U.S. tanks roll into Germany to protect against potential Russian invasion
Congress
Cabinet hearings will begin tomorrow, before any nominees have completed FBI background checks. Ethics lawyers for both Bush and Obama say that Trump’s cabinet hearings must be delayed until both FBI and OGE have vetted them. Reince Priebus says there’s no reason to do background checks because, “These are people that have been highly successful in their lives.”
Trump
Trump appears to have used his real estate holdings to launder Russian mob money.
The second Financial Times article puts Trump at the middle of a money laundering scheme, in which his real estate deals were used to hide not just an infusion of capital from Russia and former Soviet states, but to launder hundreds of millions looted by oligarchs. All Trump had to do was close his eyes to the source of the money, and suddenly empty apartments were going for top dollar.
Journalist Adam Kahn has a long Twitter thread linking Trump’s failed casinos with Russian money laundering, including a record fine imposed on Trump Taj Mahal in March 2015.
Trump Is Letting Go the People in Charge of Maintaining Our Nuclear Arsenal. I wish I were making up this quote as an amusing bit of hyperbole, but alas:
The source later added, “I’m more and more coming around to the idea that we’re so very very fucked.”
Kushner officially has a White House job, which is illegal if you consider the White House a federal agency. He’s planning to divest… sort of.
Matthew T. Sanderson, a lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale and former general counsel to Senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, said that, ideally, the transactions would be independent of the person selling the asset.
But as outlined by Ms. Gorelick, Mr. Sanderson said, the plan falls short of that standard. Not only does Mr. Kushner intend to sell the assets to his brother, Joshua, a venture capitalist, and to a trust controlled by his mother, Seryl, but his mother and siblings are the beneficiaries of the trust.
“It sounds like a shell game to me,” Mr. Sanderson said.
Trump insists that Obama didn’t get into Harvard Law on his own merits, but…
Jared Kushner was admitted to Harvard because his father stapled a $2.5M chk to his application #trumpleaks via @VOICEOFCHID #theresistance pic.twitter.com/rOS9FWYZck
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) January 8, 2017
Trump is taking credit for a deal Chrysler struck with the UAW over a year ago.
Yep. They announced this 16 months ago. It was an agreement with UAW. A labor union. They got this done, not you. https://t.co/wE6iOj3JXk
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) January 9, 2017
Trump has dropped the 89-year-old announcer who’s worked on every inauguration since Eisenhower. What a petty asshole.
Transition Team & Cabinet Appointees
Betsy DeVos’s confirmation hearing has been postponed to January 17. She still owes $5 million in elections fines dating back to 2008.
Jeff Sessions failed to disclose his oil interests. Fellow Congressmen John Lewis and Cory Booker will both testify against his confirmation on Wednesday.
This would be the first time in Senate history that a sitting senator will testify against another sitting senator for a Cabinet post during a confirmation.
Under Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobile did business with Iran while it was under US sanctions. And Syria. And Sudan.
Monica Crowley plagiarized her dissertation as well as her book.
Other Fascist Nonsense
Jewish centers in at least six states all receive bomb threats on the same day.
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