[Special] New York Daily News: Trump Makes Legendary Artist Do Portrait His Way

By Brian Niemietz:

According to celebrated artist Ralph Wolfe Cowan, who was commissioned to paint "The Entrepreneur" for The Donald in 1987, his original portrait included a deliberately colorless portion of the canvas, which was a stylistic choice commonly found in classic oil sketches. When Cowan presented the completed piece to Trump, the billionaire blowhard asked when he was going to finish it. This went on until 2002, when the artist finally relented.

"I did an oil portrait sketch and I love those, where part of the hand or body is missing," Cowan told Confidenti@l. "He did not understand what an oil sketch was."

Cowan, who frequents Trump's posh Florida property, says that the gauche businessman's understanding of art didn't improve with age.

"Every time I'd see him at Mar-a-Lago, he'd ask, 'when are you going to finish the hand?'" he said. "It's hard explaining (it all) to Donald."

According to Cowan, Trump seemed to think that the artist's insistence that the painting was complete was some sort of ongoing negotiation tactic.

"I (originally) got about $24,000," said Cowan, who calls that a bargain. "He always tried to bargain and I don't like that at all."

The Full Story (March 6, 2016)

Reuters: Brazil Prosecutor Investigates Funds' Investment in Trump Hotel Rio

By Anthony Boadle and Stephen Eisenhammer:

A Brazilian prosecutor has opened a criminal investigation into investments made by two state pension funds in a luxury Rio de Janeiro hotel that is part of the Trump franchise, according to a court filing reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday.

The 130 million reais ($40 million) investment by the two small funds in the hotel's developer "required investigation" due to its size, structure and high level of risk, Anselmo Lopes, a federal prosecutor in Brasilia, said in the document dated Oct. 21 that opened the inquiry.


* * *

The Trump Hotel Rio de Janeiro, a beachfront property with 170 rooms near where the Olympic Park was located, is managed by the real estate company of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, although no money from the Trump Organization was invested in the project.

Prosecutor Lopes last week also said the Trump Organization may have benefited "suspiciously" from a massive redevelopment of Rio de Janeiro's port, where it plans to build a series of office towers. Lopes provided no proof of his suspicions, and did not elaborate on what he meant.

The Full Story (November 2, 2016)

[Special] Donald Trump's Sexual Assault Allegations: November 2016 Edition

The flood of sexual assault claims was coming in at such a rapid rate that I decided to compile them and wait until the tide subsided, so I could then drop them in a single post. Since the American media and public are now obsessed with discussing FBI Director James Comey's unprecedented and unusual announcement about additional emails found on Anthony Weiner's computer which may or may not be classified and may or may not have been to/from Hillary Clinton and may or may not be duplicates of emails they already have, the sexual assault business is now merely the echo of a memory. Except here, of course, where I strive to chronicle all of the insanity of Donald Trump.

This post is not an essay so much as a link dump, so apologies for the lack of prose. Also, as a note, despite this being the "November Edition," there are no articles from November, save towards the end, where an article by Vocativ (linked in the last paragraph) highlights the GOP folks who disavowed Trump and then reaffirmed their support for him like the craven, spineless frauds they are. Below is a list of articles relating to Trump's sexual assaults that came out on or after the October Edition was published.

• Talking Points Memo: The Floodgates Open by Josh Marshall (October 12, 2016)
• Talking Points Memo: Four Decades Of Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Trump by Kristin Salaky and Esme Cribb (October 13, 2016)
• New York Magazine: It Doesn’t Take a Conspiracy Theory to Explain the Timing of the New Trump Allegations by Eric Levitz (October 13, 2016)
• Washington Post: Woman Says Trump Reached Under Her Skirt and Groped Her in Early 1990s by Karen Tumulty (October 14, 2016)
• The Guardian: Donald Trump 'Grabbed Me and Went for the Lips', Says New Accuser by Molly Redden (October 16, 2016)
• Washington Post: The Growing List of Women Who Have Stepped Forward to Accuse Trump of Touching Them Inappropriately by Rosalind S. Helderman (October 22, 2016)
• Talking Points Memo: Trump On Adult Film Star Accuser - ‘I’m Sure She's Never Been Grabbed Before’ by Allegra Kirkland (October 24, 2016)

As Dana Milbank wrote for the Post, we knew this Trump all along: 

Republicans may be dismayed by the super-predator they saw and heard in the video (just as they purported to be stunned by Trump’s racist attack on Judge Gonzalo Curiel despite Trump’s long history of racism), but they have no business being surprised. What’s on that tape is entirely consistent with what we already knew.

Even before this tape emerged, we knew that his wife Ivana accused him at the time of their divorce of raping her (Trump’s lawyer asserted that there is no such thing as spousal rape). We’ve known for months that makeup artist Jill Harth filed a 1997 complaint accusing Trump of attempted rape and of groping her in his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom. We’ve seen complaint after complaint about his lewd behavior on set at “The Apprentice” and at his Miss Universe pageants.

But while people can question the he-said, she-said allegations against Trump, it’s harder to dispute the meaning of his own words.

Here, for the benefit of those Republicans feigning surprise about Trump’s video, is a partial catalogue of reported remarks Trump has made about women — remarks which, by embracing Trump as the GOP presidential nominee, office holders in the party have already condoned[.]

I won't reproduce the large volume of unfortunate quotations here; you can click the link for yourself. Suffice to say, the outrage (which has since subsided, and the opposition mustered by Republican officials has faded as they jump back onto the Trump train) came surprisingly late considering the man that is Donald Trump. As Bill Simmons noted, "But seriously - why did it take today for people to turn on Trump? He's been horrible this whole time."

Washington Post: Libertarian Party VP Nominee Bill Weld Basically Just Endorsed Hillary Clinton

By Aaron Blake:

MADDOW: I posited just a moment ago before the commercial break that what you and Gary Johnson are really aiming at this year is that 5 percent threshold, to try to get some federal matching funds, to try to get some ballot access, and all those other things. Basically so the Libertarians might be viable in the future. Is that fair?

WELD: I think you can — I think in the real world that’s probably correct. That would give federal matching funds. It would mean no more ballot access woes. You know we thought for the longest time we might have a chance to run the table because we’re such nice guys and centrist party, etcetera, but not getting into the debates really sort of foreclosed that option. So now it’s really the 5 percent, you’re right.

MADDOW: And when you—in the real world when you think about pursing that 5 percent option, for people who are in states where it’s really close, for people who are in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, these states where the presidential race really might be decided among the two candidates who actually have a shot at it. Do you think that people in those states should vote for you?

WELD: Well, we are making our case that we’re fiscally responsible and socially inclusive and welcoming. And we think we’ve got on the merits the best ticket of the three parties, if you will, and so, you know, we’d like to get there. Having said that, as I think you’re aware, I see a big difference between the Republican candidate and the Democratic candidate. And I’ve been at some pains to say that I fear for the country if Mr. Trump should be elected. I think it’s a candidacy without any parallel that I can recall. It’s content-free and very much given to stirring up ambient resentment and even hatred. And I think it would be a threat to the conduct of our foreign policy and our position in the world at large.

MADDOW: When you say fear for the country do you mean — is that hyperbole or do you mean it literally? Do you think it would actually be a threat to us as a country if elected?

WELD: Well I think it would be a threat to our polity as Tom Brokaw has been saying over the past couple of days. You know we’re getting to the point where we’re impinging on democratic institutions in this country and I think, you know, it takes a certain-- not a suspension of disbelief -- but willingness to go along with other people to get the ship estate going forward. I’m not sure that happens in a Trump presidency, frankly.

The Full Story (November 2, 2016)

Mother Jones: A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump

By David Corn:

In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) "It started off as a fairly general inquiry," says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."

This was, the former spy remarks, "an extraordinary situation." He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was "sufficiently serious" to share with the FBI.

Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him." It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on "bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls."

The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was "shock and horror." The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump's inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. "It's quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on," he says.

"This is something of huge significance, way above party politics," the former intelligence officer comments. "I think [Trump's] own party should be aware of this stuff as well."

The Full Story (October 31, 2016)

Slate: Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?

By Franklin Foer:

In late July, one of these scientists—who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data—found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance—a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups on his screen. “I have an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,” he wrote in his notes. He couldn’t quite figure it out at first. But what he saw was a bank in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a server registered to the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue.

More data was needed, so he began carefully keeping logs of the Trump server’s DNS activity. As he collected the logs, he would circulate them in periodic batches to colleagues in the cybersecurity world. Six of them began scrutinizing them for clues.

The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn’t the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation—conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.

* * *

Alfa’s oligarchs occupied an unusual position in Putin’s firmament. They were insiders but not in the closest ring of power. “It’s like they were his judo pals,” one former U.S. government official who knows Fridman told me. “They were always worried about where they stood in the pecking order and always feared expropriation.” Fridman and Aven, however, are adept at staying close to power. As the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia once ruled, in the course of dismissing a libel suit the bankers filed, “Aven and Fridman have assumed an unforeseen level of prominence and influence in the economic and political affairs of their nation.”

* * *

Tea Leaves and his colleagues plotted the data from the logs on a timeline. What it illustrated was suggestive: The conversation between the Trump and Alfa servers appeared to follow the contours of political happenings in the United States. “At election-related moments, the traffic peaked,” according to Camp. There were considerably more DNS lookups, for instance, during the two conventions.

The Full Story (October 31, 2016)

New York Times: Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes

By David Barstow, Mike McIntire, Patricia Cohen, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner:

But newly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the Internal Revenue Service would most likely declare it improper if he were audited.

Thanks to this one maneuver, which was later outlawed by Congress, Mr. Trump potentially escaped paying tens of millions of dollars in federal personal income taxes. It is impossible to know for sure because Mr. Trump has declined to release his tax returns, or even a summary of his returns, breaking a practice followed by every Republican and Democratic presidential candidate for more than four decades.

Tax experts who reviewed the newly obtained documents for The New York Times said Mr. Trump’s tax avoidance maneuver, conjured from ambiguous provisions of highly technical tax court rulings, clearly pushed the edge of the envelope of what tax laws permitted at the time. “Whatever loophole existed was not ‘exploited’ here, but stretched beyond any recognition,” said Steven M. Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center who helped draft tax legislation in the early 1990s.

The Full Story (October 31, 2016)