Elliot Broidy-- One Of The Worst Trumpists America Has Offered The World-- Has Agreed To An Inconsequential Guilty Plea Covering Up His Real Crimes-- And Trump's

 

It seems this case should have closed years ago-- but this isn't a TV show like The Balcklist and well-connected, crooked multimillionaires have a way of drawing these things out forever. No doubt Broidy expects to be eventually pardoned by Trump. Broidy is going to plead guilty to relatively minor crimes involved in failure to disclose that he was a lobbyist attempting to stop a US criminal investigation into a multi-billion dollar fraud at a Malaysian investment fund, while protecting Trump and the Mercer family from far more serious charges involving the Saudis and Emeratis. Broidy gets to pleas to one count of criminal conspiracy... and the rest all disappears. Unfuckingbelievable!!

"Broidy," reported CNN, "is expected to plead guilty to the conspiracy charge later this month in a deal with the Justice Department to resolve its investigations of him, according to a person familiar with the investigation." Yes, the Trump Justice Department-- William Barr's Justice Department, a hive of corruption and grotesque swamp-enlargement.

The idea is to disappear the serious Broidy cases in lieu of this pipsqueak of a case. It's a smoke screen:

According to a court filing, Broidy and others used encrypted messaging services to conceal a two-pronged lobbying effort and the millions of dollars in payments they received from Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman whom the Justice Department later charged with looting 1Malaysian Development Berhad of billions of dollars. Low has denied the allegations.

Broidy was also charged with illicitly lobbying the Trump administration for the removal of a Chinese national living in the US who is wanted by the Chinese government. According to the criminal charges, Broidy attempted to facilitate meetings between a Chinese minister and top officials in the Trump administration, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security during a May 2017 visit. Neither lobbying effort was successful.

The investigation into the lobbying campaign has resulted in charges against at least two other individuals, including a former Justice Department employee. It is also the culmination of a multi-year investigation into Broidy and marks a fall for the former Republican fundraiser who had risen to the top of GOP circles with access to the President.

Broidy, a Los Angeles businessman and longtime Republican, had helped the Trump inaugural committee raise a record $107 million. He also served as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee from 2017 until April 2018 when he resigned in the wake of disclosures that Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, had facilitated a $1.6 million payment to a former Playboy model who says she became pregnant by Elliot Broidy.

At the time, Broidy admitted to the relationship, but he did not address whether he impregnated the woman.

While serving in those top positions, prosecutors allege, Broidy was simultaneously looking to cash in on his access to the President and administration officials. It was then, prosecutors allege, that he began the lobbying campaign on behalf of Low.

Prosecutors have been investigating the covert lobbying effort nearly from its start. In 2018 the Justice Department's public integrity unit announced criminal charges against George Higginbotham, a Justice Department employee, for helping arrange bank accounts to facilitate the transfer of money from Low to the lobbyists. Higginbotham has pleaded guilty.

Last year federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, which is also investigating the fraud at 1MDB, subpoenaed the inaugural committee for information about Broidy's contacts with foreign leaders and businesses, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The subpoena sought records relating to Broidy, five companies associated with him, and foreign politicians-- including the presidents of Angola and the Republic of Congo and two Romanian politicians, the sources said.

By August, Nickie Lum Davis, an associate of Broidy, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the secret lobbying effort.

The criminal charges are not Broidy's first brush with the law. In 2009 Broidy pleaded guilty to New York state charges, admitting he paid nearly $1 million as part of a pay-to-play scheme to win an investment for his private equity fund from the state's pension fund. He avoided jail time by cooperating with authorities.

Angola? The Congo? The real Broidy story is about Broidy using cash from the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates to bribe Trump. But there is not a peep about either in the CNN report. How is that even possible? No mentions of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Erik Prince, Robert Mercer (and his Secure America Now SuperPAC) and Broidy's business partner, repeat child sex abuser George Nader, currently serving a 10 ten year prison term. Someone wants the Elliot Broidy story to just be about Malaysia, the Fugees and a Chinese billionaire.

Back in May of 2018, the Business Insider reported that after Broidy spent a year cultivating a couple of the corrupt princes from Arabian Peninsula, he "thought he was finally close to nailing more than $1 billion in business. He had ingratiated himself with crown princes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who were seeking to alter US foreign policy and punish Qatar, an archrival in the Gulf that he dubbed 'the snake.' To do that, the California businessman had helped spearhead a secret campaign to influence the White House and Congress, flooding Washington with political donations. Broidy and his business partner, Lebanese-American George Nader, pitched themselves to the crown princes as a backchannel to the White House, passing the princes' praise-- and messaging-- straight to the president's ears... Broidy and Nader sought to get an anti-Qatar bill through Congress while obscuring the source of the money behind their influence campaign... Broidy's campaign to alter US policy in the Middle East and reap a fortune for himself shows that one of the president's top money men found the swamp as navigable as ever with Trump in office."

Saudi Arabia was finding a new ascendancy following Trump's election. Broidy sought to claim credit for it, emails show, and was keen to collect the first installment of $36 million for an intelligence-gathering contract with the UAE.

It all might have proceeded smoothly save for one factor: the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to look into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In many ways, the partnership between Broidy, 60, and Nader, 59, embodies the insider influence that has given contractors in D.C. the nickname "beltway bandits."

Both of their careers were marked by high-rolling success and spectacular falls from grace-- and criminal convictions. The onset of the Trump administration presented an opportunity: a return to glory.

Broidy, who made a fortune in investments, was finance chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2006 to 2008. But when a New York state pension fund decided to invest $250 million with him, investigators found that he had plied state officials with nearly $1 million in illegal gifts while collecting $18 million in management fees.

In 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty to a felony charge of rewarding official misconduct.

"In seeking investments from the New York State Common Retirement Fund, I made payments for the benefit of high-ranking officials at the Office of the New York State Comptroller, who had influence and decision-making authority over investment decisions," Broidy said in his plea and cooperation agreement. ...Mueller's team was interested in two meetings that took place before Donald Trump's inauguration. One was in the Seychelles, a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which drew scrutiny because it included Prince, an informal adviser to Trump, and Russian investor Kirill Dmitriev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting has prompted questions about whether it was an attempt to establish a backchannel between Russia and the incoming Trump administration.

The other meeting was at Trump Tower in New York.

Nader and MBZ [UAE's Prince Mohammed bin Zayed] were at both.

...In late September, Broidy arranged for the most coveted meeting for any lobbyist in Washington: an audience for himself with the president in the Oval Office.

In advance of the meeting, Nader wrote Broidy a script, an email shows. There were several objectives: to sell the idea for a Muslim fighting force, to keep the president from intervening on Qatar and to arrange a discreet meeting between Trump and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

The princes "are counting on you to relate it blunt and straight," Nader wrote.

Nader told Broidy the meeting was potentially historic and to "take advantage of this priceless asset."

And there was one more thing. Nader asked Broidy to tell the president about his connections with the crown princes, using code names for all three.

"Appreciate how you would make sure to bring up my role to Chairman," Nader emailed. "How I work closely with Two Big Friends."

After the Oct. 6 meeting, Broidy reported back to Nader that he had passed along the messages and had urged the president to stay out of the dispute with Qatar. He also said he explained Circinus' plan to build a Muslim fighting force.

"President Trump was extremely enthusiastic," he wrote. Broidy said Trump asked what the next step would be and that he told the president he should meet with the crown prince from the UAE, adding, "President Trump agreed that a meeting with MBZ was a good idea."

...Despite that successful readout, Nader wanted more: He wanted a photo of himself with the president-- a big request for a convicted pedophile.

Broidy was co-hosting a fundraiser for Trump and the Republican National Committee in Dallas on Oct. 25. The Secret Service had said Nader wouldn't be allowed to meet the president. It was not clear if the objections were related to his convictions for sexually abusing children.

Broidy drafted an email to Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, asking him to intervene on behalf of his friend, whom he oddly called "George Vader"-- a misnomer that appears elsewhere in the emails.

"One of my companies does deep vetting for the US government," he wrote. "We ran all data bases including FBI and Interpol and found no issues with regard to Mr. Vader."

There was another issue. RNC officials had decreed there would be no photos with the president without payment. Broidy suggested that Nader meet the suggested threshold with a donation between $100,000 and $250,000.

It's unclear exactly how the two issues were resolved. Records from the Federal Election Commission show no donations from either George Nader or "George Vader," but on Nov. 30, Broidy gave $189,000 to the RNC-- more than he had given to the RNC in over two decades of Republican fundraising.

The result: a picture of Nader and Trump grinning in front of the American flag.

Broidy met Trump once again on Dec. 2. He reported back to Nader that he'd told Trump the crown princes were "most favorably impressed by his leadership." He offered the crown princes' help in the Middle East peace plan being developed by Jared Kushner. He did not tell Trump that his partner had complete contempt for the plan-- and for the president's son-in-law.

"You have to hear in private my Brother what Principals think of 'Clown prince's' efforts and his plan!" Nader wrote. "Nobody would even waste cup of coffee on him if it wasn't for who he is married to."

Days after Broidy's meeting with Trump, the UAE awarded Broidy the intelligence contract the partners had been seeking for up to $600 million over 5 years, according to a leaked email.

...The FBI raided the premises of Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, seeking information on hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who said she'd had an affair with the president.

Broidy, it turned out, was also a Cohen client. He'd had an affair with Playboy bunny Shera Bechard, who got pregnant and later had an abortion. Broidy agreed to pay her $1.6 million to help her out, so long as she never spoke about it.

"I acknowledge I had a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate," Broidy said in a statement the day the news broke. He apologized to his wife and resigned from the RNC. There is no indication Broidy is under investigation by Mueller's team.

In the end, Nader and Broidy's anti-Qatar operation lost its momentum. There has been no traction on the effort to get the base in Qatar moved to the UAE. In late April, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to the bickering among Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar during a trip to the Gulf.

Is it any wonder that the overwhelming majority of citizens of America's European allies want to see Trump lose in November? YouGov polled people in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Sweden. And Trump does best-- with a miserable 20%-- in Italy, where both fascism and mobsterism still have some popular support. In Denmark, on the other hand, just 6% want to see Trump win another term. [Just 6%??? Sure, watch the Danish TV version of The West Wing, now on Netflix, Borgen and you'll see why.] In general, Europeans say they would rate Trump as a terrible president-- 81% in Denmark, 75% in Germany, 70% in both the U.K. and Spain, 68% in Sweden, 63% in France and 60% in Italy.

Will Replacing RBG Become The Top Issue In The 2020 Elections?

 

Currently there are 53 Republicans in the Senate and all they need to confirmed a replacement for RBG is a simple majority-- 50 (+ Pence to break a tie). 4 consistently unreliable Republicans have said they would not vote to confirmed a new justice this close to the election: Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). And then there's Mitt Romney, who's become the conscience of the Senate GOP-- the anti-McConnell, so to speak.

Trump says he will nominate someone immediately. Arch hypocrite-- and deceitful closet queen who lies as an everyday reflex-- Mitch McConnell has already said that Senate Republicans will vote on a nominee despite all he said-- and didn't do-- after Scalia's death. The Republicans can either try to confirm a nominee before the election or in the lame duck session after the election assuming Trump loses (and they lose the Senate majority, both of which are likely). At the very least, a Supreme Court fight will be a mega-MAGA-mobilization exercise for the GOP.

Jonathan Chait pointed out in an interview yesterday that "It’s not in the interest of Republicans facing election in 2020 to resolve this. Vulnerable Republicans are much better off having the court seat hinge on the outcome of the election. Trump himself might also be better off this way, though I doubt he will be cunning enough to see this. (Social conservatives will push him to fill the seat and he will go along, picking the course of maximal partisan aggression, as he always does.) Roberts himself also stands to lose power. He would no longer be the decisive vote. His only power would be to say something against filling the seat, and I doubt he says anything like that, but it is conceivable... [T]he lame duck period is another possibility. The dynamic is different. Any defeated Republican senators would have an incentive to vote for the nominee. However, that might seem like a more severe norm violation that could conceivably spark opposition..."

When Obama tried, unsuccessfully, replacing Scalia, he bolstered his case by nominating a very conservative, Republican-friendly Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Merrick Garland. Progressive support for Garland was grudging. That's how Democrats play. Trump will do the opposite-- find someone as polarizing as possible. These six neo-fascists are all on his short list. First and foremost is Amy Coney Barrett, an anti-choice sociopath. The other 5 include 3 senators (traditionally easiest to confirm among their colleagues): Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton-- although each has presidential ambitions. Two others on Trump's short list are two former solicitor generals-- Noel Francisco and Paul Clement. Others Trump is said to say considering include Britt Grant, Barbara Lagoa, Joan Larsen, Allison Eid, Amul Thapar and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT).

In a letter this morning, Bernie reminded his supporters of what Republicans have said on the topic, when they were tanking the Merrick Garland:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

"I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination."

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)

"It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don't do this in an election year."

Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO)

"I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision."

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

"I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term--  I would say that if it was a Republican president."

Senator Rob Portman (R-OH)

"It is common practice for the Senate to stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential election year."

Please Stop And Let Me Finish, Sir by Nancy Ohanian

If Trump pushes through one of his extremists and McConnell confirms them in a lame duck session after Trump has lost the White House and the Senate, the appropriate response for the Democrats-- one that runs against their cowardly instincts-- would be to increase the size of the Court to 11 and confirm two liberal justices. But... Biden? NEVER!

Yesterday, Ben Jacobs, writing for New York, warned of a constitutional crisis in the making, even before Trump tries stealing the election. Jacobs predicted that "The appointment of a Supreme Court justice under these circumstances would transform ending the filibuster and expanding the size of the Supreme Court from a niche issue on the left to a fundamental litmus test... [I]f Joe Biden is elected and Democrats take control of the Senate, there could be a constitutional clash of a magnitude not seen since the New Deal when a right-wing Supreme Court took on Franklin Delano Roosevelt before eventually buckling under the threat of courtpacking."

Vicious Psychopath Michael Caputo Is Being Paid By The Taxpayers

As you know, Trump only hires the best people. An acolyte first of Ollie North and then of Roger Stone, Michael Caputo was appointed assistant secretary of public affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services by Trump, despite having no experience with healthcare, other than his own very severe mental illness. Instead, he has spent much of his adult life living in Russia trying to polish Putin's image and as a swampy Florida spin-doctor and lobbyist. A sexist pig and overt racist, Caputo's loyalty lies with Putin and Trump, not with the U.S. He is almost universally considered a Russian agent. Although if he ever thought of modeling himself on the characters from The Americans, that was a non-starter from the git-go.

Crazy fascists Stone and Caputo

Yesterday Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb, Lena Sun, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind Helderman wrote about Caputo urging Trump supporters "to prepare for an armed insurrection after a contested election and accused government scientists of 'sedition' in a Facebook Live chat that he described in detail to the Washington Post on Monday."

Trump installed Caputo in April after weighing whether to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar over a series of damaging stories about Trump’s handling of the pandemic, according to three current and former White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe behind-the-scenes discussions. Allies persuaded Trump to not make such a change amid a pandemic, but instead to bring in Caputo, the officials said. (Trump denied reports that he was considering firing Azar at the time.)

Almost immediately, Caputo began exerting control over officials’ public appearances and statements; by early summer, he had extended that scrutiny to scientists. He and an adviser have faced mounting criticism in recent days for interfering with the work of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seeking to change, delay or kill weekly scientific reports they thought undermined Trump’s message that the pandemic is under control. Caputo has also sought to wield influence over when government scientists appear on television, telling officials that he approves such bookings.

Caputo is viewed as a Trump loyalist, but several White House officials said his behavior has been erratic and some of his ideas have been regarded as extreme. For example, he proposed the federal government spend millions of dollars on a professionally directed and produced documentary about the administration’s race to develop vaccines that he wanted to air at film festivals, said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The idea was rejected by White House communications aides.

In the Facebook video, Caputo criticizes government career scientists, the media and Democrats, The Times reported and Caputo confirmed. He said he was under attack by the media and that his “mental health has definitely failed.”

“I don’t like being alone in Washington,” Caputo said in the video, describing “shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.”

Caputo also said the CDC, which is part of HHS, had a “resistance unit” that aimed to undermine Trump. Without offering any evidence, he also accused scientists “deep in the bowels of the CDC” of giving up on science and becoming “political animals.”

They “haven’t gotten out of their sweatpants except for meetings at coffee shops” to plot “how they’re going to attack Donald Trump next,” he said in the video. “There are scientists who work for this government who do not want America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president.”

He also predicted that Trump would win the election but that Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, would refuse to concede. “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,” he warned in the video. “The drills that you’ve seen are nothing. If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”

Several Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT), called late Monday for Caputo’s firing.

“Secretary Azar has a basic responsibility to ensure our public health experts are able to do their jobs, our covid-19 response is not undermined by misinformation or conspiracy theories, and the data used to inform our efforts is free of political interference,” Murray said in a statement.

Noting that Caputo has said the president asked him to oversee a $250 million campaign “intended to help America to get back to normal,” DeLauro said, “We now know this is a propaganda campaign that must be defunded immediately. It is not the mission of the Department of Health and Human Services to get the President reelected.”

House Democrats on the select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis also announced that they had launched an investigation into political interference in the CDC’s science reports on the pandemic.

The White House declined to comment on the controversy Monday.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes conversations, a White House official said the president was aware of Caputo’s comments but that his job appeared to be safe for now. Nonetheless, the official said, some advisers were arguing Caputo should be demoted or removed because of concern that he could damage the administration’s efforts to build public confidence in a prospective coronavirus vaccine.

The official said the White House has also recently expanded its coronavirus vaccine messaging team, detailing staffers from other agencies in an “end run” around Caputo.

Senior White House aides have previously warned Caputo that some of his public comments crossed a line. Caputo deactivated his personal Twitter and Facebook accounts on Monday.

HHS released a statement describing Caputo as “a critical, integral part of the President’s coronavirus response, leading on public messaging as Americans need public health information to defeat the covid-19 pandemic.”

Several current and former administration officials have expressed frustration that Caputo seems more focused on the president’s political fortunes than on combating the pandemic. Caputo denied that, saying that while he cares about the president’s electoral prospects, he is most worried about the deaths and suffering caused by the pandemic. He noted he has urged friends to wear masks. “If you don’t wear a mask, you’re part of the problem,” he said in the interview.

...During the video, Caputo said questioners asked whether he would stay in the job because of mounting criticism of his team’s interference in the work of CDC’s weekly scientific missives aimed at the nation’s doctors, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports. He said he expected to remain in his post.

Caputo was an unusual choice for the top health communications job in the government, especially in the middle of the worst public health crisis in a century. A New York public relations specialist and political consultant, Caputo served as campaign manager to controversial businessman Carl Paladino in his unsuccessful bid for governor of New York in 2010. Caputo began working with Trump in 2014, first to assist Trump’s unsuccessful bid to buy the Buffalo Bills that year and then, in 2016, to assist Trump’s efforts in the Republican primary for president in New York.

Caputo remained in the public eye, particularly after the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in 2017. In frequent interviews, Caputo bemoaned the investigation and the effect it had on Trump allies who faced hefty legal bills as they received subpoenas and requests for interviews with investigators. When the investigation wrapped, Trump hosted Caputo for a meeting in the Oval Office and took pictures with his family.

Caputo himself drew the attention of Mueller’s investigators in part because he had had contact with a Russian who offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.

In May 2016, Caputo said, a Russian man approached his then-business partner, Sergey “George” Petrushin at an art gallery opening in Florida, claiming to have information that could be helpful to Trump’s campaign. Petrushin connected him with Caputo, who arranged for him to meet with political operative Roger Stone, a longtime friend.

According to the Mueller report, which described the episode, investigators found no link between the Russian man’s outreach and the broader effort by Russia to interfere in the 2016 election.

As a political adviser and public relations specialist, Caputo also had lived for a time in Moscow in the 1990s, where he worked on a campaign reminiscent of “Rock the Vote” on behalf of then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Returning to the United States, Caputo took a contract in 2000 working for the Russian conglomerate Gazprom Media to improve Vladimir Putin’s image in the United States. He later told the Buffalo News that he was “not proud of the work,” adding, “at the time, Putin wasn’t such a bad guy.”

By midday yesterday, Politico reported that Caputo called an emergency staff meeting to apologize for drawing negative attention to the Regime's so-called health care strategy "and signaled that he might be soon departing his role." By the end of the day, the backlash was so intense that Trump is reported-- not confirmed yet-- to have told Azar to order Caputo to "resign" so he can focus on his mental health. He also deleted his Twitter account (Caputo, not Trump). UPDATE: They just announced that Caputo is taking a "leave of absence" until after the election.

The Trump Swamp Rears Its Ugly Head Again-- Elliott Broidy

I believe the first time I heard of Elliott Broidy was when the NY Times revealed him to be working with a very right-wing shady Mercer family SuperPAC, Secure America Now (SAN), which Broidy was using to leverage the Trump regime into filling key positions with individuals favorable to-- meaning, like Broidy himself, bought off by-- the Saudi and UAE governments. Mercer was one of just 4 uber-wealthy far-right and very crooked contributors providing SAN with the millions of dollars it needed for its entirely nefarious projects. The 3 other scumbags besides Mercer funding SAN are top Best Buy freaks Brad Anderson and Richard Schulze plus neo-fascist Estee Lauder heir Ronald Lauder.

Yesterday, Washington Post reporters Matt Zapotosky, Carol Leonnig and Rosalind Helderman wrote how now-- over two years later-- Broidy is finally about to be charged "in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests, according to people familiar with the matter, a result of a sprawling, years-long investigation that involved a figure who helped raise millions for Donald Trump’s election and the Republican Party." By "influence the U.S. government," the meaning is clearly using Saudi and Emirati cash to bribe Señor Trumpanzee, who isn't being charged, at least not while he's living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In fact this investigation had steered completely clear of Broidy's Saudi and Emerati paymasters-- a deal to protect Trump-- and is instead about Broidy's role as an unregistered lobbyist in "a campaign to persuade high-level Trump administration officials to drop an investigation of Malaysian government corruption, as well as for his attempt to push for the extradition of an outspoken Chinese dissident back to his home country." This gigantic mess is going to resulting a plea deal and, in all likelihood, an informal understanding with Trump that there will eventually be a pardon.

The case has intensified in recent weeks, with prosecutors securing a guilty plea Monday from one of Broidy’s business associates, Nickie Mali Lum Davis, who admitted to taking part in what prosecutors have described in charging documents as a “back-channel lobbying campaign” to end the Malaysian corruption investigation and to return Chinese exile Guo Wengui to his home country.

Guo is a vocal online critic of the Chinese government who was once allied with that country’s government elite but is now wanted by authorities in Beijing on charges of fraud, blackmail and bribery. He has denied those charges and said they are politically motivated.

According to a charging document filed in her case, Davis admitted she aided and abetted the efforts of two others involved in the influence campaigns, identified only as Person A and Person B. People familiar with the matter identified them as Fugees rapper Pras Michel and Broidy, respectively.





During a virtual hearing Monday before a federal judge in Honolulu, where Davis entered her guilty plea, prosecutors told a judge that charges may be filed against additional defendants in the case.

...The investigation puts a renewed focus on efforts by people close to the president to shape the fate of Guo, who has succeeded in remaining in the United States.

In the past few years, the Chinese billionaire has been closely aligned with Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chief and top White House strategist. Bannon was on Guo’s yacht off the coast of Westbrook, Conn., when he was arrested last month for allegedly fleecing donors who supported a group that claimed to be building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The investigation of Broidy has its roots in a massive probe of theft from a Malaysian government development fund that has come to be known by the shorthand “1MDB.” In previous civil and criminal cases, federal prosecutors have alleged that stolen funds that made their way into the United States were used to buy pricey real estate and even fund the award-winning movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak was accused of being involved in the corruption. He was convicted in July and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

At the center of the case is a Malaysian businessman named Low Taek Jho, who was indicted in 2018 and accused of funneling tens of millions of dollars into the United States in part to get the Malaysian corruption investigation dropped. Low, who is facing multiple federal indictments, is believed to be in China, outside the reach of U.S. authorities. He has denied the allegations and said they are politically motivated.

According to court documents filed in association with Davis’s guilty plea this week, Broidy allegedly lobbied to have Guo removed from the United States at the request of Low and a Chinese government official.

Davis admitted that she met with the Chinese official-- who people familiar with the matter identified as Sun Lijun-- and the two people identified as Broidy and Michel in a Hong Kong hotel suite in May 2017, and Broidy soon launched a campaign that reached the top of the administration, court filings show.

According to the documents and people familiar with the matter, Broidy allegedly made various entreaties to people in the administration or close to it, including President Trump’s then-chief of staff, Reince Priebus; his former deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates; and the president himself.

At one point, Broidy also tried to enlist the help of casino magnate and Trump friend Steve Wynn, according to the documents and the people with knowledge of the case. In August 2017, Broidy and Wynn called Trump from Wynn’s yacht and asked about Guo’s status.

Davis also admitted in court that she connected multiple calls between Wynn and Sun.

Reid Weingarten, an attorney for Wynn, declined to comment but said his client has been cooperating with investigators and continues to do so.

Wynn and Broidy worked closely together to get Trump elected in 2016 while they served as finance chairman and deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Wynn made his own attempt to pass a message about Guo directly to Trump from Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to two people with knowledge of the episode. In a private meeting around June 2017, Wynn told Trump why Xi felt so strongly about the United States returning Guo to China, handing Trump two pictures of Guo, the people said.

At the time, Wynn had significant business interests involving China, operating a major casino in Macao.

Trump was eager to extradite Guo, as the Chinese wished, telling aides in an Oval Office meeting that he supported the plan, according to a former administration official familiar with his views.

Priebus passed along the extradition request to the National Security Council, where it was vetted by a senior White House lawyer, John Eisenberg, who conferred with then-White House Counsel Donald McGahn, the official said.

White House lawyers agreed that extradition, which was opposed by the Justice Department, would not be appropriate, according to the official. McGahn later told aides who asked about the status request, “We killed that,” the official said.

McGahn did not response to requests for comment. A White House spokesman referred questions about the episode to the National Security Council. An NSC spokesman declined to comment and referred questions to the Justice Department.

During the 2016 campaign, Broidy, a Los Angeles-based investor, helped corral big donors to support Trump’s campaign. After the election, he was appointed to serve as a national deputy finance chairman for the Republican National Committee.

Broidy resigned from that post in April 2018 in the wake of a report that he had paid a former Playboy model $1.6 million in exchange for her silence about a sexual affair. Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen-- another RNC fundraiser-- helped arrange the settlement, Broidy acknowledged at the time.

As part of the Malaysian corruption probe, the U.S. government has previously alleged that Michel and a former Justice Department employee, George Higginbotham, opened U.S. accounts to move Low’s money into the United States and fund the lobbying effort.

Davis acknowledged that she helped route an $8 million retainer to Broidy for the influence campaign and that Low offered to pay a $75 million “success fee” as part of a contract with Broidy’s wife’s law firm if the 1MDB case was resolved within 180 days.

Higginbotham pleaded guilty in November 2018 to illicitly facilitating the transfer of tens of millions of dollars into the United States to finance the lobbying effort.

According to Davis’s criminal information and people familiar with the matter, Broidy met with Trump at the White House in October 2017 and told others that he raised the subject of the 1MDB investigation.

A former attorney for Broidy told the Wall Street Journal in 2018 that at no time did Broidy, his wife, “or anyone acting on their behalf, discuss Mr. Low’s case with President Trump, any member of his staff, or anyone at the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Text messages and emails quoted in Davis’s plea documents show that Broidy messaged Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, and Priebus in 2017 about arranging a visit for Malaysia’s prime minister and a possible golf outing with Trump. An attorney for Gates declined to comment.

Priebus responded but was noncommittal, saying the NSC was working on the matter, according to court filings and the people. Priebus declined to comment.

The prime minister did visit, but he did not golf with Trump, according to the court documents. The meeting was meant in part so the Malaysian prime minister could press Trump about ending the 1MDB case, according to the documents.

How many mentions of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Broidy's business partner (and a repeat child sex abuser and Erik Prince and UAE lobbyist), currently serving a 10 ten year prison term, George Nader in that Post report? How many mentions of Robert Mercer or SAN? Just the Fugees and Malaysia. Back in May of 2018, the Business Insider reported that after Broidy spent a year cultivating a couple of the corrupt princes from Arabian Peninsula, he "thought he was finally close to nailing more than $1 billion in business. He had ingratiated himself with crown princes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who were seeking to alter US foreign policy and punish Qatar, an archrival in the Gulf that he dubbed 'the snake.' To do that, the California businessman had helped spearhead a secret campaign to influence the White House and Congress, flooding Washington with political donations. Broidy and his business partner, Lebanese-American George Nader, pitched themselves to the crown princes as a backchannel to the White House, passing the princes' praise-- and messaging-- straight to the president's ears... Broidy and Nader sought to get an anti-Qatar bill through Congress while obscuring the source of the money behind their influence campaign... Broidy's campaign to alter US policy in the Middle East and reap a fortune for himself shows that one of the president's top money men found the swamp as navigable as ever with Trump in office.

By December of last year, the partners were riding a wave of success in their campaign to create an anti-Qatar drumbeat in Washington.

Saudi Arabia was finding a new ascendancy following Trump's election. Broidy sought to claim credit for it, emails show, and was keen to collect the first installment of $36 million for an intelligence-gathering contract with the UAE.

It all might have proceeded smoothly save for one factor: the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to look into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In many ways, the partnership between Broidy, 60, and Nader, 59, embodies the insider influence that has given contractors in D.C. the nickname "beltway bandits."

Both of their careers were marked by high-rolling success and spectacular falls from grace-- and criminal convictions. The onset of the Trump administration presented an opportunity: a return to glory.

Broidy, who made a fortune in investments, was finance chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2006 to 2008. But when a New York state pension fund decided to invest $250 million with him, investigators found that he had plied state officials with nearly $1 million in illegal gifts while collecting $18 million in management fees.

In 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty to a felony charge of rewarding official misconduct.

"In seeking investments from the New York State Common Retirement Fund, I made payments for the benefit of high-ranking officials at the Office of the New York State Comptroller, who had influence and decision-making authority over investment decisions," Broidy said in his plea and cooperation agreement.

...Mueller's team was interested in two meetings that took place before Donald Trump's inauguration.

One was in the Seychelles, a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which drew scrutiny because it included Prince, an informal adviser to Trump, and Russian investor Kirill Dmitriev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting has prompted questions about whether it was an attempt to establish a backchannel between Russia and the incoming Trump administration.

The other meeting was at Trump Tower in New York.

Nader and MBZ were at both.

...In late September, Broidy arranged for the most coveted meeting for any lobbyist in Washington: an audience for himself with the president in the Oval Office.

In advance of the meeting, Nader wrote Broidy a script, an email shows. There were several objectives: to sell the idea for a Muslim fighting force, to keep the president from intervening on Qatar and to arrange a discreet meeting between Trump and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

The princes "are counting on you to relate it blunt and straight," Nader wrote.

Nader told Broidy the meeting was potentially historic and to "take advantage of this priceless asset."

And there was one more thing. Nader asked Broidy to tell the president about his connections with the crown princes, using code names for all three.

"Appreciate how you would make sure to bring up my role to Chairman," Nader emailed. "How I work closely with Two Big Friends."

After the Oct. 6 meeting, Broidy reported back to Nader that he had passed along the messages and had urged the president to stay out of the dispute with Qatar. He also said he explained Circinus' plan to build a Muslim fighting force.

"President Trump was extremely enthusiastic," he wrote. Broidy said Trump asked what the next step would be and that he told the president he should meet with the crown prince from the UAE, adding, "President Trump agreed that a meeting with MBZ was a good idea."

...Despite that successful readout, Nader wanted more: He wanted a photo of himself with the president-- a big request for a convicted pedophile.

Broidy was co-hosting a fundraiser for Trump and the Republican National Committee in Dallas on Oct. 25. The Secret Service had said Nader wouldn't be allowed to meet the president. It was not clear if the objections were related to his convictions for sexually abusing children.

Broidy drafted an email to Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, asking him to intervene on behalf of his friend, whom he oddly called "George Vader"-- a misnomer that appears elsewhere in the emails.

"One of my companies does deep vetting for the US government," he wrote. "We ran all data bases including FBI and Interpol and found no issues with regard to Mr. Vader."

There was another issue. RNC officials had decreed there would be no photos with the president without payment. Broidy suggested that Nader meet the suggested threshold with a donation between $100,000 and $250,000.

It's unclear exactly how the two issues were resolved. Records from the Federal Election Commission show no donations from either George Nader or "George Vader," but on Nov. 30, Broidy gave $189,000 to the RNC-- more than he had given to the RNC in over two decades of Republican fundraising.

The result: a picture of Nader and Trump grinning in front of the American flag.

Broidy met Trump once again on Dec. 2. He reported back to Nader that he'd told Trump the crown princes were "most favorably impressed by his leadership." He offered the crown princes' help in the Middle East peace plan being developed by Jared Kushner. He did not tell Trump that his partner had complete contempt for the plan-- and for the president's son-in-law.

"You have to hear in private my Brother what Principals think of 'Clown prince's' efforts and his plan!" Nader wrote. "Nobody would even waste cup of coffee on him if it wasn't for who he is married to."

Days after Broidy's meeting with Trump, the UAE awarded Broidy the intelligence contract the partners had been seeking for up to $600 million over 5 years, according to a leaked email.

...The FBI raided the premises of Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, seeking information on hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who said she'd had an affair with the president.

Broidy, it turned out, was also a Cohen client. He'd had an affair with Playboy bunny Shera Bechard, who got pregnant and later had an abortion. Broidy agreed to pay her $1.6 million to help her out, so long as she never spoke about it.

"I acknowledge I had a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate," Broidy said in a statement the day the news broke. He apologized to his wife and resigned from the RNC. There is no indication Broidy is under investigation by Mueller's team.

In the end, Nader and Broidy's anti-Qatar operation lost its momentum. There has been no traction on the effort to get the base in Qatar moved to the UAE. In late April, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to the bickering among Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar during a trip to the Gulf.

Biden is Going To Be The Most Progressive President Since FDR? Did Some Put Some DMT In Bernie's Joint?

The Bernie/Biden unity task forces presented their proposals to Biden this week. No Green New Deal, no Medicare-for-All, no reparations for slavery, no legalized pot, no free college... none of the beautiful, bold ideas that invigorated young voters this cycle. In fact, Biden is promising what he's always promised: no fundamental change, just a little correction around the edges on a few things... a very little and very few. Overall, he's better than Trump and if that doesn't motivate voters-- and I think it will-- he'll lose. He isn't offering anyone anything but a warm bucket of piss... better than Trump's steaming platter of shit. This sure isn't going to get me to vote for him:

Yesterday, the NY Times assigned half a dozen reporters-- Maggie Astor, Lisa Friedman, Dana Goldstein, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Margot Sanger and Jim Tankersley-- to go through the proposals, which Biden will probably not accept anyway (don't forget, Biden has been an arch conservative for his entire career in public service), and write about them. The writer of the piece called the task force and its reports the "clearest sign yet that the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party are trying to unite far more than they did in 2016" and The Times saw what came out as an indication "that progressives succeeded in pushing some proposals leftward, influencing Mr. Biden’s policy platform." Progressives don't think so but The Times is basically part of the Biden propaganda machine now as is, more or less, Bernie and every other Democratic elected official.





Here's the Times' short version:

• Health care: Expanding government-run plans, without ‘Medicare for all’
• Criminal justice: Broad agreement on many priorities, but not on marijuana
• Climate change: New near-term targets, but no fracking ban
• The economy: Closing racial gaps and creating jobs programs
• Education: Rethinking Obama-era priorities
• Immigration: A focus on undoing Trump policies

What a disappointment-- for anyone who wasn't aware of who Biden is and unaware that the task force who absolutely refrain from embarrassing him with proposals too far to the left, like legalizing marijuana, which Biden adamantly rejects even though huge majorities of Americans want, and even a majority of Republicans. Watch Trump sniff that out and get to his left on boo, something that will absolutely attract some young voters and give Trump a patina of... something vaguely attractive in the compare and contrast department. Here's the whole package of recommendations, most of which will be weakened by Biden even further to make them much less progressive:

Health care: Expanding government-run plans, without ‘Medicare for all’

The task force’s recommendations stop far short of Mr. Sanders’s signature health care policy initiative, a single-payer “Medicare for all” system that would enroll all Americans in a generous government-run health plan.

Instead, the task force supports a government-run insurance option that would be offered to all Americans on a sliding scale according to income-- and automatically provided to low-income Americans free.

A so-called public option has always been a part of Mr. Biden’s health plan, but the recommendations specify new details, such as a requirement that certain prescription medicines be offered without any out-of-pocket spending by patients. Similar to Mr. Biden’s most recent health proposal, this one would allow Americans to become eligible for Medicare coverage at 60 instead of the current threshold, 65. The document also suggests considering how Medicare could expand its benefits to cover treatment for dental care, vision and hearing loss.

The task force also recommends special insurance options for people during the coronavirus pandemic. For those who lost coverage because they became unemployed, the task force suggests that the federal government pay the full cost of continuing that coverage under the federal law known as COBRA. People without previous coverage would be allowed to buy a new plan with no deductible, at a price determined by their income, or an existing Obamacare plan.

Criminal justice: Broad agreement on many priorities, but not on marijuana

Mr. Biden’s views on criminal justice had already shifted drastically since he helped pass the 1994 crime bill, and the task force’s recommendations reinforce that transformation. They call for eliminating private prisons, ending cash bail and eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, steps that both candidates supported in the primary; eliminating private prisons, in particular, was something Mr. Sanders championed early.

The task force also suggested a federal standard for police departments’ use of force, a national database of police officers who commit misconduct and an end to sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders.

It did not, however, bridge a notable gap between the Biden and Sanders platforms. The task force called for decriminalizing marijuana and legalizing it at the federal level for medical use, but for letting the states decide whether to legalize it for recreational use. That is the position Mr. Biden held in the primary, in contrast to Mr. Sanders, who supports full legalization.

Climate change: New near-term targets, but no fracking ban

The climate change task force, led by former Secretary of State John Kerry and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, declared rising planet-warming emissions a nationwide “emergency.” It also directly tied the effort to reduce fossil fuels to a need to address racial injustices that have led low-income communities to bear a disproportionate level of air and water pollution.

The recommendations make no mention of the Green New Deal, an ambitious plan that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and other supporters of Mr. Sanders have championed.

There is also no mention of a national ban on fracking, which Mr. Biden has avoided calling for, despite pressure from young climate activists. But there are other signs that progressives on the task force were able to push Mr. Biden to the left.

Specifically, critics of Mr. Biden’s plan to invest $1.7 trillion in order to achieve net-zero emissions before 2050 had complained that his platform included few details on how it would achieve that faraway goal. The recommendations set a number of specific near-term benchmarks that Democrats would promise to reach. They include moving all electric power off fossil fuels by 2035; achieving carbon-neutrality in all new buildings by 2030; and installing 500 million solar panels in the next five years.

The economy: Closing racial gaps and creating jobs programs

The economics recommendations to Mr. Biden include more expansive and expensive plans than he has embraced in the campaign. They are heavily focused on addressing racial inequality and on getting Americans back to work in the wake of the recession caused by the pandemic.

The task force suggested that Mr. Biden consider several plans that his more liberal rivals had championed during the Democratic primaries, though at times it stopped short of endorsing them.

The recommendations call for “a comprehensive agenda for communities of color with ambition that matches the scale of the challenge and with recognition that race-neutral policies are not a sufficient response to race-based disparities.”

The details include asking Mr. Biden to “explore” a so-called baby bonds proposal to provide every child with a government-funded savings account at birth, a policy favored by Darrick Hamilton, an Ohio State University economist who was one of Mr. Sanders’s appointees.

A section on job creation urges consideration of another plan favored by Mr. Sanders’s appointees: a large-scale federal employment program in areas such as infrastructure development. “In order to ensure that everyone who wants to work has a pathway to employment,” the recommendation says, “the government must enact measures to create jobs and jobs programs like those effectively used during the New Deal.”

Education: Rethinking Obama-era priorities

On K-12 education, the task force report represents something of a shift away from the policy commitments of the Obama-era Democratic Party.

Instead of emphasizing standardized tests to drive accountability for teachers and students, the document talks about holistic tests of students’ skills and the importance of schools as community centers that provide a broad array of social services, such as health care and meals.

While the Obama administration was strongly supportive of charter schools, the task force promises to subject charters, which are publicly funded but privately managed, to stricter federal scrutiny, echoing policy plans released by Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, during the primary.

The document commits to tripling federal aid for low-income schools and to increasing funding for students with disabilities. School desegregation by race and class has emerged in recent years as a major concern for progressives. The task force commits to addressing the problem through strategies like busing and magnet schools, but does not mention a specific amount of funding. (Mr. Biden’s opposition to federally mandated busing was a major campaign issue last year, but he has never opposed voluntary busing.)

While many supporters of Mr. Sanders were excited by his promise of universal free tuition at public four-year colleges, the task force stops short of that commitment. It says instead that public universities should be free for families earning under $125,000 per year, and that community colleges should be free for all.

Immigration: A focus on undoing Trump policies

The report indicated that the immigration agenda of a Biden administration would focus on undoing President Trump’s restrictionist policies, which have been anathema to Democrats.

The task force recommended that Mr. Biden work with Congress to maintain protections for about 700,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, a program that Mr. Trump is trying to end. It also recommended ending Mr. Trump’s travel restrictions against 13 countries, most of which have substantial Muslim populations.

The report said Mr. Biden should end a program that forced more than 60,000 migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases wound through immigration courts, and should stop diverting asylum seekers to Central American countries. Mr. Biden should increase the number of refugees who can be allowed into the United States to 125,000 per year, from Mr. Trump’s level of 18,000, and raise that cap over time, the committee said. And it called for ending the national emergency declaration that Mr. Trump has used to siphon billions of dollars in Pentagon funding for a wall along the southwestern border.

The task force stopped short of calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished, as some in the party have called for. Instead, the report recommends increasing oversight of immigration enforcement and border agencies with the creation of an ombudsman and a panel. There was also no suggestion that unauthorized border crossings should be decriminalized and made a civil offense, a change Mr. Sanders has supported, although the committee recommended prioritizing prosecutions of human traffickers.

Obviously, the far right will label this plan as Socialism! Kevin McCarthy was already on Fox & Friends clutching his pearls over Biden surrendering to the Bernie-led socialist wing of the party.

A Completely Morally Odious Individual You Would Not Want In Your Organization Or Anywhere Around You

"Guess what," said Chris Hayes Wednesday night in a brilliant commentary (above) on the Bolton-Trump revelations, "Donald Trump is exactly as terrible as we thought he was and John Bolton is exactly who we thought he was as well. That afternoon, we had all read how Trump begged President Xi Jinping of China to help him win reelection. Today in an interview Trump did with the Wall Street Journal's Michael Bender, he struck out at Xi. "He said that the country was nearing the end of the coronavirus pandemic," wrote Bender, and that he believed China may have encouraged the international spread of coronavirus as a way to destabilize competing economies. 'There’s a chance it was intentional,' Mr. Trump said... Trump said China may have had economic motives for letting coronavirus spread beyond its own border. Asked if that was to extend economic consequences, Mr. Trump said: 'Correct. They’re saying, man, we’re in a mess. The United States is killing us. Don’t forget, my economy during the last year and a half was blowing them away. And the reason is the tariffs.'"

Trump admitted he may be wrong and admitted he has no intelligence to support the claim, only an internal sense, which may be wrong. "But it has had an impact,” he told Bender.

Trump spent a significant portion of the interview criticizing John Bolton, his former national security adviser, for writing a scathing book about the president’s handling of foreign policy. In the book, Mr. Bolton says Mr. Trump’s decision making prioritized his re-election over the national interest and said the president had a penchant for “giving personal favors to dictators he liked.”

“The only thing I liked about Bolton was that everybody thought he was crazy,” Mr. Trump said. “When you walk into the room with him, you’re in a good negotiating position, because they figure you’re going to war if John Bolton was there.”

CNN's Nicole Gaouette summarized what we've learned so far from The Room Where It Happened, Bolton's still unpublished book-- which Trump is fighting to keep from ever being published.. or at least not before the first Tuesday of November. (The book is supposed to come out Tuesday, as voters in New York, Kentucky and Virginia head to the polls.)

• Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping for help in getting reelected

Bolton described a conversation between the two world leaders at the June 2019 G-20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, where Trump told Xi that Midwestern farmers were key to his reelection in November 2020. Trump urged Xi to buoy his political fortunes by buying American agricultural products, linking a promise to waive some tariffs on China in exchange. Trump "stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome," Bolton wrote.

Bolton also says that it's hard for him to think of a single decision Trump made during his stint at the White House "that wasn't driven by reelection calculations."

• Trump had no problem with China's concentration camps

Bolton describes several instances where Trump waffles on China-related issues after conversations with Xi, notably on the mass concentration camps Beijing was using to imprison and "re-educate" Uyghur Muslims. Bolton writes that according to the US interpreter in the room during a conversation between Xi and Trump at the G-20 meeting in June 2019, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was "exactly the right thing to do."

Bolton adds that Trump didn't want to sanction China for their crackdown on the Muslim minority because of ongoing trade negotiations. "Religious repression in China was also not on Trump's agenda; whether it was the Catholic Church or Falun Gong, it didn't register," Bolton writes.

• Pompeo, famously loyal to the President, may have trash-talked him

Bolton describes a meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un in which the North Korean despot blamed troubled relations between his country and the US on the actions of prior administrations. Emphasizing the meetings he and Trump had held, Kim told the President that they could dispel mistrust and work quickly toward a nuclear agreement. After Trump told Kim that he would seek Senate ratification of any agreement with North Korea, Bolton writes that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo passed him a notepad. On it was scribbled the message, "he is so full of shit."

"I agreed," Bolton writes, going on to note that Kim promised no further nuclear tests. The State Department has not responded to CNN's request for comment about Pompeo's alleged note.

• Trump offered to help Turkey's leader avoid a Justice Department probe

Bolton writes that in December 2018, Trump offered to help Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a Justice Department investigation into a Turkish bank with ties to Erdogan that was suspected of violating US Iran sanctions. When the Turkish leader presented Trump with a memo from the law firm representing Halkbank, Trump flipped through it and then declared he believed the bank was totally innocent of violating US sanctions related to Iran.

Trump told Erdogan he would "take care of things," and explained that the Southern District prosecutors "were not his people, but were Obama people," and the problem would be fixed when they were replaced by his people.

Bolton notes that "this was all nonsense" because the Justice Department prosecutors were career employees who would have taken the same path with the Halkbank probe regardless of who was president.

• The Israeli prime minister didn't understand why Kushner led on Middle East peace

Before joining Trump's White House, Bolton says he had a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who questioned Jared Kushner's role in developing a Middle East peace plan.

Netanyahu "was dubious about assigning the task of bringing an end to the Israel-Palestinian conflict to Kushner, whose family Netanyahu had known for many years. He was enough of a politician not to oppose the idea publicly, but like much of the world, he wondered why Kushner thought he would succeed where the likes of Kissinger had failed."

• The White House decision-making process was like a 'food fight'

Bolton says the weekly meetings to discuss issues, chaired by Trump in the Roosevelt Room or the Oval Office, more closely resembled college food fights than careful decision-making, with no lower-level effort or involvement by the relevant agencies to sort out the issues and the options. "After these sessions, had I believed in yoga, I probably could have used some," Bolton wrote.

It's a theme Bolton returns to more than once, describing a mercurial President who has little interest in learning how the federal government worked. Instead, he describes Trump as very focused on how decisions will play in the media.

• Trump didn't like sanctions on Russia

Bolton claims that Trump privately complained about sanctions and other punitive measures imposed on Russia with "extended grumbling and complaining," even as he touted them in public.

After the US announced a first round of sanctions on Russia for poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK, Bolton said Trump wanted to rescind the penalties and thought they were being too tough on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Trump told Pompeo to call Lavrov and say 'some bureaucrat' had published the sanctions-- a call that may or may not have ever taken place," Bolton wrote.

Bolton also claimed Trump stopped the issue of a statement criticizing Russia on the tenth anniversary of its invasion of Georgia. The former national security adviser writes that these actions were a reflection of Trump's "difficulty in separating personal from official relations."

• Trump's revealing questions: Is Finland a part of Russia?

Before the summit with Putin in Helsinki, Trump asked his advisers if Finland was a part of Russia, or whether it was a "kind of satellite of Russia."

On his way to the Helsinki meeting, Trump stopped to see then-British Prime Minister Theresa May in the UK. During that meeting, May's national security adviser, speaking about the Skripal poisoning, referred to the attack as one on a nuclear power. "Trump asked, 'oh, are you a nuclear power?,' which I knew was not intended as a joke," Bolton wrote.

And on multiple occasions, Bolton said Trump repeatedly mixed up Afghan President Ashraf Ghani with former President Hamid Karzai.

• Trump told people that Venezuela is 'really part of the US' and wanted to invade

Bolton writes that in discussions about toppling the regime of Nicolas Maduro, Trump "insisted on military options for Venezuela," telling advisers that the country "is really part of the United States." During a March 2019 meeting at the Pentagon, Trump grilled military leaders about why the US was in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not in Venezuela.

Trump's repeated insistence that military options be considered to oust Maduro often shocked aides, lawmakers and advisers, Bolton writes. In a meeting with Florida Republicans, "Trump still wanted a military option," leaving Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron Desantis "plainly stunned," while Sen. Marco Rubio, who had heard Trump on the subject before "knew how to deflect it politely."

• Trump wanted Attorney General Bill Barr to make CNN reporters 'serve time in jail'

When news leaked about a hush-hush meeting on Afghanistan at Trump's Bedminster resort, Trump complained that CNN had reported the summit was taking place, Bolton writes. The President told White House counsel Pat Cipollone to call Attorney General Bill Barr about his desire to "arrest the reporters, force them to serve time in jail, and then demand they disclose their sources."

Now you don't have to buy it and put money in Bolton's pocket. Oh, one more thing. Late yesterday, Gabe Sherman, writing for Vanity Fair, revealed that exact words that Trump used when he begged Xi for help with his re-election bid:

According to an unredacted passage shown to Vanity Fair by a source, Trump’s ask is even more crudely shocking when you read Trump’s specific language. "Make sure I win," Trump allegedly told Xi during a dinner at the G20 conference in Osaka, Japan last summer. "I will probably win anyway, so don’t hurt my farms... Buy a lot of soybeans and wheat and make sure we win." ...Another passage shows Trump’s racist views on immigration. Bolton describes how Trump derailed a White House meeting about Iran strategy by bringing up a right wing conspiracy that Black South Africans were killing white South African farmers and stealing their land. According to Bolton, Trump blurted out that he wanted to grant the white South Africans "asylum and citizenship."