Donald Trump is compromised. It’s been painfully obvious that Vladimir Putin has something on him. Whether that something is secretive talks to build a Trump Tower in Russia, something Trump repeatedly lied about to the American people, or whether it is the much discussed “pee-pee tape” and rumored video of Trump with prostitutes in Moscow, there is something there.
But Putin isn’t the only one pulling Trump’s strings. The Saudi government and people, and their vast wealth, have long been a draw for greedy Donald Trump. At the start of Trump’s grifting presidential campaign, he bragged about how much money the Saudis spent at his properties. From CNBC:
“Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million,” Trump said during a presidential campaign rally in Alabama in August 2015.
“Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”
At another rally that year, Trump said of the Saudis, “I make a lot of money from them.”
“They buy all sorts of my stuff. All kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundred[s] of millions.”
A little more than one year later, the Saudis again were spending big with Trump, this time pouring money into the president-elect’s newly opened D.C. hotel—and duping U.S. military veterans in the process. The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell report that the Saudis used a lobbying front to book an estimated 500 nights at the hotel, spending at least $270,000 in the immediate weeks after the 2016 election. Worse, they duped U.S. veterans in the process, tricking them into lobbying their representatives and senators on behalf of the Saudi government. The plan was to have the veterans lobby members of Congress to overturn a law the Saudi government did not like, one that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue it. They were intentionally pitting veterans against 9/11 families.
In late September, Congress had overridden a veto from President Barack Obama and passed a law the Saudis vehemently opposed: the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, called JASTA. The new law, backed by the families of Sept. 11 victims, opened the door to costly litigation alleging that the Saudi government bore some blame. Of the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks, 15 were Saudi citizens.
In response, the Saudis tried something new. To battle one of America’s most revered groups — the Sept. 11 families — they recruited allies from another.
They went looking for veterans.
“Welcome Home Brother!” wrote Jason E. Johns, an Army veteran and Wisconsin lobbyist, to several veterans in December 2016, according to identical emails two veterans shared with The Post. Johns invited the veterans, whom he did not know personally, on a trip to “storm the Hill” to lobby against the law.
Scandalous. Outrageous. Using U.S. veterans as pawns, pitting them against 9/11 families. Jason E. Johns, the Wisconsin lobbyist (also a veteran) who organized the trips, told the Washington Post he alone decided to book Trump’s D.C. hotel. He also claimed he told the veterans that the Saudis were picking up the bill, but vets who went on the trips say otherwise. Navy veteran Gary Ard said he stopped going on the trips after a Johns aide who had been drinking mentioned that the Saudis were paying for everything.
Ard quit going after two trips. He said he felt guilty, for having unwittingly gathered political intelligence for a foreign power.
“We’re taking that heart-to-heart conversation [with legislators], writing it down, and giving it to a group of people whom I don’t know,” Ard said. “And my fear in that is we’re going to create a pool of insight to what congressmen, what senators can be approached, and what their mind-sets are. And that’s completely wrong.”
The Post’s reporting on the whole sordid affair is well worth the read. Fahrenthold and O’Connell also note that the Washington hotel isn’t the only Trump property the Saudis have been spending big at since he took office. They’ve booked large numbers of rooms at his Chicago and New York hotels. The New York stay boosted earnings so much that the hotel turned a profit. Once again we find ourselves facing a scandal that would be career-ending for many other “normal” politicians. How would the right-wing noise machine react if President Hillary Clinton or President Barack Obama were secretly profiting from the Saudis, looking the other way as they torture and murder a journalist in their consulate?
While D.C. Republicans have turned a blind eye to Trump’s financial conflicts, district attorneys from Maryland and D.C. got the go-ahead from a federal judge to move forward with subpoenas related to an emoluments lawsuit. From NPR:
U.S. District Court Judge Peter J. Messitte gave the order for discovery in the case to proceed to D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, who have accused Trump of illegally profiting off the presidency. The list of subpoena targets will be released on Tuesday.
"We will now serve subpoenas to third-party organizations and federal agencies to gather the necessary evidence to prove that President Trump is violating the Constitution's emoluments clauses — our nation's original anti-corruption laws," Racine said in a statement.
Buckle up, because this bombshell report is likely to trigger new investigations and bolster existing lawsuits.