Elizabeth Warren Torches Trump’s Sister in Anti-corruption Plan

Since announcing her candidacy for president in February, Elizabeth Warren has rolled out one comprehensive plan after the next for how to deal with issues plaguing ordinary Americans, policy proposals that Donald Trump has most assuredly not read because, according to those close to him, he’s barely literate. But Warren‘s anti-corruption plan unveiled Monday presumably did grab the president’s attention, since it goes after his sister Maryanne Trump Barry for resigning as a federal appellate judge in order to end an inquiry into her role in the family’s long history of dodging taxes.

In a Medium post published this morning, the 2020 Democratic hopeful declares that, as president, she would close the loophole that lets federal judges escape misconduct investigations by stepping down from their position. That change, she writes, would affect people like Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, who resigned after being “confronted with a judicial ethics investigation for sexual misconduct towards young female law clerks” (and said he “would never intentionally do anything to offend anyone”); Brett Kavanaugh, for whom sexual assault and perjury complaints (that he denies) were dismissed upon his confirmation to the Supreme Court; and “Donald Trump’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry, [who] resigned from the bench, ending an investigation into the Trump family’s decades-long tax schemes, including potential fraud.” Under her plan, Warren warns, such investigations will remain open “until their findings are made public and any penalties for misconduct are issued,” regardless of whether or not someone resigned.

In the case of Trump Barry, that would have meant a full probe of her role in decades of tax schemes uncovered by the New York Times that reportedly included instances “of outright fraud” designed to “greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings.” The Times found that not only did Trump’s older sister benefit financially from such schemes—such as a shell company that siphoned cash from the family empire by marking up purchases already made by employees, and using padded invoices to justify rent increases on rent-regulated buildings—but she was also “in a position to influence the actions taken by her family.” Former prosecutors told the Times in 2018 that if the actions taken by the Trumps had been discovered at the time, they would have justified a criminal investigation into whether they defrauded tenants, filed false documents, and committed tax fraud. Charles Harder, a lawyer for Trump, insisted last year that “The New York Times’ allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory.”

In addition to putting federal judges in the crosshairs—news that is presumably of interest not just to Trump Barry but also Brett Kavanaugh—Warren’s plan calls for:

“End self-dealing in the White House by applying conflict of interest laws to the President and Vice President,” which would prevent Trump from hosting official government business at his various for-profit resorts and collecting revenue from foreign governments hoping to curry favor by staying at his Washington hotel; and the vice president from sucking up to the boss by patronizing his properties on the taxpayer dime;
Requiring federal candidates and officeholders to automatically disclose their tax returns to the public, which would make a certain president’s head explode;
Forcing senior officials, like, say Jared Kushner, to divest from privately owned assets that pose conflicts of interest;
Banning government officials from trading individual stocks while in office (Trump’s former Health and Human Services secretary and CDC director knows what we’re talking about);
Making it illegal for corporations to pay out big bonuses, or “pre-bribes,” to executives leaving to join the government;
Making it illegal for elected officials and top government officials to go work as lobbyists, destroying a time-honored revolving door;
Banning all lobbying for foreign entities;
Preventing lobbyists from donating to or fund-raising for political candidates;
Taxing lobbying above $500,000, which would severely crimp the style of industries like Big Pharma, which spent nearly $28 million on such efforts last year.

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Um, are we going to bomb Iran?

The president is apparently awaiting orders from Saudi Arabia and will get back to us:

President Donald Trump on Sunday said the United States was “locked and loaded” following a drone attack on a major Saudi Arabian oil facility, which the Trump administration is blaming on Iran. The attack has cut into global energy supplies by halving the kingdom’s oil production. “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”

Before Donald Trump was president, he attacked Barack Obama for having the audacity to bow to a Saudi king, writing on Twitter, “Do we still want a President who bows to the Saudis and lets OPEC rip us off?,” before telling people to vote for Mitt Romney. Now he shrugs off Saudi Arabia murdering a U.S. resident and takes orders from Mohammed bin Salman. Trump told reporters on Monday that the drone attack “was a very large attack, and it could be met with an attack many, many times larger, very easily, by our country,” adding, “but we are going to find out who definitively did it first,” which seems like a wise idea.

Should you be allowed to run a public company if you don’t know how words work?

Just asking for Elon Musk:

Elon Musk claimed on Monday that when he called a British diver “pedo guy” in a tweet last year he didn’t actually intend to brand the man as a pedophile — since he believed the phrase meant something else. The Tesla CEO made the claim in a court filing that asked a federal judge in Los Angeles to throw out the $75,000 defamation lawsuit by the caver, Vernon Unsworth, and forgo a scheduled Dec. 2 trial.

“By referring to Mr. Unsworth as ‘pedo guy,’ I did not intend to convey any facts or imply that Mr. Unsworth had engaged in acts of pedophilia,” Musk, 48, said in the court documents. “Pedo guy was a common insult used in South Africa when I was growing up. It is synonymous with ‘creepy old man’ and is used to insult a person’s appearance and demeanor, not accuse a person of pedophilia.”

Musk described Unsworth as a “pedo guy” on Twitter after the diver apparently hurt his feelings by dismissing his offer to build a minisubmarine to rescue the soccer players, which an expert said was “not practical for this mission.”

State prosecutors are coming for Trump’s tax returns

And this time they might actually get their hands on them:

State prosecutors in Manhattan have subpoenaed President Trump’s accounting firm to demand eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.... The subpoena was issued by the Manhattan district attorney’s office late last month, soon after it opened a criminal investigation into the role that the president and his family business played in hush money payments made in the run-up to the election. Both Mr. Trump and his company reimbursed Michael D. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, for money Mr. Cohen paid to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. The president has denied the affair.

The state prosecutors are seeking a range of tax documents from the accounting firm, Mazars USA, including Mr. Trump’s personal returns and those of his business, the Trump Organization. The subpoena seeks federal and state returns for both the president and the company dating back to 2011, the people said. The investigation by Mr. Vance has been focused on $130,000 that Mr. Cohen paid Ms. Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, just before the election. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty last year to breaking federal campaign-finance laws and received a three-year prison sentence. While the federal prosecutors who charged Mr. Cohen stated in a court filing in July that they had “effectively concluded” their inquiry into possible crimes committed by the company or its executives, Mr. Vance’s office is exploring whether the reimbursements violated any New York state laws.... It becomes a felony only if prosecutors can prove that the false filing was made to commit or conceal another crime, such as tax violations or bank fraud.

While Trump has sued to keep his finances secret, slowing down the process and likely keeping them out of Democrats’ hands before the election, the Times notes that it may be more difficult to fight a subpoena in a criminal investigation with a sitting grand jury, which there is in Manhattan.

Eric Trump continues to display his flair for numbers

Following up on his assertion that “95%” of the country agrees with his dad’s racist rhetoric—yes, that apparently includes the half that hates his guts—the president’s middle son posted a stat, attributed to actor Tim Allen, alleging that Obama’s health care website cost more that Trump’s border wall will. (As a reminder, the wall is estimated to clock in at more than $20 billion.) That claim had the distinction of being wrong on multiple levels, which, to be fair, is just how Eric rolls:

First, let’s deal with Allen. There was a Tim Allen—unrelated to the actor—who on Aug. 25 posted a lengthy diatribe on Facebook that included this line. This Tim Allen describes himself as a jewelry technician who lives in Franklin, Va. But that did not stop thousands of people from distributing his post as coming from the actor.... What about the claim itself? Has the wall cost less than the Obamacare website? No.

Bloomberg News in 2014 said the cost [of the website] actually exceeded $2 billion because the government estimate was limited to spending on computer systems whereas Bloomberg included all contracts that could be associated with the website project. But even if one accepts $2 billion, that still is dwarfed by the spending on Trump’s border barrier.... Even during the 2016 campaign, when Trump lowballed the cost of the barrier as under $8 billion—and claimed Mexico would pay for it—the website would have cost much less.... If completed, the actual cost of the barrier is unknown, though estimates of more than $20 billion—or higher—have circulated.

Eric’s claim, naturally, remains on Instagram with the caption #True, because math, like the mainstream media, is the enemy of the people.

Elsewhere!

JPMorgan’s Metals Desk Was a Criminal Enterprise, U.S. Says (Bloomberg)

Expectations suddenly are rising that the Fed might not cut interest rates this week (CNBC)

SoftBank Backers Rethink Role in Next Vision Fund on WeWork (Bloomberg)

Trump: I Can’t Be Corrupt Because I’m Losing Money. (He Can.) (Intelligencer)

NYT deletes bizarre tweet referencing Brett Kavanaugh’s “harmless” penis (NYP)

Hillary Clinton’s Zombie Impeachment Memo That Could Help Fell Trump (Politico)

Having Trouble Selling Your Property? Try Giving It Away. (WSJ)

Mark Ruffalo dismisses Boris Johnson’s comparisons to the Hulk: “The Hulk only fights for the good of the whole” (the Hill)

Elizabeth Warren Torches Trump’s Sister in Anti-corruption Plan

Bess Levin

Politics Correspondent