Ivanka Trump: Born to legitimize corruption and make the shoddy look cute

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She has the same magic touch with the multitudes of flesh-and-blood rogues who flock to her for redemption. It's Ivanka who first brought Gen. Michael "Lied to the FBI" Flynn into the administration, according to the New Yorker; she praised him for his "amazing loyalty" and offered him his choice of positions at a transition-team meeting. One person present said, "It was like Princess Ivanka had laid the sword on Flynn's shoulders and said, 'Rise and go forth.'"

The laying on of that princess sword seems to be Ivanka's favorite pastime. In 2006, when she was 25, she toured Moscow with Felix Sater, who in 1998 pleaded guilty to a $40-million stock fraud scheme run by the Russian mafia. She also collaborated with the Soviet-born businessman Tamir Sapir, whose top aide in 2004 pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy with the Gambino crime family.

It's impossible to keep track of all the gangsters Ivanka has palled around with. But what's truly damning are the shady real-estate projects she has made rise and go forth.

In 2006, she oversaw the development of the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City. The project was connected to a Brazilian money launderer later arrested for fraud and forgery as well as a Russian investor who'd previously been jailed in Israel for kidnapping. On Wednesday, a dispute between Trump's company and the building's owner turned violent. The journalist Marcy Wheeler has suggested the fight concerns records that may show Ivanka knew the property was laundering money. Police in riot gear stormed the hotel that Ivanka once hyped as "exemplary of the grandeur in which we like to enter a market."

More: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-heffernan-ivanka-legitimizing-20180303-story.html

Whoa!: “Hicks has been secretly keeping...a 'diary of her White House work, and her interactions w/Trump.'” If true, belongs to USG not her, must be preserved in WH under Pres Recds Act, raises issues about her handling of classified & WILL be subpoenaed.
https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/969396784899346432

EXCLUSIVE: Hope Hicks' $10 million payday! The departing coms director is flooded with offers as publishers scramble for a book deal to spill the secrets of Trump's inner sanctum and her affair with wife abuser Rob Porter

*Publishers and producers wasted no time getting offers to the stunning communications director Hope Hicks as she exits the White House
*A publishing executive said: 'Next to Ivanka and Melania, Hope is the woman closest to the president, and knows all the secrets, all the foibles, all the quirks'
*A White House insider says Hicks has been keeping what was described as a 'detailed diary of her White House work, and her interactions with the president'
*High-powered New York literary agent Eric Myers told DailyMail.com that Hicks could easily get a $10 million advance, 'If she really did promise to throw the office doors wide open and tell all
*But as a a longtime Trump confidante she may not be inclined to do that.
*There would undoubtedly be matters of legality and national security to be weighed.
*The 29-year-old White House communications director resigned on Wednesday


No sooner had Hopes Hicks' resignation been announced, a day after her 'white lies' testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, one of New York City's most powerful publishing house editors was in contact.

He had an offer he hoped Hicks wouldn't refuse: $10 million to write what was described exclusively to Daily Mail as a 'candid, truthful, sensitive tell-all about her life in Trump Land—the good, the bad and the ugly.'

Soon after, the 29-year-old White House communications director – one of President Trump's closest and longest serving advisors said to know him better than any other top White House aides – was contacted by a female Hollywood producer-screenwriter with platinum credentials.

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5451711/Hope-Hicks-10-million-payday-publishers-scramble-sign-her.html

Wow, 7 ongoing investigations into Jared Kushner:

https://twitter.com/ices256/status/969199055481004034

Rick Gates tells judge he's canceling trip due to threat invoking Russian mafia

Washington (CNN)Former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates told a federal court Thursday afternoon that he and his wife believe it's "not prudent" for them to take their four children on a trip to Boston, after feeling threatened by an online commenter who invoked the Russian mafia.

A Boston Globe report on Gates' scheduled trip, planned for next week and approved by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, "generated comments on the internet, some of which were of a threatening character," Gates' attorney said in a court filing.

Following his guilty plea and agreement to cooperate in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation last Friday, Gates had asked to take his family to Boston for spring break to learn about the Revolutionary War.

He is only allowed outside of the Washington, DC, and Richmond, Virginia, areas, where his lawyers are based and where he lives, with special permission from the judge.

More: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/01/politics/rick-gates-boston-threat/index.html

Senate Intelligence Leaders Say House G.O.P. Leaked a Senator’s Texts

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Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said.

... snip

AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan, declined to comment. In his meeting with the senators, Mr. Ryan made clear that he heard their complaints but noted that he did not run the committee himself, the officials briefed on the encounter said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/us/politics/senate-intelligence-nunes-leaks.html?smid=pl-share

Senate Intelligence Leaders Say House G.O.P. Leaked a Senator’s Texts

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter.

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said.

To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other.

... snip

Copies of the messages were originally submitted by Mr. Waldman to the Senate committee. In January, one of Mr. Nunes’s staff members requested that copies be shared with the House committee as well, according to a person familiar with the request who was not authorized to talk about it publicly. Days later, the messages were published by Fox News, the person said. Fox’s report said that it had obtained the documents from a Republican source it did not name.

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/us/politics/senate-intelligence-nunes-leaks.html?smid=pl-share

Alex Jones Accused of Sexual Harassment, Bullying at InfoWars

InfoWars owner Alex Jones allegedly bullied, discriminated, and sexually harassed a number of his employees, according to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints obtained by the Daily Mail. Rob Jacobson, who worked at the conspiracy site for 13 years, alleges that Jones called him "The Jewish Individual" and "The Resident Jew" before he was fired. Ashley Beckford, who is African American, alleges that Jones and others mocked her for her race and denied her promotions. She also claims that Jones “grabbed my butt" after initiating a "side-hug," and was grooming her for "sexual exploitation." Jones denied the claims. “I'm not going to talk about former employees," he said. "I mean nobody accuses me of stuff like that … Wow. That's all I can say. That's total bulls**t.”

Link: https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-accused-of-sexual-harassment-bullying-at-infowars

Scoop: Besieged Sessions dines with Rosenstein in show of solidarity

If Donald Trump finally follows through on his rage and fires Jeff Sessions, the image with this story will be printed in history books.

Tonight at 7:35pm, the Attorney General strode into a high-end Washington restaurant to dine with his deputy Rod Rosenstein and the Solicitor General Noel Francisco.

The symbolism was unmistakable: the three top ranking officials in the Justice Department appearing together in a show of solidarity on the same day Trump is publicly and privately raging about Sessions.

When Trump sees this photo he'll have to absorb a concept that some of his aides have been trying to impress upon him for nearly a year, since he first began telling them he wanted to get rid of Sessions.

The concept: Fire Sessions, then what next? Are you going to fire Rosenstein too? And then what after that?

More: https://www.axios.com/scoop-besieged-sessions-dines-with-rosenstein-in-show-of-solidarity-1519865511-4afe726b-6642-4ca5-8ebf-e9f0600df79b.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twsocialshare&utm_campaign=organic

Welcome to the fun new game show we call "Everything Trump Touches Dies!"

You'll be competing for fabulous prizes like public humiliation, career destruction, sky high legal bills, and future unemployment!

HOPE HICKS! COME ON DOWN!

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/968963522540523520

WATCH: President Trump says police should have taken away the Florida school shooter's guns away "whether they had the right or not."
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/968952829376454656