The Trump tape story is developing tonight at quite a fast pace. Although it is not known how Special Prosecutor Jack Smith came into possession of the tape, it is beginning to appear that he may have subpoenaed it from the two writers working with Mark Meadows on his White House memoir. It could also have been subpoenaed from a Trump aide who was present in the room for the interview at Trump’s Bedminster golf resort in July 2021. A reporter for the Washington Post who interviewed Trump in the Spring of 2021 for a book she and another Post reporter were writing said that Trump had aides in the room recording the interview at the same time the reporters were running their own recorders.
There are some quirks in NJ tax laws that allow this kind of stuff. My old company (Fortune 50) used to plant corn on part of the campus so they could get a tax break. They didn't open a cemetery for ex employees however.....
Love this! I did realize that there are tax law anomalies in NJ. We used to wonder if we could apply for the farm tax break when our children behaved as if they’d been raised by wolves in the wilderness. Unfortunately, even NJ has limits.
Right, but to me his willingness to plant his first children's mother there just so he can get a lower tax rate for *not even all* of the property is even more tacky. If those three heirs objected, the news hasn't reached me.
He's consistent if unpredictable. Just when you think he's gone as low as possible, he digs deeper. I don't think the speculation about just what is in Ivana's inexplicably heavy coffin is misplaced.
At the time this was made public, I could not help fantasizing that some stray person would request a plot at Bedminster - and he couldn't say no. (Well, he could, but then he'd lose the Club's new-found exemption status.) Think of the fun Regular Joe could have. "We're going to visit Granny's grave. It's right next to Ivana Trump's." Though come to think of it. even Regular Joe's Granny might have had standards.
Regular Joe's Granny may have standards, Margo, but we know trump has none. It's not all that farfetched to imagine Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and civilian MAGAts getting to know their maker as neighbors of Ivana—if they can GoFundMe enough $$$$ to satisfy trump.
An awful lot of us wonder what else is in the ground with poor Ivana. It's a weird burial site, not that Trump isn't plenty weird, but it's just a bit weirder than that. And he'd always be able to access it no problem.
I'm wondering how they know about the lack of documents sharing Ivana's casket. And, note that the Snopes author says that there is no evidence to suggest that she was cremated; such equivocation also can be made to read that there is no evidence that she *wasn't* cremated.
I'm sadly chalking Snopes up to be yet another of the brigade of "ain't what they used to be".
Well, Snopes is perhaps the internet's most venerable fact-checker/hoax-buster. I trust no social media, where both stories surely started, do trust Snopes although I see your point about a decline. But the only way to be sure is to follow Keith's advice, no?
Her grave is casket size. Now that makes me even more curious. Whatever he did with Ivana, supposedly she's on the golf course. Very interesting. I don't think the photo I saw were AI generated and altered. There is a lot of speculation he did it for a tax break. I don't know anything much really anymore.
Right or wrong. Cremation is unsubstantiated, likely as not just another social media rumor. The documents, only the trumps know this side of a subpoena.
And this is why you want prosecutors and their investigations. to go on as long as it takes when you get past several layers and get down to the real deal. If Smith had rushed this to prosecution, which he wouldn't have, a lot of this would have added to Trump's lifelong knack for running ahead of his legal troubles. But there always comes that day. And it looks like this is the time. Sure hope so.
I’m beginning to hope Jack Smith’s investigation isn’t suffering from mission creep. It seems like he must be almost to the point where he can flip the switch and start the show.
He just cracked open another vault with even more evidence. The last thing we need is him to rush this. I'm really curious now to know how bad it can actually be.
Trump is a one-man crime wave. I wonder if the DOJ ever really inspected Bedminster. If they didn't, they should right now. I bet there are still documents not found to date.
Imminent might actually mean days not weeks or months. After 3 years of being teased this could be the money shot. I'm going to buy an 18 year old bottle of scotch so I can watch him get indicted and perp walked.
Perp walk doesn't happen in federal venues. No cameras allowed in court, and he'll be escorted by his phalanx of lawyers. He won't have to say anything besides "Yes, No or Not guilty." As required. His indictment is probably just waiting to be filled in by a certain Jack Smith, and I bet he'll enjoy signing it..
Would be double-edged, with The Very Stable Genius once again bloviating to his stupefied base that this is "the very worst witch hunt, lots of people are saying so, probably the worst in human history" blah blah blah yadda yadda sis boom bah humbug....
{ARTICLE Date is OCTOBER 28, 2019} by Alice Markham-Cantor
"Since the Ukraine scandal broke 34 days ago, Donald Trump has tweeted the phrase “witch hunt” 45 times. That’s the equivalent of 1.3 times a day. In nine of those instances, he asserted that the Ukraine investigation constitutes the greatest witch hunt in the history of the United States.
Given this country’s long, brutish history of witch hunts, both literal (think Salem) and metaphorical (think McCarthyism), that’s a hefty claim. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from hurling the term about like a deranged heckler. Since becoming president, Trump has tweeted the words “witch hunt” a total of 294 times, including, yes, during the Russia investigation. And before he was president? In 2013, he retweeted a supporter’s allegation that the investigation into the now-defunct Trump University was a “liberal witch hunt”—but ultimately paid $25 million to avoid a trial. In 2013, he complained in the same terms about corporate-fraud allegations against finance CEO Hank Greenberg (who settled for a cool $ 9.9 million). And in 2012, Trump used the phrase to defend Herman Cain—later his nominee for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors—from multiple accusations of sexual harassment. Poor Herman seemingly couldn’t buy his way out, so he withdrew his name from consideration.
If Trump wants to convince people that he’s innocent, papering himself with a phrase that he previously used to defend guilty parties doesn’t seem like a brilliant move. But it’s actually a shrewd tactic. The repetition itself can serve a powerful, reality-shifting function: A 2015 study on the “reiteration effect” confirmed that when false information is repeated often enough, people come to believe it. (To wit: A USA Today/Suffolk University poll last March found that half of Americans believed Trump’s claim that the Mueller investigation was a “witch hunt.”)
But the problem with Trump’s crying witch hunt is not just that we’re subjected to the ceaseless flatulence of his self-pitying tweets. The problem is that each time Trump tweets the term, he is doing something else as well, something both more sophisticated and more sinister. Calling himself the victim of a witch hunt allows Trump to label charges against him as not just inaccurate but fundamentally impossible. Witch hunts, by definition, are illegitimate, their victims innocent, their judgments always wrong. In a society that already lets the rich and powerful off the hook for just about anything, handing them a tool that frames holding them accountable as inherently unfair is dangerous—and other powerful players are picking up on the trick." *****
That's unfortunately not my phrase, it is damn good but embedded in the text I posted via a link! Intern at The Nation Alice-Markham Cantor deserves all the credit.
To make it straight forward, he should not because we all know what Trump will do after-"sic his lawyers" on the court system to delay any and all further actions. Even if he knows he will lose.
At this point I'm like what's it going to take to get Garland to act? Orangehead is clearly a danger to national security right now today. Charge what you have now to get him out of circulation then use superseding indictments. Can't anybody here play this game?
I corrected two dates I confused in the column. They are correct now in the version posted late tonight.
Lucian Truscott, your reportage is world-class.
ABSOLUTELY!!!!
Have always wondered why no search was done at Bedminster, and what's in that box with Ivana???
I wonder that, too, who buries someone in a golf course, publicly, yet?!
Chris—It's (don't laugh) so he can get his golf course taxed as a cemetery—seriously.
He also has a few sheep in a corner of the property...tax break here too. It’s a farm. Hell with the Trump Family Sinners there, it’s a zoo!
There are some quirks in NJ tax laws that allow this kind of stuff. My old company (Fortune 50) used to plant corn on part of the campus so they could get a tax break. They didn't open a cemetery for ex employees however.....
Love this! I did realize that there are tax law anomalies in NJ. We used to wonder if we could apply for the farm tax break when our children behaved as if they’d been raised by wolves in the wilderness. Unfortunately, even NJ has limits.
Well, wolves aren't exactly farm animals -- but a Wildlife Protection bylaw might apply . . . ;-)
🤣🤣🤣
😂
The sheep save on groundskeeping costs—wagesfree grass-mowing.
Have read that the tax thing only applies to a small portion of the club, not the entire thing
Right, but to me his willingness to plant his first children's mother there just so he can get a lower tax rate for *not even all* of the property is even more tacky. If those three heirs objected, the news hasn't reached me.
I haven’t seen where they objected either. Isn’t tacky his middle name???
He's consistent if unpredictable. Just when you think he's gone as low as possible, he digs deeper. I don't think the speculation about just what is in Ivana's inexplicably heavy coffin is misplaced.
He’a such a roach and he’s spawned too many other nasty insects. A mobster, through and through.
At the time this was made public, I could not help fantasizing that some stray person would request a plot at Bedminster - and he couldn't say no. (Well, he could, but then he'd lose the Club's new-found exemption status.) Think of the fun Regular Joe could have. "We're going to visit Granny's grave. It's right next to Ivana Trump's." Though come to think of it. even Regular Joe's Granny might have had standards.
Regular Joe's Granny may have standards, Margo, but we know trump has none. It's not all that farfetched to imagine Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and civilian MAGAts getting to know their maker as neighbors of Ivana—if they can GoFundMe enough $$$$ to satisfy trump.
An awful lot of us wonder what else is in the ground with poor Ivana. It's a weird burial site, not that Trump isn't plenty weird, but it's just a bit weirder than that. And he'd always be able to access it no problem.
Why do I recall hearing that Ivana's remains were cremated?
I believe you are correct
wlipman@comcast.net—Snopes calls the cremation rumor just that—an unfounded rumor. They say the same applies to documents we'd all like to think were buried with Ivana. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ivana-trump-cremated/ Your quote of Keith Olbermann's advice is highly relevant.
I'm wondering how they know about the lack of documents sharing Ivana's casket. And, note that the Snopes author says that there is no evidence to suggest that she was cremated; such equivocation also can be made to read that there is no evidence that she *wasn't* cremated.
I'm sadly chalking Snopes up to be yet another of the brigade of "ain't what they used to be".
Well, Snopes is perhaps the internet's most venerable fact-checker/hoax-buster. I trust no social media, where both stories surely started, do trust Snopes although I see your point about a decline. But the only way to be sure is to follow Keith's advice, no?
Her grave is casket size. Now that makes me even more curious. Whatever he did with Ivana, supposedly she's on the golf course. Very interesting. I don't think the photo I saw were AI generated and altered. There is a lot of speculation he did it for a tax break. I don't know anything much really anymore.
Keith Olbermann addressed this very question on his podcast with three words:
"Dig. Her. Up!"
i seriously wondered why it took 10 men..i counted..to carry that coffin. ivana was cremated, right?
if she wasn't then her corpse must've taken a big fold when they packed her down the steps ¡at the slope angle!
ouch
Right or wrong. Cremation is unsubstantiated, likely as not just another social media rumor. The documents, only the trumps know this side of a subpoena.
so if her body was in that casket carried down the steps at that angle it was being slid and folded.
oh my
And this is why you want prosecutors and their investigations. to go on as long as it takes when you get past several layers and get down to the real deal. If Smith had rushed this to prosecution, which he wouldn't have, a lot of this would have added to Trump's lifelong knack for running ahead of his legal troubles. But there always comes that day. And it looks like this is the time. Sure hope so.
"Trump has always had an enemies list, or lists..."
His only "friend list" consists of rich donors. That's it. The lunatic is barely human.
Can anyone name anybody with whom he went to any school who is presently his pal? Kindergarten?
Grade school? Camp? NY Military School? Fordham? Wharton? No one who knows him likes him; of course he is paranoid, and with good reason.
And, in a matter which is completely unrelated to Iranian secret documents, Saudi golf tour on trump courses.
The battle-cry, always the same: “What’s in it for me?” -
I’m beginning to hope Jack Smith’s investigation isn’t suffering from mission creep. It seems like he must be almost to the point where he can flip the switch and start the show.
He just cracked open another vault with even more evidence. The last thing we need is him to rush this. I'm really curious now to know how bad it can actually be.
Thank you for keeping us informed.
Check Ivana"s coffin/casket. PLEASE.
Trump is a one-man crime wave. I wonder if the DOJ ever really inspected Bedminster. If they didn't, they should right now. I bet there are still documents not found to date.
Imminent might actually mean days not weeks or months. After 3 years of being teased this could be the money shot. I'm going to buy an 18 year old bottle of scotch so I can watch him get indicted and perp walked.
Perp walk doesn't happen in federal venues. No cameras allowed in court, and he'll be escorted by his phalanx of lawyers. He won't have to say anything besides "Yes, No or Not guilty." As required. His indictment is probably just waiting to be filled in by a certain Jack Smith, and I bet he'll enjoy signing it..
But if Garland asks for pre trial detention...he won't but he should.
Would be double-edged, with The Very Stable Genius once again bloviating to his stupefied base that this is "the very worst witch hunt, lots of people are saying so, probably the worst in human history" blah blah blah yadda yadda sis boom bah humbug....
www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-witch-hunt/
{ARTICLE Date is OCTOBER 28, 2019} by Alice Markham-Cantor
"Since the Ukraine scandal broke 34 days ago, Donald Trump has tweeted the phrase “witch hunt” 45 times. That’s the equivalent of 1.3 times a day. In nine of those instances, he asserted that the Ukraine investigation constitutes the greatest witch hunt in the history of the United States.
Given this country’s long, brutish history of witch hunts, both literal (think Salem) and metaphorical (think McCarthyism), that’s a hefty claim. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from hurling the term about like a deranged heckler. Since becoming president, Trump has tweeted the words “witch hunt” a total of 294 times, including, yes, during the Russia investigation. And before he was president? In 2013, he retweeted a supporter’s allegation that the investigation into the now-defunct Trump University was a “liberal witch hunt”—but ultimately paid $25 million to avoid a trial. In 2013, he complained in the same terms about corporate-fraud allegations against finance CEO Hank Greenberg (who settled for a cool $ 9.9 million). And in 2012, Trump used the phrase to defend Herman Cain—later his nominee for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors—from multiple accusations of sexual harassment. Poor Herman seemingly couldn’t buy his way out, so he withdrew his name from consideration.
If Trump wants to convince people that he’s innocent, papering himself with a phrase that he previously used to defend guilty parties doesn’t seem like a brilliant move. But it’s actually a shrewd tactic. The repetition itself can serve a powerful, reality-shifting function: A 2015 study on the “reiteration effect” confirmed that when false information is repeated often enough, people come to believe it. (To wit: A USA Today/Suffolk University poll last March found that half of Americans believed Trump’s claim that the Mueller investigation was a “witch hunt.”)
But the problem with Trump’s crying witch hunt is not just that we’re subjected to the ceaseless flatulence of his self-pitying tweets. The problem is that each time Trump tweets the term, he is doing something else as well, something both more sophisticated and more sinister. Calling himself the victim of a witch hunt allows Trump to label charges against him as not just inaccurate but fundamentally impossible. Witch hunts, by definition, are illegitimate, their victims innocent, their judgments always wrong. In a society that already lets the rich and powerful off the hook for just about anything, handing them a tool that frames holding them accountable as inherently unfair is dangerous—and other powerful players are picking up on the trick." *****
Interesting read, Sir. I do love your turn of phrase "ceaseless flatulence of self-pitying tweets."
That's unfortunately not my phrase, it is damn good but embedded in the text I posted via a link! Intern at The Nation Alice-Markham Cantor deserves all the credit.
To make it straight forward, he should not because we all know what Trump will do after-"sic his lawyers" on the court system to delay any and all further actions. Even if he knows he will lose.
The orange nut job’s make-up has gotten worse and even more Orange in his latest Fuks News screwball interview. What an incompetent imbecile!!!
It would be near Mussolini-level poetic justice.
The plot is not just thickening it's getting lumpy :)
Lucian, from your pen to God’s eyes, as it were.
At this point I'm like what's it going to take to get Garland to act? Orangehead is clearly a danger to national security right now today. Charge what you have now to get him out of circulation then use superseding indictments. Can't anybody here play this game?