish his foreign policy credentials and bona fides. He didn’t have a lot of experience in government, as he has already acknowledged himself, and so he wanted to show that he could make deals with foreign governments and foreign leaders, he could establish important relationships.

He meets with el-Sisi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, which is held each year, and it’s September 20th, 2016. At that time, Donald Trump’s campaign was cash-starved. He was running out of money, and his advisers were trying to convince him to cut a check from his own accounts to help fund the last little bit of media buys that the campaign needed to purchase in order to stay, you know, vibrant and alive in the race. And he did not want to put any more of his own money in the campaign, because he thought he was going to lose. But after he meets el-Sisi — and he does this privately, Amy; some of it’s public, but some of the meeting is just him, el-Sisi and an interpreter from Egypt. And investigators found that very curious, because then, on October 28th, a month later, Donald Trump does agree to write a check to his own campaign, after much, much pleading from his advisers. Investigators saw this as an important moment: why, if Donald Trump had been absolutely insisting he wouldn’t donate to his campaign anymore, he finally did.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Carol Leonnig, you write in the piece — this would be an answer to the question: Well, why would Sisi want to have sway over President Trump? You write, “Over the course of his presidency, Trump shifted U.S. policy in ways that benefited the Egyptian leader, a man he was called 'my favorite dictator.' In 2018, Trump’s State Department released $195 million in military aid … the [U.S.] had been withholding over human rights abuses — a move that had been opposed by his first secretary of state — followed by the release of $1.2 billion more in such assistance.” Carol Leonnig?

CAROL LEONNIG: You know, Donald Trump really flipped the switch on U.S. policy towards Egypt. You may and your listeners may know that el-Sisi was viewed by the United States as both an ally, but a worrisome ally. Egypt is very important to the United States’ position in the Middle East, but el-Sisi had risen to power through a violent coup, a military coup. And in the wake of his rise to power, it became known that he was suspected to have played a key role in the military killing of supporters of his opponent, who had been democratically elected. He was also viewed as very comfortable with a host of human rights abuses against opponents and critics in his country and trying to violently shut down that opposition, using military and spy power to do that. So the United States viewed him with a little bit of remove and had put a hold on this very valuable military aid and had asked him and pressed him numerous times to do better on human rights at home.

But when Donald Trump got into office, he didn’t have any of those restrictions. He insisted that one of his first officials that he was going to meet as president was el-Sisi, something his own advisers encouraged him not to do, because that was showing too much support to the Egyptian president. Rex Tillerson, his then-secretary of state, counseled Trump not to release this military aid, that it would be too generous, and el-Sisi had done nothing to improve his record on democracy and free and fair elections and human rights record. Nothing. And so, Trump fired Tillerson and ordered the release of this aid.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Carol, “In the years since the Egypt case was closed,” you write, “the Sisi regime’s ambitions to influence senior U.S. government officials have been laid bare by the bribery conviction of [New Jersey Democratic] Sen. Bob Menendez, the former [chair] of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.” Can you draw that line, a man who was about to be sentenced in October, just before the election?

CAROL LEONNIG: Well, the key thing to know here is there was a very full and expansive investigation, with no holds barred, to figure out: Was Senator Menendez a foreign agent of the Egyptian government? There were records searched, encrypted signals, communications gathered, and what they found was he was. He was receiving money from an Egyptian national who was doing the bidding of Egyptian spy and military leaders, and ultimately from the Sisi regime. He was giving information to the Egyptian officials at high levels, including information that was deemed secret by our U.S. government, about our U.S. personnel in the Egyptian Embassy.

And what is also, to me, really striking, Amy, is el-Sisi has relied on his Egyptian version of the CIA, called the General Intelligence Service, to push his agenda abroad in the United States and to tamp down criticism at home. And here, the General Intelligence Service was a critical feature of reaching out to and intervening and directing Senator Menendez. And it was the General Intelligence Service accounts from which the $10 million in the Donald Trump investigation had been withdrawn five days before Donald Trump was elected. The same agency, the same government account was, according to the intelligence, at work trying to find a way to get money to Donald Trump. But that investigation was not allowed to proceed.

AMY GOODMAN: Carol Leonnig, we just have 20 seconds. Could this bribery investigation into Donald Trump be reopened?

CAROL LEONNIG: The information could be gathered. There could be an investigation that looked more deeply and looked at the actual records the original investigators wanted to. But the chances for prosecuting anyone who played a role in this and committed a crime are extremely low. The statute of limitations is over, and it’s unlikely that that could change.

AMY GOODMAN: Carol Leonnig, national investigative reporter for The Washington Post. We’ll link to your exclusive report, written with Aaron Davis, “$10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt.”


Aaron C. Davis was the co-author of THE WASHINGTON POST report and he discussed the revelations Saturday on MSNBC.



In other news, today the Democratic Party's presidential nominee Kamala Harris is supposed to announce her running mate.  






What idiot sees Shapiro as a candidate who will help the ticket?


We haven't even gotten to the worst of it.


There's now the issue of a column he wrote in college.  Mike Allen (AXIOS) mis-reports on that column:


A 31-year-old clip surfaced from Shapiro's college newspaper, in which he wrote that Palestinians were "too battle-minded" and "peace between Arabs and Israelis is virtually impossible and will never come."

  • The opinion piece, "Peace not possible," ran in the Campus Times at the University of Rochester on Sept. 23, 1993.
  • Shapiro told reporters Friday that the column doesn't represent his views today: "I was 20."


Before he wrote the column, he had already decided on a career in politics and already been elected student body  president at the University of Rochester so let's not pretend that he was some young, naive student.  He was a craven opportunist even back then (yes, Senator John Fetterman is correct about that).  Equally true, that 1993 opinion resurfaced in late 2023 as he once again began attacking Palestinians and those who publicly defended them as the government of Israel began the 300-plus-days assault on Gaza.


But more to the point, Shapiro is who JD Vance wants to debate, wants to run against. 


And a lot of people writing columns in support of Josh and a lot reporting on him grasp that which is why they write garbage like Mike Allen did -- garbage that ignores the explosive part of the column which, believe it or not, is not Josh Shapiro's hatred for Palestinians and his xenophobia.


No, the explosive part is when Shapiro wrote, "Despite my skepticism as a Jew and as a past volunteer in the Israeli army, I strongly hope and pray that this 'peace plan' will be successful."

 

Despite my skepticism as a Jew and as a past volunteer in the Israeli army?

 

Shapiro's team has rushed to insist that the 20-year-old mistyped and he was never in the Israeli army -- not even, they insist, as a volunteer.

 

He said what he said.


Unless you read AXIOS which has refused to cover that reality.  Not just the laughable 'journalist' Mike Allen -- the 60-year-old weirdo who has found in AXIOS another outlet to fail at.  

"Despite my skepticism as a Jew and as a past volunteer in the Israeli army"?  Shapiro wrote it.  But in AXIOS' coverage, they don't mention that reality even when allegedly reporting on the column.  April Rubin continues the refusal to report honestly in her AXIOS report on Shapiro.

Back to Ava and my piece:

And if you're not getting how that's a deal breaker, think back to JD Vance getting all pissy when called on his rude remarks about people without children.  He served! He raged that he served his country in the military!!!!

 

Now, as Elaine's pointed out, he's not really a combat veteran despite serving in war zones because he wasn't really serving as a combat soldier:

 

Let me get this right, Skidmarks Vance who tries to play combat veteran to the public, was actually in Iraq for six months as "a military journalist."  From WIKIPEDIA:


After graduating from Middletown High School in 2003,[19] Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Iraq as a combat correspondent for six months in late 2005.[20] He was part of the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing[21][22] and said that his service "taught me how to live like an adult" and that he was "lucky to escape any real fighting".[23] His decorations included the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.[20]



He's not a combat veteran.  He's a joke.  He 'served' in Iraq . . . as a journalist.  What?  The USO was full? 

 

It's not necessary that Kamala pick a running mate who served in the military.  (Walz was in the National Guard and Kelly was in the Navy.)  It is necessary that she pick someone who won't provide easy ammo for the Trump campaign.


JD Vance will make the argument that while he was serving in the US military, Josh Shapiro was serving in the Israeli military.  And the weak comeback of: no, no, he didn't, he mispoke won't mean a damn thing.  Because Josh did go to Israel to serve.  Military or not, he went to Israel to serve.  (And let's note that we don't know what he did in Israel -- no one does.  With his own hands, he wrote that he served in the Israeli military.  From the mouths of his team, we hear that's not the case.)


He went to Israel.  This wasn't Peace Corps work, grasp that.  This wasn't helping a poverty stricken nation, grasp that.


He was an American citizen and he elected to volunteer to help a government -- a foreign government.


If you missed it, the US government is now wanting US flags to be made in the US.  It's a new fever of patriotism and the man who could serve the government of Israel but not his own country looks suspect. 


Is he wanting to be vice president to serve the United States or to serve Israel?


When he felt the need to volunteer, it wasn't for America.  When he felt the need to get married, America wasn't good enough for him then either.  He and his American bride got married in Israel.


Donald Trump is currently still questioning whether or not Kamala is Black.  Previously, he questioned whether or not Barack Obama was born in this country.


It's not a stretch of the imagination to picture Donald at one of his rallies yelling something like, "For all I know, he's a citizen of Israel -- an Israeli-American."

 

Josh's own actions and remarks have made himself the other.  He's far too tied to another nation to be seen by most Americans as someone who will put the United States first.

 

And we don't have time to waste, over the next two and a half months, putting aside the party's message, setting aside the issues, to turn into a 24-7 rapid response team for a lousy vice presidential pick.  Anyone with a brain should be able to grasp that Shapiro is.


Shapiro is a lousy choice.  Sam Seder addressed that on yesterday's MAJORITY REPORT.



Turning to the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) writes:


A top Israeli official suggested on Monday that he believes it is “morally justified” for Israel to wipe out Gaza’s population through famine and starvation, in chilling statements that pro-Palestine advocates say openly indicate genocidal intent.

Speaking at a conference hosted by the far right Israel Hayom newspaper, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich complained about having to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying that international norms are stopping Israel from taking what he claims is the “moral” path of starving 2 million Palestinians to death.

“We are bringing in aid because there is no choice,” Smotrich said, Israeli outlets reported. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned.”

“Humanitarian in exchange for humanitarian is morally justified, but what can we do? We live today in a certain reality, we need international legitimacy for this war,” he went on.

His mention of 2 million civilians appears to be in reference to Gaza’s pre-genocide population of of roughly 2.2 million people, including 600,000 children.

Smotrich’s statement represents yet another brazen and horrifying call for the annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza, with Israeli officials repeatedly issuing public calls for mass death and ethnic cleansing over the course of their genocide.

The comment is indicative of Israel’s intent to commit genocide. Although Israeli officials have insisted in public statements that they are simply hunting down Hamas soldiers, many reports have indicated that the Israeli military considers any Palestinian — adult or child — to be a potential Hamas soldier. This is also evident from the vast civilian death toll of Israel’s indiscriminate extermination campaign so far.


The Israeli government continues to face international condemnation for its murder of jounalists.  ALJAZEERA notes:

The UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression has condemned Israel’s killing last week of Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi in Gaza, urging that their deaths be prosecuted as a war crime.

“I strongly denounce the deliberate targeting by Israel of two journalists in Gaza, which adds to an already appalling toll of reporters and media workers killed in this war,” Irene Khan said in a statement.

The two men were killed in a July 31 air strike by the Israeli military, which said al-Ghoul was a Hamas operative who took part in the October 7 attack against Israel.

Al Jazeera has rejected what it said are “baseless allegations”, saying that journalism was his only profession.

“Given Israel’s failure to heed earlier calls for accountability, I urge the International Criminal Court to move swiftly to prosecute the killings of journalists in Gaza as a war crime and call on the international community to urgently consider the use of international mechanisms to investigate crimes against journalists in Gaza,” Khan added.


The number of journalists killed in Gaza by the Israeli government stands at over 160.



Gaza remains under assault. Day 305 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."   THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza's Health Ministry on Tuesday said that at least 39,653 Palestinians were killed and 91,535 injured in the Israel-Gaza conflict since October 7.  The latest toll includes 30 people killed and 66 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added." Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 


The following sites updated:



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