We’ve already seen many “chickens coming home to roost” stories since the election, and it’s been glorious, no doubt. But is anyone else experiencing a weird forgetfulness when it comes to all of the crimes and treason with the Trump family and assorted Trumpers? Like, there were so many crimes and so many people involved, I’m having a hard time remembering what So-and-So did with the Russian agent in the library with the candlestick. This one I do remember, mostly because I’ve been covering the ongoing shenanigans with Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former adviser to Melania Trump. Wolkoff wrote a tell-all book about Melania. Wolkoff also revealed that she’d kept all of the literal receipts, including recordings and paperwork, of all of the criminal and stupid sh-t around her. Well, Wolkoff was originally blamed for all of the strange spending around the 2017 Trump inauguration, but it was more complicated than that. So complicated that the DC attorney general had to depose Ivanka Trump yesterday:
Ivanka Trump, the President’s daughter and adviser, sat for a deposition Tuesday with investigators from the Washington, DC, attorney general’s office as part of its lawsuit alleging the misuse of inaugural funds, according to a court filing.
In January, the DC attorney general’s office sued the Trump Organization and Presidential Inaugural Committee alleging they abused more than $1 million raised by the nonprofit by “grossly overpaying” for use of event space at the Trump hotel in Washington for the 2017 inauguration.
Depositions of witnesses as part of the lawsuit have been underway over the past several weeks.
Tom Barrack, chairman of the inaugural committee, was deposed on November 17, according to the court filing. The attorney general’s office has also subpoenaed records from Barrack, Ivanka Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and Rick Gates, the former inaugural committee deputy chairman, the filing said.“Ms. Trump’s only involvement was connecting the parties and instructing the hotel to charge a ‘fair market rate’, which the hotel did,” Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, said in a statement to CNN. According to the lawsuit, Gates “personally managed” discussions with the Trump hotel about event space.
In December 2016, Gates wrote to Ivanka Trump that he was “a bit worried about the optics of PIC [Presidential Inaugural Committee] paying Trump Hotel a high fee and the media making a big story out of it,” according to the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, Gates agreed with the hotel’s managing director and Trump family members to pay $175,000 per day for the committee to reserve space for four days.
The committee’s own event planner — Stephanie Winston Wolkoff — advised against the transaction, telling the committee and the Trump family that the charges were at least twice the market rate, the lawsuit states. Wolkoff “noted unease with the offer during an in-person meeting with President-elect Trump and Ivanka Trump,” said DC Attorney General Karl Racine. She also sent a follow-up email to both Ivanka Trump and Gates to “express [her] concern,” according to the attorney general.
“The Inaugural Committee accepted the contract anyway,” the lawsuit alleges.
I feel fairly certain that Wolkoff has already provided all of the documentation she has to the DC attorney general, which is probably why they had enough to bring in Ivanka and Gates for depositions. And yes, Ivanka is just as bad as her father. The whole family has spent the past four years fleecing federal, state and local governments in this way, by forcing those governments to pay for security for Nazi rallies and price-gouging for renting out space in Trump-owned properties. It would not surprise me if Trump price-gouged the Secret Service throughout his term too, given that Secret Service agents had to stay in Trump-owned properties whenever Trump wanted to go golfing. That’s taxpayer money.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
My kingdom for her deposition video.
It would just be her whispering “not to the best of my recollection” over and over.
+1
Fair
She wouldn’t be whispering. The baby talk would be gone. Hard, cold, disdainful delivery of the line with a look that says “how dare you speak to me?”
I look forward to the moment someday, hopefully soon, when she cracks and the whisper baby voice disappears and is replaced by her full on NY yelling “It was Eric and Don Jr! Arrest them, not me!”
She tweeted about it this morning. She’s angry that our tax dollars were wasted on a five hour deposition of her. But it’s okay for our tax dollars to be wasted on office space, office supplies, office resources, IT resources, staff salaries for two dozen people, travel expenses for her and her staff on her personal business trips, vacations, and campaign stops, resources at numerous federal agencies to accommodate her demands, all illegal. First Daughter is NOT a thing.
First daughter was just an heavy diss on the useless melania as “not so firstly lady”. Will deeply celebrate removal of the bungling spinal tap version of the Sopranos that became our “first family”
Now we know why that story about Dum pardoning his crotch goblins was put out – he’s def going to pardon daughter wife and The Boy.
Next year is going to be fire!! 2021 has to make up for 2020.
@digitalunicorn, an article I read last night discussed those pardons, and how the pardons might actually benefit future investigations. I guess once someone is pardoned, he or she can no longer plead the fifth in a deposition or investigation, including testifying before Congress. It’s an interesting development that the author claimed might actually help bring down all the bad faith actors, and encourage them to turn on one another once they don’t have protection by the fifth amendment. Here is the article link:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/donald-trump-family-pardon-plan-ivanka-don-jr.html
Interesting article. My Mom and I actually had this conversation yesterday. She knows I am a political junkie and study everything I can get my hands on about it. I gave her the Cliff notes version but I am going to recommend this article to her
Thanks @Noodle
@merlinsmom, glad I could help! I hate politics, but force myself to read the news for 30 minutes every evening. The Reddit news feed is where I find my list, and it has a diverse offering of sources so I’m getting a well-rounded perspective. I actually refer to a lot of it within the courses I teach, because it does connect to the issues we discuss in the classroom, like literacy, education funding, science, broad initiatives (like the US’s attitudes towards history curriculum), and most recently, BLM and crisis schooling. Being able to synthesize various sources of information is a critical skill to have, and I have to model it, even if it’s through gritted teeth as I skim articles and commentaries.
I heard that as well, good!
I also read somewhere that it has to be a specific crime that is pardoned, it’s not just a blanket get out of jail free, so if they want a pardon it has to be clear what it’s for, what crime they committed, etc.
Nevermind, my comment was wrong – that’s why I should Google before commenting, instead of after.
Buckle up Princess, the flood gates will soon be open.
I think I’d read early in his term that the secret service was being charged rack rate, not the government rate, to stay at his hotels which in turn had the secret service going over their annual budget something like 4 months into the year.
They had to rent golf carts from him too. And then there was the issue of them needing to rent an entire floor at Trump tower for 6 months because someone refused to move to DC.
Weren’t those expenses comparable to an entire education budget, too?
They also had to rent out dozens of rooms at different resorts *at the same time* just in case the president decided to go to one of them.
This happened because when they went to Maralago once, Trump wanted a specific room and the rooms around it were reserved already. Maralago staff refused to move things around and said the Secret Service could get rooms at the discount hotel down the way. This was very unsafe, so they ended up having to rent Trump’s favorite room AND the rooms around it for weeks on end, just in case he made a last minute decision to go.
They very clearly were(are) using tax payer money to prop up multiple Trump resorts.
Oh we already know he’s gouging the secret service. He over charges them when they stay at his trump properties when he plays golf. Do they know how to do literally anything without committing crimes? I’m sure every state in the US could probably bring charges against this crime family at this point.
I hope with all these lawsuits and stuff, the US govt is able to recoup some of that money, which is our money as taxpayers. I hope his whole shady organization crumbles, and the feds seize whatever assets he actually has.
And she was definitely given advice on how to dress for the deposition: hair pulled back so she wouldn’t play with it; neutral color business pantsuit; black turtleneck, professional attire. None of her typical sheers, nipple pokes, little girl pinks, virginal whites, or garden party dresses.
But can they can’t do anything about those facial expressions. 😲
The guy that was the staffer on The Apprentice said her nose jobs messed with her breathing and she can’t breathe out of her nose anymore, so she has to put a straw in her mouth when getting her make up done. Now I notice that in all of her photos her mouth is open, if even just a little bit.
@ Tiffany – GAH! I mean, that’s horrible (and sounds kinda dangerous honestly) but geebus the implications of a barbiebot who has to always have a little open-mouthed pout going . . . I can’t.
All I see is blow-up doll when I look at that top picture. 😲
I only have mean superficial thoughts this morning.
1) The nose job, hair color and vibe of the Kayleigh near a strong resemblance in the lead photos today.
2) Why does no one else fixate on her excessively long giraffe neck?
3) Ah the slightly open mouth… yeah I see it now.
Sorry… I’m mean…. there’s no extenuating good character or good contributions to society to soften my thoughts toward this creation.
All I have to say is great choice of pictures, Kaiser. Really captured Ivanka’s vapid personality.
Watching this twit go to jail might be even more satisfying than watching her daddy go down.
I wonder if we will ever know a grand total of what they charged taxpayers and fleeced from inaugural and campaign funds.
Speaking of Stephanie – Last time I saw her on TV was the night the “f” Christmas audio was dropped. Within an hour of that broadcast, Mel and Orange announce they have the virus. Hmmm…
Stephanie seems nervous when she is on TV and I can understand why. She was wise to keep the receipts, because she ended up being a scapegoat.
The first photo of Ivanka here really reminds me of a certain type of “doll” that one can only find in a “certain “ type of store. I wonder if anyone’s made a “ doll” yet? I bet it would be a big seller!
I have it from a good source that her screaming tv counterpart Tomi Laren has a protection detail because she has nazi stalkers. I wouldn’t doubt Vanky does too.
I tried so hard not say sex doll in my post. LMFAO!
Whoops. Just saw this after posting up thread a bit. Great minds think a like! LOL
Can’t wait to sing “ding dong the witch is (effectively) dead, she’s gone where the convicts go below, below, below, yo ho
Let’s open up and sing, and ring the bells out
Ding-dong! the merry-o sing it high, sing it low
Let them know the wicked witch is dead
Ding-dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch”
I just want to say that the color of the jumpsuit she is wearing reminds me of uncooked pork! Bleech! But at least she will have practice wearing a jumpsuit.
I am old and things, if course, could have changed over the years, but I used to do event planning for a Fortune 500 company and these charges seem really odd. In my day, we rarely paid for “space” because it was thrown in because we would pay so much in catering and booze. The catering and liquor is where hotels kill it on customers. Clients are obligated to purchase food and drink from the venue at exorbitant prices and nothing from the outside can be brought in. I have never heard of reserving “space” for days before or after the event. Again, the hotel often charges for “set-up” and includes it, but if an outside vendor is brought in, they are normally vetted through the hotel. My guess is that there wasn’t huge amounts of decorating because they would have so many people standing and trying to get into the room that they would want a lot of open space. The hotel made so much money on booze that night that there is absolutely no need for charges like this.
Hotels forbade us from tacking things on the walls and whatnot so what kind of decorating is needed – besides floral arrangements on tables? I used to do a lot of even planning for work too. So I understand those contracts. We were never charged a room rental because we met the F&B minimum. We paid for food, the bar and AV. That was it. Our small scale parties (min 200 max 300) costs between $15K-$20K+
Wouldn’t it be glorious watching all of them go to jail?
She has that same butthole mouth as her father.
She is very much like rump. A rotten orange tangerine to his rotting orange. She just released a tweet blaming the deposition on the DC DEM attorney. She also partially released an email saying the PIC should be given a “fair market rate.” However that blew up in her plastic face because someone posted Wolkoff’s email that was dated a few days before her “fair market rate one” calling out the extremely high pricing for Rump hotel.
If you notice in her tweet, she made it political by calling out the Atty General’s political affiliation. Honey, crime doesn’t care if you are GOPer or DEM. If you do it, you deserve prison.
I read the Wolkoff book. While there were references to a lot of crooks in the Pot (she should have posted an org chart so we can follow along), she does have the receipts. She turned over copies to the law. This is not going to go away.
That photo though. 😅
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas..