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25 May 21
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FOCUS: Bess Levin | Are Trump's Scottish Golf Courses a Front for Money Laundering?
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "Reuters reports that Avaaz, a human rights group, has filed a petition in Scotland's highest civil court seeking a judicial review of the government's decision to reject an 'unexplained wealth order' on Trump's local golf courses."
f you’ve been keeping up with the post-presidential life and times of Donald Trump, you know that unlike Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who left office and threw themselves into memoir-writing and painting, respectively, Trump spends his days telling people the election was stolen from him and amassing a list of legal problems that would make the Manson family blush. There are, of course, the 29 lawsuits and four criminal investigations against him and now, we can add a potential probe into his Scottish golf courses to the docket.
Reuters reports that Avaaz, a human rights group, has filed a petition in Scotland’s highest civil court seeking a judicial review of the government’s decision to reject an “unexplained wealth order” on Trump’s local golf courses. In February, Scottish Parliament voted 89-32 against the motion, which was brought by the Scottish Green Party and would have sought information on the source of the money the ex-president’s business used to buy property in Aberdeenshire, where he built a golf course and hotel, and Turnberry, a seaside course purchased for $60 million. After decades of financing property purchases with debt, Trump dropped more than $300 million in cash buying and developing the Scottish courses; according to Reuters, neither of them have turned a profit.
All of which has apparently struck some Scots as quite to very shady. Per Reuters:
[Patrick] Harvie, the Greens’ leader, has expressed concerns in Scottish Parliament over how the courses were funded. “Big questions remain over Trump’s business dealings in Scotland,” he said in February 2020. The purchase of the two courses, he said, “were part of Trump’s huge cash spending spree in the midst of a global financial crisis, while his son was bragging about money pouring in from Russia.” Harvie was referring to a comment attributed to Eric Trump by veteran golf writer James Dodson, who relayed a conversation with Trump’s son in a 2017 interview with National Public Radio. Dodson said Eric Trump told him the courses were financed with money from Russia.
The British government introduced unexplained wealth orders in 2018 to help authorities fight money laundering and target the illicit wealth of foreign officials. The orders do not trigger a criminal proceeding. But if the Trump Organization couldn’t satisfy the court that the money was clean, the government, in theory, could seize the properties.
When Parliament voted against Avaaz’s motion in February, Humza Yousaf, the justice minister and a member of the ruling Scottish National Party, argued that wealth orders should be brought by law enforcement, not politicians, saying, “There must not be political interference in the enforcement of the law,” according to Reuters. He added that the Civil Recovery Unit, an enforcement agency that reports to Scotland’s most senior legal officer, should “undertake the investigatory role.” Avaaz has challenged that argument, asking the Court of Session in Edinburgh to rule that Scotland’s ministers have sole responsibility to decide to apply for an unexplained wealth order and should not pass that responsibility to other people or institutions. It also insists that the legal standard for issuing a wealth order against Trump has already been met.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to Reuters’s request for comment. Eric Trump said in February that Scottish politicians who supported the unexplained wealth order were “advancing their personal agendas,” while claiming the Trump Organization had “made an overwhelming contribution to the leisure and tourism industry.” He also denied making the comment about Russia money to Dodson. Donald Trump insists he did not use Russia money to buy the golf courses.
In other Trump legal news, this month has not been a great on for the ex-prez. Last week, The New York Times reported that the New York attorney general’s office is criminally investigating Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, whose testimony against his boss could prove invaluable (Weisselberg’s lawyer declined the Times’ request for comment. Also last week, the attorney general’s office announced that it had shifted from a civil investigation into the Trump Organization to a criminal one, a development that could mean no good, very bad news not just for Trump but his preferred child, who has recently—for reasons that are unclear!— been playing dumb with investigators.
Trump’s election-fraud lackeys are already trying to rig the next election
This is extremely worrisome news for anyone who doesn’t want to live in a country where Trump is simply declared president for life. Per Politico:
Republicans who sought to undercut or overturn President Joe Biden’s election win are launching campaigns to become their states’ top election officials next year, alarming local officeholders and opponents who are warning about pro-Trump, “ends justify the means” candidates taking big roles in running the vote. The candidates include Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, a leader of the congressional Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results; Arizona state rep. Mark Finchem, one of the top proponents of the conspiracy-tinged vote audit in Arizona’s largest county; Nevada’s Jim Marchant, who sued to have his five-point congressional loss last year overturned; and Michigan’s Kristina Karamo, who made dozens of appearances in conservative media to claim fraud in the election
Now they are running for secretary of state in key battlegrounds that could decide control of Congress in 2022—and who wins the White House in 2024. Their candidacies come with former president Donald Trump still fixated on spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election, insisting he won and lying about widespread and systemic fraud. Each of their states has swung between the two parties over the last decade, though it is too early to tell how competitive their elections will be. The campaigns set up the possibility that politicians who have taken steps to undermine faith in the American democratic system could soon be the ones running it.
“Someone who is running for an election administration position, whose focus is not the rule of law but instead ‘the ends justifies the means,’ that’s very dangerous in a democracy,” Bill Gates, the Republican vice chair of the Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County, Arizona, told Politico. “This is someone who is trying to tear at the foundations of democracy.”
Judge rules Trump flack must pay media company thousands after suing it for accurate report about him slipping an abortion pill into the smoothie of a woman he’d gotten pregnant—and yes, that is a crazy series of words
Jason Miller may think twice before going after the free press again, though given whom he works for, the odds are he won’t. Per the Daily Beast:
A U.S. District Court judge in Florida has ordered Jason Miller, a spokesperson for former president Trump, to pay G/O Media $42,000 in legal expenses. The ruling comes after a federal appeals court rejected his second $100 million defamation suit against G/O, the parent company of Gizmodo, Jezebel, and other websites. A federal judge tossed Miller’s original lawsuit in 2019, finding that the now defunct website Splinter had accurately reported a 2018 viral story headlined, “Court Docs Allege Ex-Trump Staffer Drugged Woman He Got Pregnant With ‘Abortion Pill,’” which the Trump spokesperson claimed had cost him his contract as a paid political commenter for CNN. Miller had argued in his second attempt that those court documents were out of bounds, but last month a panel of judges on the 11th Circuit ruled that they were protected under New York fair reporting privilege and upheld the 2019 decision.
According to a court filing, Miller spiked the pregnant woman’s smoothie with an abortion pill upon learning she was pregnant; the pregnancy was terminated, and the woman almost went into a coma. And if you’re wondering if that was just a one-off scumbag moment for Miller, apparently it wasn’t! In March, The Guardian reported that the Trump spox pretended to have resigned from political strategy firm Teneo in order to hide his income of nearly $500,000 and dodge child support payments. (In a statement at the time, Miller denied any wrongdoing and claimed he’d paid thousands in child support. The mother of the child, former Trump staffer A.J. Delgado, has said that’s bullshit.)
Report: In break with tradition, president reads, exercises, speaks to his wife
According to a Washington Post investigation, Joe Biden is really shaking things up at the White House:
Biden begins his mornings with a workout that often includes lifting weights, and he meets regularly in person with a trainer. During the 2020 campaign, he biked regularly on both a traditional bike and a Peloton. His current Peloton preferences are something of a state secret, however; West Wing aides would not even reveal if he had brought the interactive stationary bike with him to the White House.... While still in the White House residence, he’s delivered a hard copy of “The Bulletin,” a compilation of the morning’s news clips. It includes local and national news, TV transcripts, editorials, and headlines from that day’s front-page stories. In deference to Biden’s hometown affections, his press aides often provide an added emphasis on stories from Delaware and Pennsylvania; a recent edition, for instance, included stories from The News Journal, the main paper in Wilmington, Delaware.
When he and first lady Jill Biden—whom he affectionately calls “Jilly”—are traveling, they call each other multiple times a day. Before or after most events, one longtime adviser said, the president calls his wife or one of his grandchildren and leaves long messages describing the crowd and the scene.
Trump, of course, was loath to read anything longer than a tweet, seemingly despised by his spouse, and believes exercise will kill you.
