Is anything more predictable these days than the North Carolina Supreme Court?
Category Archives: chicanery
“Trump dines with top meme coin holders, shrugging off ethics concerns”
President Donald Trump dined with the top purchasers of his meme coin at a black-tie gala Thursday night, demonstrating his willingness to cross what was once seen as an ethical red line: profiting off the presidency while in office.
Presidents of both parties have long granted special access to wealthy political donors and participated in private dinners to raise funds for their parties or their own campaigns. But campaign money comes with legal restraints, and donors must disclose donations to political candidates or committees.
Trump’s crypto venture is different: He and his family profit personally when people buy his meme coin, and crypto transactions are often shrouded in anonymity. The venture has collected millions of dollars in crypto transaction fees from the attendees eager to gain access to Trump, who has described himself as the “crypto president.”
Since the meme coin’s debut in January, Trump-affiliated businesses have received $312 million from crypto sales and $43 million in total fees, according to a Washington Post analysis of data through last week. Crypto wallets linked to Trump and his partners have earned about $3 million in transaction fees charged to coin buyers since the dinner was announced last month, The Post’s analysis found.
The White House has argued the dinner poses no conflict of interest because the president’s assets are in a blind trust managed by his adult sons. Asked whether the administration would commit to releasing a list of the dinner attendees, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday she would “raise that question” internally. Leavitt argued that the event “is not a White House dinner” and that “the president is attending it in his personal time.”
The Chinese-born crypto billionaire Justin Sun, former National Basketball Association player Lamar Odom and a crypto investor known as “Ogle” are among the top 220 buyers of the meme coin who qualified to attend the Thursday dinner at Trump’s golf club in Virginia. Sun, who had been under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission over 2023 allegations that he had tried to manipulate markets, invested millions in one of Trump’s other crypto ventures after the November election. In February, shortly after Trump took office, the SEC asked a court to halt the case against the crypto baron. Sun did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story….
“Trump’s crypto dinner cost over $1 million per seat on average”
More than 200 wealthy, mostly anonymous crypto buyers are coming to Washington on Thursday to have dinner with President Donald Trump. The price of admission: $55,000 to $37.7 million.
That’s how much the 220 winners of a contest to meet Trump spent on his volatile cryptocurrency token, $TRUMP, according to an analysis by the blockchain analytics company Nansen.
The top $TRUMP coin holders at a specific time — determined by the dinner’s organizers — secured a seat.
In total, the winners spent $394 million on Trump’s official cryptocurrency, Nansen found, though some have sold portions of or all of their holdings since the contest ended. The amount varied significantly by spender, with the top seven winners each spending more than $10 million and the bottom 24 each spending less than $100,000. A third of the winners — 67 of them — spent more than a million dollars, the research shows. The average winner spent $1,788,994.42.
Like many meme coins, $TRUMP’s value fluctuates wildly, according to CoinMarketCap, which tracks cryptocurrency prices. Nansen tracked how much each of the contest winners spent on their $TRUMP at the time they purchased it.
The top 220 contest winners were invited to the black-tie optional dinner at the Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. While the website for the contest claims that Trump “is appearing at the dinner as a guest and not soliciting any funds for it,” it also says that 80% of the $TRUMP coin project is owned by two Trump-affiliated companies, CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC.
The personal cryptocurrency and associated contest, which ended last Monday, adds to the litany of ways Trump has appeared to use the office of the presidency to profit personally. His business interests are in a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr., and he has intertwined many of his family businesses with his activities as president, including holding events, like the crypto dinner, at his social clubs, and issuing exclusive political statements on his social media app Truth Social. …
“Justice Dept. Opens Inquiry Into Cuomo, Singling Out Another Political Target”
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation of Andrew M. Cuomo, a front-runner in the New York City mayoral race, after Republicans accused him of lying to Congress about decisions he made during the coronavirus pandemic as governor, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The inquiry, begun about a month ago by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, comes after senior Justice Department officials in February demanded the dismissal of an indictment of the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, on corruption charges.
That puts the Trump administration in the unusual position of having ended a criminal case against the leader of the nation’s largest city and opened one into his chief rival in the span of a few months. Mr. Adams is running for re-election as an independent, and Mr. Cuomo is leading the Democratic primary field in the polls.
The existence of the investigation is sure to fuel further criticism that President Trump and his administration are wielding the Justice Department as a cudgel to achieve political ends and punish his perceived enemies.
Mr. Trump routinely calls for criminal inquiries of political foes and people who have crossed him, often based on what legal experts say are flimsy claims of wrongdoing. His appointees at the Justice Department have increasingly signaled a willingness to use their investigative and prosecutorial powers to carry out Mr. Trump’s wishes.
The people familiar with the details of the investigation into Mr. Cuomo spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. A spokesman for the Justice Department and a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment, citing a general policy of not confirming or denying investigations.
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, questioned the basis of the investigation. “We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now?” he said. “The answer is obvious: This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple — something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against.”…
“A failed plot to steal a local Pa. election shows how hard it is to pull off fraud”
“Feds charge New Jersey congressmember with assault”
The Justice Department announced an assault charge Monday against Rep. LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat who was involved in a chaotic confrontation with officials outside a federal immigration facility earlier this month.
The criminal charge follows a May 9 visit by McIver, along with her colleagues Reps. Rob Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman, to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark that unfolded in a tussle and resulted in the arrest of the city’s Democratic mayor.
New Jersey interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced the charge against McIver on X, escalating a confrontation between the political branches, while also agreeing to drop the pending trespass charge against Mayor Ras Baraka.
“I have persistently made efforts to address these issues without bringing criminal charges and have given Representative McIver every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined,” Habba said in a statement.
The charge is an extraordinary stress-test for the separation of powers at a time in which President Donald Trump is seeking to maximize executive branch dominance. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries last week warned against federal law enforcement targeting the Democratic members and called arrests a “red line.”
House Democratic leadership in a statement slammed the charge as “extreme, morally bankrupt and lacks any basis in law or fact.”
“Everyone responsible for this illegitimate abuse of power is going to be held accountable for their actions,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark, Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, Vice Chair Ted Lieu and Assistant Leader Joe Neguse in a statement. “An attack on one of us is an attack on the American people. House Democrats will respond vigorously in the days to come at a time, place and manner of our choosing.”
The formal charging documents were not immediately made public, but Habba cited a provision of federal law that makes it a crime to engage in an assault on a federal officer. It’s a felony when the assault involves “physical contact with the victim.” McIver is being charged “for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement,” according to Habba.
The three lawmakers last Friday attempted to inspect Delaney Hall — the Trump administration’s newest immigrant detention facility — for oversight, as members of Congress are allowed to do by law. Charges have not been announced for Menendez nor Watson Coleman.
“The charges against me are purely political — they mischaracterize and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight,” McIver said in a statement. “This administration will never stop me from working for the people in our district and standing up for what is right. I am thankful for the outpouring of support I have received and I look forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court.”…
“Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC failed to pay swing state petition signers, new suit alleges”
Elon Musk’s America PAC didn’t keep its promise to pay swing state voters who signed a pro-Trump petition ahead of the 2024 election, and who enlisted others to do the same, a new lawsuit alleges.
The case, a proposed national class action suit, was filed within the last week in a federal court in the Eastern district of Pennsylvania, a state that was viewed as critical to Donald Trump’s effort to return to the White House.
A related case was filed in April that only applied to residents of Pennsylvania.
Lead plaintiffs are three people who participated in the America PAC initiative while they were living in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia. One formally worked as a canvasser for America PAC in Michigan and in Georgia, the complaint says.
In his efforts to propel Trump to victory, Musk spent around $300 million while also stumping at rallies and online for his preferred candidate. Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, had offered payments — initially $47 and later $100 — to those who signed a petition supporting his pro-Trump PAC. Additional payments were offered for each eligible person they referred who signed the petition.
Musk said the petitions showed support for the First Amendment and Second Amendment. The PAC viewed the awards as a way to drive voter registration and turnout in swing states.
The complaint says the plaintiffs are “in communication with numerous others who referred voters to sign the America PAC petition, who are likewise frustrated that they did not receive full payments for their referrals.” The group, represented by the law firm Lichten & Liss-Riordan, expects there to be “more than 100 Class Members,” with payments owed them “expected to exceed $5,000,000,” the filing says….
“U.S. AG Pam Bondi Sold More than $1 Million in Trump Media Stock the Day Trump Announced Sweeping Tariffs”
Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares of Trump Media the same day that President Donald Trump unveiled bruising new tariffs that caused the stock market to plummet, according to records obtained Wednesday by ProPublica.
Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, fell 13% in the following days, before rebounding.
Trump’s “Liberation Day” press conference from the White House Rose Garden unveiling the tariffs came after the market closed on April 2. Bondi’s disclosure forms showing her Trump Media sales say the transactions were made on April 2 but do not disclose whether they occurred before or after the market closed.
Trades by government officials informed by nonpublic information learned through work could violate the law. But cases against government officials are legally challenging, and in recent years judges have largely narrowed what constitutes illegal insider trading….
“As Trump Courts Gifts and Dangles Access, Congress Sits on the Sidelines”
Carl Hulse for the NYT:
The president stood accused of dangling exclusive access to the White House for big bucks. Members of Congress were duly outraged, with one prominent Republican assailing him for using “probably one of the more sacrosanct places in America” to rake in cash. Months of high-profile congressional hearings ensued.
That was in 1997, when President Bill Clinton came under scrutiny for inviting campaign donors to stay overnight in the White House’s famed Lincoln Bedroom, prompting a firestorm around claims that he was shamelessly exploiting the presidency.
Nearly three decades later, President Trump has drawn accusations of corruption and self-dealing for publicly flirting with accepting a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar and promising an exclusive country club dinner and White House tour for the largest buyers of his crypto coin, one of many financial exploits enriching him and his family.
But the Republicans who control Congress aren’t rushing to convene investigative committees just yet. As is often the case when Mr. Trump’s actions or words put him squarely in the middle of a controversy, top G.O.P. lawmakers are in no hurry to question the president or amplify the criticism.
“This is a hypothetical,” the Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said on Tuesday when asked if he was comfortable with the gifting of the jet. Should the matter move beyond the hypothetical stage, he said, “I can assure you there will be plenty of scrutiny of whatever that arrangement might look like.”
To those who were caught up years ago in the frenzy over the Lincoln Bedroom, the acceptance of Mr. Trump’s activities within his own party is discouraging to say the least….
“Auction to Dine With Trump Creates Foreign Influence Opportunity; When the bidding stops Monday, the top buyers of a Trump family crypto coin will win a tour of the White House.”
NYT:
The sale of face-to-face access to President Trump using the Trump family’s own cryptocurrency has done more than benefit him financially, though it has certainly done that.
Mr. Trump announced last month that leading buyers of a digital coin his family is marketing would be rewarded with a private dinner with him at one of his golf courses and that the very top bidders would win a tour of the White House.
The auction, which ends Monday, has set off a spectacle that has drawn bipartisan criticism, triggered a suspicious trading pattern, and left a sitting United States president wide open to attempts to corruptly influence him.
Since the announcement, crypto investors around the world have raced to expand their holdings of $TRUMP — a digital currency called a memecoin, which is typically treated more as a novelty investment than an actual currency.
ertain buyers, in interviews and statements, have said they bought the coins or entered the dinner contest with the intention of securing an action by Mr. Trump to affect United States policy.
The contest has pushed up the memecoin’s trading price, adding billions of dollars, at least on paper, to the value of a $TRUMP stash controlled by the Trump family and its business partners. And in a matter of weeks, the Trumps and their partners have reeled in more than $1.3 million in fees, taking a cut every time the coins changed hands, according to Chainalysis, a crypto data firm.
Certain other large traders, sensing an opportunity to cash in, have moved quickly to sell their $TRUMP holdings, exploiting the run up in price caused by Mr. Trump’s promotional push as new money poured in from people enticed by his offer of “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”
But the blitz of profit-seeking by Mr. Trump and his family is also provoking a backlash.
Last week, it helped derail a major piece of crypto legislation pending in Congress, as the sale prompted objections from crypto industry executives and lawmakers, including some Republicans.
“It does give me pause because it complicates our work here,” Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, said in an interview last week after some Democrats began to balk on the crypto bill over Mr. Trump’s involvement in the industry. “The optics are challenging.”
Trading records examined by The New York Times show that a flurry of purchases of the $TRUMP token started the day before the coin’s backers disclosed the contest. Information had leaked about the upcoming promotion, allowing certain parties to make early bets that the market price was about to jump, the records suggest.
The aggressive effort by Mr. Trump and his partners to promote the dinner has also drawn scrutiny from former securities regulators, who assert that Mr. Trump may be violating federal securities laws. However, he would almost certainly not be targeted for investigation, now that his administration has curtailed crypto enforcement efforts at both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.
“This absolutely would have triggered an initial investigation,” said John Reed Stark, an enforcement attorney who spent 18 years at the S.E.C., including as chief of its unit that examined cybercrimes. “Or at least it certainly would have under norms from prior Republican and Democratic eras.”…
“Trump administration poised to accept ‘palace in the sky’ as a gift for Trump from Qatar: Sources”
In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar — a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News.
The gift is expected to be announced next week, when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of his second term, according to sources familiar with the plans.
Trump toured the plane, which is so opulently configured it is known as “a flying palace,” while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February.
The highly unusual — unprecedented — arrangement is sure to raise questions about whether it is legal for the Trump administration, and ultimately, the Trump presidential library foundation, to accept such a valuable gift from a foreign power.
Anticipating those questions, sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution’s prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts “from any King, Prince or foreign State…..
Jonathan Adler at Volokh: Have you ever seen an emolument fly?
“Texas Attorney General Announces Vote Fraud and ‘Harvesting’ Charges”
NYT:
A half-dozen people, including a county judge, two City Council members and a former county election administrator, were indicted in Texas on Wednesday for “vote harvesting” and tampering with evidence, elevating Attorney General Ken Paxton’s charges of voter fraud by mostly Latino Democrats to a criminal level.
The charges surprised Latino voting rights activists, who had insisted that a series of law enforcement raids on political operatives and voting organizers, some who were in their 70s and 80s, appeared to have been political. The raids last August by Mr. Paxton’s office were part of a sprawling voter fraud inquiry in Latino enclaves near San Antonio and in South Texas, conducted by Mr. Paxton’s “election integrity unit.”
At the time, the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations, said that officers conducting the raids took cellphones, computers and documents. An 87-year-old retired educator described heavily armed officers barging into her home and taking personal items.
LULAC leaders accused the famously conservative attorney general of trying to suppress Latino voters and asked the Justice Department to investigate the raids.
Now, five people, all with ties to Democratic candidates, are accused of illegal vote harvesting, which usually involves knocking on doors and asking if volunteers can deliver completed absentee or mail-in ballots to voting centers or ballot drop boxes.
In 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an overhaul of Texas election laws which included new restrictions on vote harvesting, making it illegal to deliver a ballot for a third party. Many activists fear that the exchange of money, such as money for gas, to help deliver a ballot or cast a vote could also be considered illegal. Wednesday’s indictment accused officials of using CashApp to pay one person to engage another to collect ballots.
It was unclear if other arrests were pending.
“I think this is all part of voter suppression,” said Lidia Martinez, who was 87 last year when nine officers, some with guns, raided her home in San Antonio. She was not among the indicted.
Officials with LULAC said on Wednesday that they needed to study the indictments before commenting for this article….
“Justice Department lawyers face skeptical judges upset by ‘shoddy work'”
WaPo:
Justice Department lawyers defending the Trump administration’s policies are encountering mounting criticism and frustration from federal judges, a sign of deepening tension between the executive branch and courts weighing its aggressive uses of power.
In recent hearings and rulings, judges appointed by presidents of both parties have criticized the statements and behavior of administration officials, accusing them of defying court orders, submitting flimsy evidence, providing inadequate answers to questions and even acting like toddlers.
The cases involve lawsuits challenging everything from President Donald Trump’s push to increase deportations to his efforts to punish law firms. Most are in the early stages of litigation. But the judicial pushback suggests a break from the goodwill courts have traditionally shown toward assertions by government lawyers.
The “deference that judges would give to attorneys from Main Justice is evaporating,” said John E. Jones III, a former federal judge in Pennsylvania appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush. Justice Department lawyers, he added, have “lost a fair measure of their credibility.”
At a hearing in D.C. last week about law firms, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates seemed unimpressed by some of the Justice Department lawyer’s answers, responding at one point: “Oh, give me a break.”
U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell was similarly skeptical Friday as she ruled Trump’s actions against a different law firm were unconstitutional, writing that Justice Department lawyer Richard Lawson, “when asked, was unable to fill in basic details” about the sanctions.
In Virginia, a judge scoffed at evidence the government offered in an immigration case in March to claim one couple were members of a violent gang. “I expect more from the government than this kind of very shoddy work,” U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema told the Justice Department lawyer, adding that if it were a criminal case, “I’d throw you out of my chambers.”…
“A fund backed by Abu Dhabi . . . would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.”
The corruption isn’t hidden; it’s right in front of our eyes:
Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.
That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump’s crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.
Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, revealed that a so-called stablecoin developed by the firm would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.
Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump’s second-eldest son, contained a conflict of interest.
MGX’s use of the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, brings a Trump family company into business with a venture firm backed by a foreign government. The deal creates a formal link between World Liberty and Binance — a company that has been under U.S. government oversight since 2023, when it admitted to violating federal money-laundering laws.
And the splashy announcement served as an advertisement to crypto investors worldwide about the potential for forming a partnership with a company tied to President Trump, who is listed as World Liberty’s chief crypto advocate….