Tag: law

Podestagate

Is it… is it beginning?

Tony Podesta stepping down from lobbying giant amid Mueller probe

Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure. Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, founder of the Podesta Group, is stepping down from the firm that bears his name after coming under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.

Podesta is handing over full operational and financial control to longtime firm CEO Kimberley Fritts, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting. Fritts and a senior group of the Podesta team will be launching a new firm in the next one or two days. Sources said the transition has been in the works for the past several months.

Curiouser and curiouser… but /pol/ is always right.

We knew the switch in the narrative from Trump/Russia to Clinton/Russia would take a little time. We had them drop the Uranium One article exactly one week before we would make the first arrests. Couple of days later, we dropped the dossier info. We needed to hammer the train. The first arrests will be Manafort and Tony Podesta. These guys are not the real target, they are just soldiers. The real targets are Hillary, Holder, Rosenstein, and John Podesta. We would love to expose Obama as well but Pres Trump is adamant about protecting former Presidents. Even if they are corrupt pieces of shit, he believes in the dignity of the office. He feels that ruining the legacy of a President will do nothing but hurt our country. This is why both Bush’s., Bill Clinton, Obama, and even LBJ will be spared. The rest of the JFK files released will not include the essential information implicating LBJ and Bush Sr.

This is it. The final moves will take place over the next 4 weeks. They could have let this go. Honestly, Pres Trump wanted to get on with Making America Great Again. Period. But Hillary and the DNC just couldn’t let it go. They asked for this. They kept making up shit and now they’re going to pay. If they kept their heads low and faded in to obscurity, we would not have gone this route. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Keep in mind that was posted two days ago. Who was the first arrest? Who looks to be the second one? Anyhow, we’ll see.

UPDATE: Smells rather like… pizza?

Records show that alleged child molester Kevin Spacey flew on the infamous ‘Lolita Express’ – the private jet owned by pedophile Jeffrey Epstein – along with former President Bill Clinton. The revelation has resurfaced in the aftermath of claims by actor Anthony Rapp that Spacey sexually assaulted him when he was a 14-year-old boy after a party at Spacey’s apartment in 1986 when Spacey, then 24, picked up Rapp, placed him on his bed and climbed on top of him.

Which reminds me

Hey, Legal Legion of Evil. Are any of you licensed to practice in New Hampshire or know anyone good there? If so, shoot me an email.

Never cross the God-Emperor

From Peter King’s increasingly NFL-free MMQB column:

2015: Megyn Kelly, proving to be a tough and formidable moderator in a Republican Primary debate, asks the question of all presidential-debate questions to Donald Trump, about why he has called women he didn’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, disgusting animals.”

2016: In an interview with Kelly on FOX five months before the election, Trump tells Kelly in another headline-maker that if he does not win in November, “I will consider it to be a total and complete waste of time, energy and money.”

2017: Kelly hosts a segment on the “Today” show about how to dress your dog for Halloween.

Keep that in mind when Robert Mueller announces his long-anticipated indictments today.

UPDATE: The Russian investigation appears to be the nothingest of nothingburgers.

The former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been told to surrender to authorities on charges including tax fraud, according to people familiar with the matter.


UPDATE: Or perhaps not. But it’s looking more Deep Swampy than anything:

Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were told to surrender to face charges including conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to launder money. Other charges are being an unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

Paddock brother arrested

I wonder what Paddock’s brother knew, or if his arrest for child porn was just fallout from having his computer searched in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shootings:

A brother of the man who shot and killed almost 60 people in Las Vegas, has reportedly been arrested on possession of material relating to child sex abuse. Bruce Paddock, one of the brothers of Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock was detained in Los Angeles. The Associated Press said it was unclear whether the charges against Bruce Paddock, who is not a suspect in the shooting, predates the Las Vegas massacre.

If this all somehow connects to Pizzagate, a lot of minds are going to be blown. Some literally, one presumes.

DNC + FBI = Russia

Remember, they always give you a clue about where to look because they always project:

Investigators looking into the so-called “Trump dossier” were not surprised when news broke Tuesday night that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC, working through the Democrats’ law firm, Perkins Coie, financed the “salacious and unverified” compilation of allegations of Trump collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. (The “salacious and unverified” description comes from former FBI Director James Comey.)

There had been plenty of talk about the Democrats and Perkins Coie, so much that investigators almost assumed that was the case. But it wasn’t until the Washington Post broke the story that it was confirmed.

“I’m shocked,” one lawmaker joked Tuesday night. “Who could have ever guessed?”

And why did the story break when it did? Credit the much-maligned Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The California Republican has been pursuing the dossier more aggressively than anyone else, and it was his Oct. 4 subpoena for the bank records of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that handled the dossier, that finally shook loose the information.

But knowing that the Clinton campaign, the DNC, and Perkins Coie supported the dossier is not the end of the story. The most important next step is the FBI.

Sometime in October 2016 — that is, at the height of the presidential campaign — Christopher Steele, the foreign agent hired by Fusion GPS to compile the Trump dossier, approached the FBI with information he had gleaned during the project. According to a February report in the Washington Post, Steele “reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him to continue his work.”

It was an astonishing turn: the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency agreeing to fund an ongoing opposition research project being conducted by one of the candidates in the midst of a presidential election. “The idea that the FBI and associates of the Clinton campaign would pay Mr. Steele to investigate the Republican nominee for president in the run-up to the election raises further questions about the FBI’s independence from politics, as well as the Obama administration’s use of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for political ends,” wrote Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Lock her up already! And then continue to drain the swamp.

Kaepernick sues NFL for collusion

Colin Kaepernick confirms league-wide suspicions that he’s more of a pain than he’s worth:

Colin Kaepernick has been waiting patiently for his next NFL opportunity. His patience has now expired. PFT has confirmed that Kaepernick has filed a grievance against the NFL under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The grievance alleges that the NFL’s teams colluded in not signing him to a contract, presumably due to his decision to kneel during the national anthem in 2016.

Kaepernick has retained outside counsel to handle the claim. The NFL Players Association will remain in touch with Kaepernick as the grievance proceeds; however, Kaepernick’s private counsel will be spearheading the effort.

The filing of the grievance was first reported by Mike Freeman of BleacherReport.com.

Kaepernick became a free agent in March after opting out of the final year of his contract with the 49ers. (San Francisco G.M. John Lynch has said that the team would have cut Kaepernick if he hadn’t opted out.) The Seahawks brought Kaepernick in for a visit, but did not sign him. The Ravens were considering adding Kaepernick during training camp. Owner Steve Bisciotti publicly acknowledged that fans had expressed opposition to the possibility.

The last straw may have been the failure of the Titans to give Kaepernick a tryout after quarterback Marcus Mariota suffered an injured hamstring. The Titans instead brought in Brandon Weeden, Matt McGloin, Matt Barkley, and T.J. Yates, before signing Weeden.

The clever part is that if Kaepernick wins, the Collective Bargaining Agreement will be voided, so even players who don’t support Kaepernick will have an incentive to hope he wins. The not-so-clever part is that it appears highly unlikely that he will win. The fact that nobody wants him on their roster is not indicative of collusion, it is merely a sign that no team wants to anger its season-ticket holders.

The company knew

 So much for the protestations of innocence.

Harvey’s brother and fellow co-founder Bob Weinstein, as well as the company’s president, David Glasser, had told concerned staff as recently as Tuesday that they were shocked and unaware of the confidential settlements made with various women.

However, according to a clause in his 2015 contract, if the movie mogul was charged with sexual harassment he was in charge of all legal payouts and had to pay an additional fine to the company.
‘You [Weinstein] will pay the company liquidated damages of $250,000 for the first such instance, $500,000 for the second such instance, $750,000 for the third such instance, and $1,000,000 for each additional instance,’ the contract reads.

According to the document, as long as Weinstein pays it constitutes a ‘cure’ for any misconduct and no further action can or will be taken.

In more simple terms, that means that no matter how many times he is sued – as long as he is willing to pay he won’t be fired.

If Weinstein were to ever be indicted for a crime the contract contains language that would allow the Board of Directors to fire him.

No, but you see, it was only “to cover consensual affairs.” Sure it was. Good luck trying to hold that line of defense.

UPDATE: And the knives are now out, now that it is clearly safe to declare opposition.

Hachette Book Group is disbanding the company’s Weinstein Books imprint, effective immediately.

“Going forward, titles currently under the Weinstein Books imprint will be published by our Hachette Books imprint, and the Weinstein Books imprint team will join Hachette Books,” the company said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

Perseus Books, which is part of Hachette, has had a co-publishing agreement with The Weinstein Co. that has produced about 10 books a year.

UPDATE: Ronan Farrow deserves all the credit he is getting, and then some. When NBC shut down his investigation, he kept it going on his own dime, then brought it to the New Yorker. Suffice it to say this is NOT normal journalistic behavior.

Trumps smells blood

The God-Emperor is not going to let the Hollywood Pig pull a Polanski:

FBI opens investigation into Harvey Weinstein on orders from Trump’s Justice Department – who fear mogul will ‘do a Roman Polanski’.

‘Suicidal’ Harvey Weinstein begs stranger for a ride while trying to flee his daughter’s home, leading LAPD to visit and make sure ‘depressed mogul does not harm himself’. Harvey Weinstein tried to flag down a passing motorist and flee his daughter Lily’s home after the two argued on Wednesday. Once he returned to the house, Lily reportedly called authorities to say her father was ‘suicidal and depressed’  Weinstein, 65, fled again before LAPD arrived on the scene, and soon after Lily had a change of opinion, saying her father was not at risk of self-harm. He said on Tuesday that he was boarding a plane to fly to rehab in Europe so that he could treat his sex addiction.

Considering what he knows, it wouldn’t be even remotely surprising if he is discovered to have committed Arkansas-style suicide in the next week.

EU incoherence

Both the EU and the Spanish government are proving to be tone-deaf over the threat to their claim to democratic legitimacy.

The obvious answer to the objection of Weber and others on the running of the referendum, is to have another one agreed by all and run in strict accordance with international standards. Yet strangely, despite their complaints about the process, they do not want to have a better process. They rather do not wish people to be allowed to vote at all.

There are however no arguments that the Catalan Parliament was elected in anything but the proper manner. Its suspension by the Spanish Constitutional Court – a body on which 10 out of 12 members are political appointees – is therefore not due to any doubts about the Catalan Parliament’s legitimacy.

No, the Catalan Parliament has been suspended because the Constitutional Court fears it may be about to vote in a way that the Spanish government does not like.

Note that it has not even done this yet. Nobody knows how its members will actually vote, until they vote. The Constitutional Court is suspending a democratically elected body in case it takes a democratic vote of its members.

This makes the EU look pretty silly. It was looking pretty silly anyway. I telephoned the Cabinet today of Frans Timmermans, the EU Commissioner who told the European Parliament that Spain was entitled to use force against the Catalans and it had been proportionate. I spoke to a pleasant young man responsible for the “rule of law and fundamental rights” portfolio in the Cabinet. I got through by using my “Ambassador” title.

Here is the thing. He was genuinely shocked to hear that people thought the Commission’s support for use of force was wrong. He stated that it had not been the intention of Timmermans to say the use of force was proportionate, rather it must be proportionate. He became very agitated and refused to answer when I repeatedly questioned him as to whether he thought the use of force had in fact been proportionate. I suggested to him rather strongly that in refusing to acknowledge the disproportionate use of force, he was in effect lying. I pointed out that Timmermans had supported use of force and said “rule of law” over and over again, but scarcely mentioned human rights.

Here is the thing. It was plain that his shock was genuine, and he had no idea whatsoever of the social media reaction to Timmermans speech. I told him to search Timmermans on twitter and facebook and see for himself, and he agreed to do so. The problem is, these people live in a Brussels bubble where they interact with other Eurocrats and national diplomats, and members of the Establishment media, but have no connection at all to the citizenry of the EU.

Crying “law, law, law” is never going to prove convincing to anyone. The Nuremberg trials killed the concept of the legal justification for morality once and for all. According to the neo-liberal world order, the law rests upon the collective consent of the governed, which consent can be withdrawn at any time as per the Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven. Both the EU and Spain are flirting with forces that have the ability to undermine them entirely, and unfortunately, they do not seem to understand this.

For those Spaniards who are apparently very, very slow, I do not support the communists of Catalan. Unlike the Lombardian and Venetian secessionists, I don’t regard their position on independence and the EU to be even remotely coherent. But that does not make what Spain and the EU are trying to do either right or wise.

The Saker is thinking on similar lines when he concludes the Russians are more amused than anything by the situation in Catalonia, and quite reasonably so:

Catalonia is far away from Russia and the outcome of the crisis there will have no real impact on Russian national interests. But on a political level, Catalonia is highly relevant to the Russian political debates. See for yourself:

The case of Catalonia can be compared to Crimea: a local referendum, organized against the will of the central government. In contrast, when Kosovo was cut-off from Serbia in total illegality and without any kind of referendum the entire West gave this abomination a standing ovation. The Russians then issues stark warnings about the precedent this set and thereafter South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Crimea happened. Is the secession of Catalonia not the next logical step? Is there not a karmic beauty in the fact that Spain and the rest of the EU are now being hit by the very same demon they unleashed in Kosovo? There is a definite Schadenfreude for many Russians in seeing the pompous asses of EU politicians sitting on the red ants nest of separatism – let’s see how smart and “democratic” you guys truly are?! It is rather funny, in a bitter-sweet way, to see how ‘democratic’ policemen beat up peaceful demonstrators whose only “crime” was to want to cast a ballot in a box.

A lot of Russians are now saying that Russia is now the only truly democratic and free country left out there. Needless to say, the way the Madrid government handled this situation further damage the credibility of the West, the EU and the entire notion of “civilized Europe” being “democratic”.

Making America Employed Again

The God-Emperor strikes again:

The Department of Justice announced Thursday it has filed a lawsuit against a Colorado corporation for allegedly discriminating against U.S. workers.

The complaint alleges that in 2016, Crop Production discriminated against at least three United States citizens by refusing to employ them as seasonal technicians in El Campo, Texas, because Crop Production preferred to hire temporary foreign workers under the H-2A visa program.

“In the spirit of President Trump’s Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American, the Department of Justice will not tolerate employers who discriminate against U.S. workers because of a desire to hire temporary foreign visa holders,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “… Where there is a job available, U.S. workers should have a chance at it before we bring in workers from abroad.”

This is great. This is excellent. Now, BUILD THE WALL!