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riversedge's JournalHow Taxpayers Covered a $1,000 Liquor Bill for Trump Staffers (and More) at Trump's Club
I have not heard a peep about this on the news.
How Taxpayers Covered a $1,000 Liquor Bill for Trump Staffers (and More) at Trump’s Club
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-taxpayers-covered-liquor-bill-for-trump-staffers-and-more-mar-a-lago?utm_content=buffer82de6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer
A top-shelf, closed-door drinking session. $546-a-night hotel rooms. A special government credit card for Mar-a-Lago. Taxpayers foot the costs — and the president profits.
by Derek Kravitz for ProPublica May 1, 4 a.m. EDT
Find “Trump, Inc.” wherever you get your podcasts. This week’s episode examines the intersection of money, presidential access and security, and the push and pull between government spending and private profits at Mar-a-Lago.
In April 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate and club, for a two-day summit. While Xi and his delegation stayed at a nearby hotel, Trump and his advisers stayed at the peach-colored, waterfront resort.
That evening, Trump and a dozen of his closest advisers hosted Xi and the Chinese delegation in an ornate dining room where they ate Dover sole and New York strip steak. Those sorts of lavish, formal gatherings are expected for a major bilateral summit.
But then there are less formal events. At some point later that evening, a group repaired to Mar-a-Lago’s Library Bar, a wood-paneled study with a portrait of Trump in tennis whites (titled “The Visionary”) hanging nearby. The group asked the bartender to leave the room so it “could speak confidentially,” according to an email written by Mar-a-Lago’s catering director, Brooke Watson.
Mar-a-Lago's Catering Director Describes White House Happy Hour for State Department (p. 33)
Selected portion of a source document hosted by DocumentCloud
View the entire document with DocumentCloud
The Secret Service guarded the door, according to the email. The bartender wasn’t allowed to return. And members of the group began pouring themselves drinks. No one paid.
Six days later, on April 13, Mar-a-Lago created a bill for those drinks, tallying $838 worth of alcohol plus a 20% service charge. It covered 54 drinks (making for an average price of $18.62 each) of premium liquor: Chopin vodka, Patron and Don Julio Blanco tequilas and Woodford Reserve bourbon. Watson’s email did not specify how many people consumed the alcohol or who the participants were. (It stated that she was told the participants included then-strategist Steve Bannon and then-deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin. Bannon, who has said he stopped drinking years ago, said he didn’t drink at Mar-a-Lago and didn’t recall the episode. Hagin did not respond to requests for comment.)..................................................
https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1123557694114234368
President Donald Trump, center, with Chinese President Xi Jinping at dinner, during Jinping’s visit to Mar-a-Lago in April 2017. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
https://twitter.com/AndreaWNYC/status/1123627642140409856
https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1123708766367694848
https://twitter.com/PropOTP/status/1123598453387321344
Nadler just now saying if Barr not show up tomorror, they will issue a citation (not say what a
citation is). msnbc just now.
Barr Will have to answer for testifying untruthfully
After the hearing, the Chair Lindsey Graham says-- "this is over!" & will NOT call Mueller
to testify. That means the Dems on the Committee will not get to question Mueller--damn.
After AG Barr hearing, Senate Judiciary Cmte Chairman Graham says he will not be calling Special Counsel Mueller before the committee, saying “this is over!” - @frankthorp
80 replies 36 retweets 82 likes
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1123670847724584962
Neal Katyal: THREAD Barr's opening in hearing is tragic.*** He says
I find Neal's opening comments to be spot on.
Neal Katyal Verified account @neal_katyal
1h1 hour ago
THREAD Barr’s opening in hearing is tragic. He says at his confirmation hearing the 2 concerns were: 1) whether he’d interfere with the Mueller investigation, and 2) whether the Mueller Report would be public. On 1), that’s just wrong. 1/
59 replies 871 retweets 1,820 likes
https://twitter.com/neal_katyal/status/1123597721049366528
https://twitter.com/JeffreyToobin/status/1123587883229745153
Neal Katyal Verified account @neal_katyal
1h1 hour ago
The concern has always been over interfering with the outcome. Barr doesn’t even tell us that he concluded in a period of hours what Mueller didn’t conclude in nearly 2 years, about whether Trump obstructed justice. 2/
9 replies 224 retweets 856 likes
Neal Katyal
?Verified account @neal_katyal
1h1 hour ago
Barr can’t even summarize what the concerns have always been, let alone summarize the Mueller Report.
It’s totally misleading, just like Barr’s summary/nonsummary. 3/
20 replies 264 retweets 920 likes
Neal Katyal Verified account @neal_katyal
1h1 hour ago
Barr's opening words never even acknowledged that Mueller said right at the outset that if he could clear Trump, he would. But he couldn’t. Just like Barr's earlier press conference when he released the report, or his earlier summary/nonsummary. 4/
14 replies 258 retweets 757 likes
Neal Katyal Verified account @neal_katyal
As far as 2), Barr said that the Special Counsel regulations required Mueller’s Report to remain confidential with the AG. That’s again flatly misleading. The regs require in the first instance the report to be confidential when given to the AG. 5/
9:42 AM - 1 May 2019
7 replies 184 retweets 606 likes
?Verified account @neal_katyal
1h1 hour ago
But the AG is permitted to publicly disclose it, and indeed there is a whole provision in the regs about that.
And notably, we learned moments ago that Mueller cited exactly that provision in his letter complaining to Barr when Mueller sought release of his report. 6/
12 replies 291 retweets 998 likes
Neal Katyal Verified account @neal_katyal
1h1 hour ago
This is totally misleading. If my law student summarized or described things this way, they’d get an F.
Conduct totally unbecoming for the Attorney General of the US. 7/7 
56 replies 656 retweets 2,030 likes
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1123599395876941826
Diane Feinstien up for questioning (she did her opening statement earlier)..
Senator Feinstein is detailing every damning thing in the Mueller Report and it's so very satisfying. #BarrHearing
https://twitter.com/dcpoll/status/1123594927349411845
https://twitter.com/JamesRusso2d3d/status/1123596356352925696
"That's it, Democrats," writes @TheRickWilson. "Put just one Trump minion in jail for contempt, and
Wilson needs to also ask WHAT WILL THE REPUBLICANS DO??
Bill Barr’s Not Your Average Trump Stooge. He’s 100 Times Worse. Will Democrats Do Anything About It?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-barrs-not-your-average-trump-stooge-hes-100-times-worse-will-democrats-do-anything-about-it
Bob Mueller found out the hard way that the attorney general isn’t the average Trump stooge. Time is running dangerously short, and Democrats still don't get it.
Rick Wilson
04.30.19 7:35 PM ET
opinion
When Bill Barr testifies before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees this week, don’t expect to hear the head of the Department of Justice answering questions from a co-equal branch of the American government.
That was the old, boring Washington, where the attorney general was a guardian of the law and justice, not of Donald Trump’s political fortunes.
Bill Barr already showed us his cards with his performances declaring that the Mueller Report had exonerated Donald Trump—which the Washington Post reported Tuesday evening were delivered over the strenuous objections of Robert Mueller, who wrote to say that the A.G.'s “depiction of his findings failed to capture the ‘context, nature, and substance” of the probe.
........................................
The Daily Beast
?Verified account @thedailybeast
5h5 hours ago
"That’s it, Democrats," writes @TheRickWilson. "Put just one Trump minion in jail for contempt, and you’ll show that you’re using the power the voters gave you. It’s that, or you can just shut up and watch AOC assemble Ikea furniture on Instagram"
https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1123421818608586753
Schiff Hires Ex-Chief of FBI Financial Crimes Section as House Intel Probes Trump's Finances
Source: DAILYBEAST
Patrick Fallon jumps from the upper echelon of the bureau to Congress as Democrats ramp up investigations of president’s finances.
04.30.19 1:54 PM ET REUTERS
Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has hired Patrick Fallon, former chief of the FBI’s Financial Crimes Section, according to two sources familiar with the move.
It’s a significant hire that will bring expertise to the committee’s efforts to scrutinize President Donald Trump’s financial dealings. A committee source told The Daily Beast that Fallon started this week.
Schiff announced earlier this year that the committee will look at Trump’s finances to see if his personal interests are influencing his decisions as president. “That pertains to any credible allegations of leverage by the Russians or the Saudis or anyone else,” he said, according to CNN.
Frank Figliuzzi, former Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, called Fallon’s hiring significant.
“The fact that the Committee has hired someone at the former senior executive service level from within the FBI’s Financial Crimes Section is significant, and to me denotes an effort to apply significant resources to examining and analyzing financial findings,” Figliuzzi said. “By the time you got to the head of the Financial Crimes section, you would have substantial white collar crime and global financial crime experience, both at the street level and the supervisory level. And his role at headquarters would have had him overseeing the bulk of all financial crime cases in the FBI.”
.........................................
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/adam-schiff-hires-patrick-fallon-ex-chief-of-fbi-financial-crimes-section-to-probe-trumps-finances/?via=twitter_page
https://twitter.com/DrDenaGrayson/status/1123386337741217799
Barr told 4/10 Senate he did NOT know if Mueller supported his conclusion -But Mueller letter 3/27!
I am sick of these lying jackasses!!
(((Rep. Nadler))) ?Verified account @RepJerryNadler
12m12 minutes ago
(((Rep. Nadler))) Retweeted (((Rep. Nadler)))
I note with interest AG Barr’s 4/10 Senate testimony. “Q: Did Bob Mueller support your conclusion? A: I don’t know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion.” Now it appears that Mueller objected in this 3/27 letter.
https://twitter.com/RepJerryNadler/status/1123378879178133504
William Barr perjured himself before Congress. He must be charged and impeached.
https://twitter.com/BreakandEnterTV/status/1123379090763984898
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