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Since Team Trump think the Rule of Law and US Tradition and History — DO NOT APPLY TO THEM … we might as well start calling them out for their “Above it All” behavior.
Afterall, what difference does it make, if one “Crown Prince” quietly make a $20-billion investment in another wantabee Prince’s personal “under-writer” — who’s to be the wiser?
by Caleb Melby and Hui-yong Yu, bloomberg.com — May 25, 2017
When Saudi Arabia announced last week a $20-billion investment in a U.S. infrastructure fund managed by Blackstone Group LP, many noticed that it came shortly after presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner personally negotiated a $110-billion arms sale to the country. What went unnoticed -- and is largely unknown -- is how important Blackstone is to the Kushner family company.
Since 2013, Blackstone has loaned more than $400 million to finance four Kushner Cos. deals -- two of which have not been reported -- making it one of the business’s largest lenders. And their ties go beyond the loans. Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone’s co-founder and chief executive officer, heads Trump’s business-advisory council and was in Riyadh with the president and Kushner. The Saudi promise to invest in Blackstone’s fund drove the firm’s stock up more than 8 percent.
[...]
But the sequence of the deals and the intertwined personal relationships of the principals raise concerns about conflicts of interest. Schwarzman, one of the world’s richest businessmen, is a Republican and, like Trump, a resident of New York and Palm Beach. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and Kushner’s wife, was an investor in a fund Blackstone created in 2010 to seed hedge funds, according to financial disclosures.
… And why might the wealthy Crown Prince make such a meager investment, in his poorer “country cousin”?
Well, even a wealthy Saudi Prince knows the “value” of having an insider connection to our US Intelligence PDB’s ...
[...]
Access to the President’s Daily Brief is tightly guarded, but Trump has the legal authority to allow Kushner to disclose information contained in it. If Kushner discussed names with MBS [Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman] as an approved tactic of U.S. foreign policy, the move would be a striking intervention by the U.S. into an unfolding power struggle at the top levels of an allied nation. If Kushner discussed the names with the Saudi prince without presidential authorization, however, he may have violated federal laws around the sharing of classified intelligence.
On November 6, two days after the detentions in the Ritz began, Trump took to Twitter to defend the crackdown:
[...]
On November 4,
a week after Kushner returned to the U.S.,
the crown prince, known in official Washington by his initials MBS,
launched what he called an anti-corruption crackdown. The Saudi government arrested dozens of members of the Saudi royal family and imprisoned them in the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh, which was
first reported in English by
The Intercept. The Saudi figures named in the President’s Daily Brief were among those rounded up; at least one was reportedly tortured.
[...]
In the months that followed,
the arrestees were coerced into signing over billions in personal assets to the Saudi government. In December, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper
Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that Maj. Gen. Ali al-Qahtani
had been tortured to death in the Ritz. Qahtani’s body showed signs of mistreatment, including a neck that was “twisted unnaturally as though it had been broken,” bruises, and “burn marks that appeared to be from electric shocks,” the New York Times
reported earlier this month.
It is alleged that Kushner gave the Crown Prince the names of those Saudis who opposed him, which Kushner had gathered from secret American Intel reports. At the time Jared had the necessary clearance. Probably still does, for all we know.
Afterall someone has to be the “Donald go-between” on these high-roller deals …
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (CNN) — President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion defense deal with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Saturday, signaling the United States' renewed commitment to its alliance with the Gulf kingdom and desire to bolster its counterterrorism partnership.
The deal was finalized in part thanks to the direct involvement of Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and senior adviser. He shocked a high-level Saudi delegation earlier this month when he personally called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and asked if she would cut the price of a sophisticated missile detection system, according to a source with knowledge of the call.
Pressured to finalize a massive $100-plus billion arms deal in the two weeks leading up to Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, Kushner hoped to maneuver a discount on Lockheed's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system during the Saudis' visit to the White House on May 1 — a request that Hewson said she would look into at the time.
[...]
It’s not like King Donald doesn’t understand the depth of the Saudi Royal pockets. They, along with some Russian moneymen, have been underwriting his sorry ass businesses — FOR YEARS ...
by Bob Bryan, BusinessInsider — 11-21-2018
[...]
- In 2016, the New York Daily News reported that the Saudi government also purchased the entire 45th floor of the Trump World Tower, for $4.5 million, in June 2001. Given annual fee fares for the building at the time, Trump also was paid $5.7 million by the Saudis between the purchase and 2016, the paper reported.
Trump bragged about his business dealings with the Saudis during a 2015 campaign rally in Mobile, Alabama.
"I get along great with all of them; they buy apartments from me," Trump said. "They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much!"
From the viewpoint of the lying Grifters now occupying the White House: “What’s not to like?” … indeed.
Donald Trump and Jared Kushner’s New York businesses depend on money from Saudi Arabia and its allies.
by Zach Williams, City and State New York — 10-18-18
[...]
The Trumps wanted to do business in Saudi Arabia before the election
The Washington Post did report shortly after the election that eight companies were registered three months after Ivanka Trump told the publication Hotelier Middle East in 2015 about how the Trump Organization was looking to do business throughout the region. “We are looking at multiple opportunities in Abu Dhabi, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, so those are the four areas where we are seeing the most interest,” she said.
Saudis are keeping Trump’s hotel businesses profitable
Some observers credit the Saudi government with keeping some Trump hotels afloat. The general manager of the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan credited the crown prince’s visit earlier this year with contributing so much business that revenues actually rose one quarter after a two-year slump, the Washington Post reported in August. Saudi-based customers have also booked a total of 218 nights at a Trump hotel in Chicago – a 169 increase from 2016. Then there is the Trump hotel down the street from the White House where a lobbying firm linked to the Saudi Embassy has spent $270,000 on food and lodging at the same time they were advocating against a law that would have allowed 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government. Though they are not the only country accused of trying to gain Trump’s favor by helping his bottom line, they have exhibited a unique determination to use hotels to do that, according to the Washington Post.
Trump has a long history of selling assets to Saudi officials
"They buy apartments from me," Trump said about the Saudis during an Alabama rally in 2015. "They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.” In 2001, the Saudi government bought the entire 45th floor of a Trump property near the United Nations in Manhattan for $4.5 million. A 10,500-square-foot property in another Trump property on the west side of Manhattan was bought years before the 2016 election by Prince Nawaf bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who then sold it earlier this year for $36 million.
From the viewpoint of the Griftees however, now underwriting the current graft in the White House: “What’s not to like?” — A HELLUVA LOT!
Like another endless Middle-east War … Just because TEAM TRUMP: OWES THEM.
Owes them far more than we can possible know — given their routine stonewalling SOP.
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And all this was BEFORE the latest Royal Family disclosures of the “buying of a presidency” …
He owes them.
And they own him.
“I don’t see any reason why it would be ... them” ...
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Dumb question:
With a $110 billion defense deal on their blood-money ledger, why in the hell do they need the American Military’s help?
Again and again.
.
.
.
.
.
Never again … until Oops.
King him — indeed.
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