The New York Times reports that Trump once again made a ridiculously shitty business deal that lost massive sums of money. And then he blackmailed his favorite lender Deutche Bank and another partner into forgiving the debt and took advantage of a tax loophole to avoid paying taxes on the money he saved. According to a former IRS commissioner on CNN, it doesn’t appear that he broke any laws but was extremely “aggressive” with his tax avoidance.
That’s nice. Only “little people” have to pay for their mistakes.
The story shows that Trump once again lost a massive amount of money on a project that was badly executed. (I mean, he put Ivanka and one of the winners of “The Apprentice” in charge.)This one is the one that ruined his relationship with the regular lending arm of Deutche Bank but a few years later Jared Kushner introduced Trump to that strange little “private wealth” section of the bank that started lending to him again. (That’s the section people suspect might just be some kind of money laundering operation.) And apparently other partners in the deal agreed to take a haircut and later came onboard the Trump train when he ran for president.
If you are a member of that 001% you literally can do no wrong, even lose vast sums of money for your investors.
Trump didn’t like this story and tried to deflect from the central fact that he is a terrible, terrible businessman by blaming politicians and pretending that his failure was actually a success. That’s just how he rolls.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported some new details about how Trump has been bilking the taxpayers.
President Trump welcomed the Japanese prime minister at Mar-a-Lago, in front of a towering arrangement of roses. The two could have met in Washington, but Trump said his private club was a more comfortable alternative.
“It is, indeed, the Southern White House,” Trump said, greeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in front of the press in April 2018.
For Trump, there was another, hidden benefit. Money.
At Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s company would get paid to host his summit.
In the next two days, as Trump and Abe talked about trade and North Korea, Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., club billed the U.S. government $13,700 for guest rooms, $16,500 for food and wine and $6,000 for the roses and other floral arrangements.
Trump’s club even charged for the smallest of services. When Trump and Abe met alone, with no food served, the government still got a bill for what they drank.
“Bilateral meeting,” the bill said. “Water.” $3 each.
Those 2018 payments, revealed here for the first time, are part of a long-running pattern whose scope has become clear only in recent months.
Since his first month in office, Trump has used his power to direct millions from U.S. taxpayers — and from his political supporters — into his own businesses. The Washington Post has sought to compile examples of this spending through open records requests and a lawsuit.
In all, he has received at least $8.1 million from these two sources since he took office, those documents and publicly available records show.
The president brought taxpayer money to his businesses simply by bringing himself. He’s visited his hotels and clubs more than 280 times now, making them a familiar backdrop for his presidency. And in doing so, he has turned those properties into magnets for GOP events, including glitzy fundraisers for his own reelection campaign, where big donors go to see and be seen.
The man never leaves a penny on the sidewalk. And that’s because he needs every penny due to his disastrous business failures. This is why he insisted on never staying anywhere but his own properties so he could pay himself all the attendant costs. It is an amazing scam that happened right before our eyes. He should have been impeached for that alone.
Republicans have no problem with any of this but will shriek to high heaven about any costs incurred by the government to support Joe Biden’s travel. Just you watch. And not one penny of that will be going into Biden’s pockets as it all did to Trump.