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Donald Trump’s Foreign Business Partners Got VIP Treatment During the Inauguration

by KOPManuela Posted on January 25, 2017

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump vowed to wall himself off from his business interests when he became president—but at least two of his wealthy foreign business partners attended his inauguration as VIPs, where they watched the swearing-in from prime seats, partied with Trump insiders, and posed for pictures with Trump’s children and grandchildren. Here’s just one example of their incredible access during the inaugural festivities: The wife of one of Trump’s partners, Indonesian billionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo, posted a video from inside a vehicle driving the locked-down parade route after the ceremony, as police officers stood at attention and spectators waited behind barricades for a glimpse of the new first family.

Penjagaan ketat dan ratusan ribu penonton memadati pinggir jalan protokoler untuk melihat “inaugural parade”

A video posted by liliana tanoesoedibjo (@liliana_tanoesoedibjo) on Jan 20, 2017 at 2:52pm PST

Despite repeated warnings from ethics experts that he needed to take dramatic steps to separate himself from his sprawling business empire, Trump entered the Oval Office with unprecedented conflicts of interest, including lucrative partnerships with a slew of rich foreign developers around the globe. At a press conference on January 11, Trump announced he would place his assets in a trust controlled by his sons—though not a blind trust, as experts had recommended—and that his company would cease cutting new deals with foreign interests during his time in office.

But Trump made clear that existing foreign deals would remain in place. Partners in two of those projects—Tanoesoedibjo, with whom Trump is developing a pair of luxury resorts in Indonesia, and Hussain Sajwani, a Dubai-based real estate developer who has licensed Trump’s name for luxury villas and lush desert golf courses—attended the inaugural festivities.

The conflict-of-interest laws that govern all other federal employees don’t apply to the president, but Trump’s foreign entanglements take him into ethically murky terrain. Some experts, including the lawyers who advised George W. Bush and Barack Obama, believe some of his dealings with foreign partners could violate the Constitution. Days into his presidency, in fact, Trump was hit with a lawsuit spearheaded by prominent ethics lawyers alleging that he is in breach of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits federal officials from receiving financial benefits from foreign governments. The clause typically applies to payments or gifts from foreign officials and governments, but Tanoesoedibjo offers a good example of just how convoluted Trump’s conflict issues could become. Tanoesoedibjo, who has previously run for office in Indonesia, has formed his own political party and, in the wake of Trump’s victory, is contemplating his own presidential run.

Both Tanoesoedibjo and his wife, Liliana, documented their trip to the inauguration on Instagram, starting with a pre-inauguration visit to New York, where the couple met with Donald and Eric Trump at Trump Tower and then lunched with Donald Jr.

In Washington, the couple posted photos of themselves at their room at the Trump hotel, at a reception where they mingled with a Trump resort executive, and on the steps of the US Capitol at the inaugural ceremony, where Tanoesoedibjo gave an interview to Voice of America. In the interview, Tanoesoedibjo dismissed conflict-of-interest concerns over Trump’s business dealings with foreign partners.

Trump’s inaugural committee offered major perks to donors who contributed at least $100,000 toward the event, including a complimentary shuttle service to ferry them and their guests to and from events. But as foreign nationals, the Tanoesoedibjos—and the Sajwanis—are prohibited by law from contributing to this or other political committees. Neither the White House nor the Trump Organization responded to requests for comment about the Tanoesoedibjos’ and Sajwanis’ attendance at the inauguration.

After the swearing-in ceremony, the Tanoesoedibjos posted more photos of the festivities, including some showing them posing with the families of Eric and Donald Trump Jr.

The Tanoesoedibjos’ social-media posts also show that Hussain Sajwani attended Trump’s inauguration. Sajwani is a wealthy Middle Eastern businessman, based in Dubai, where he is the chairman of DAMAC Properties, a real estate development firm that has partnered with Trump to open Trump-branded golf courses and luxury villas in Dubai. The newest course is set to open early next month. At Trump’s New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago, he praised Sajwani, who he said was in attendance.

At his January 11 press conference, Trump said he was so committed to eliminating possible conflicts of interest that he had recently turned down a new deal with Sajwani.

“Over the weekend I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man, a great great developer from the Middle East,” Trump said. “Hussein, DAMAC, a friend of mine, a great guy. I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals, and I turned it down. I didn’t have to turn it down because as you know I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president.”

But he didn’t address his ongoing deals with Sajwani. According to Trump’s last personal financial disclosure, filed in May, the president earns between $2 million and $10 million a year from his licensing deals with DAMAC.

Bersama Hussain Sajwani, Chairman & CEO Damac Group, perusahaan properti dari Dubai, partner Trump Organization

A photo posted by Hary Tanoesoedibjo (@hary.tanoesoedibjo) on Jan 21, 2017 at 1:38am PST

In an interview earlier this month, Sajwani reportedly said he thought Trump’s election would be good for his business. “Naturally, I think we will benefit from the strength of the brand going forward,” he told CNBC.

In an Instagram post just hours after the inauguration, Ali Sajwani, Hussain Sajwani’s son, was more effusive, writing that “the world is looking forward to a lucrative eight years ahead!”

With the man who will #MakeAmericaGreatAgain !

It’s not clear whether the younger Sajwani (who describes himself as an owner of DAMAC on his LinkedIn page and public bio) attended the inauguration or if the photo is from an earlier encounter. A spokesman for DAMAC did not return a request for comment.

Update: A third foreign business associate attended Trump’s inauguration and posted photographs of the festivities on Instagram. Joo Kim Tiah, the son of one of Malaysia’s wealthiest men, is Trump’s partner on his new Vancouver hotel tower, slated to open in early February.

A photo posted by Joo Kim Tiah (@jookimtiah) on Jan 20, 2017 at 9:39pm PST

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Donald Trump’s Foreign Business Partners Got VIP Treatment During the Inauguration

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Clinton Releases Tax Returns, Upping Pressure on Trump to Show His (Or Maybe Not)

by ZulmaLinder Posted on August 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton released her 2015 tax filings on Friday morning, shedding light on her ample earnings and putting more pressure on Donald Trump to reveal his own. But given the high tax rate they show the Clintons paying, Trump might not be so eager to release filings that could show him making far smaller payments to the IRS.

According to the filings, Bill and Hillary Clinton earned $10.7 million in 2015 and paid roughly $3.6 million in federal taxes. Taking into account their state and local taxes, the Clintons had a total effective tax rate of more than 43 percent.

Tax experts speculate that Trump, by contrast, may pay little in taxes, or even no federal income tax at all. Although Trump has said his tax payments are “substantial,” his real estate holdings offer numerous ways to reduce tax liability. It may be easier for the Clintons to release the details of their finances than it would be for Trump to release his, since nearly all of their income is from book sales and speech fees, both of which Hillary Clinton has already made public in her filings with the Federal Elections Commission.

Trump has also faced questions about his charitable giving. Despite his assurances that he gives generously, few signs of actual donations have been uncovered by reporters. Clinton’s tax filings show that she and Bill Clinton donated just over $1 million to charity last year, the bulk of which went to the Clinton Family Foundation*. Another $42,000 was donated to the Desert Classic Charities, a nonprofit that organizes the Carebuilder Challenge charity golf tournament with the Clinton Foundation. In total, the Clinton’s gave nearly 10 percent of their income to charity.

Tim Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, also released 10 years of tax returns, showing that last year the couple earned $313,441 and paid a federal tax rate of 20.3 percent, plus another 5.4 percent in state and local taxes. Kaine and Holton had a small amount of earnings from investments, but almost the entirety of their income came from their salaries: Kaine’s income as a United States senator and Holton’s from her work as the state of Virginia’s secretary of education. They made $21,290 in tax-deductible charitable donations last year.

The bulk of the Clintons’ income came from Bill Clinton’s speeches—he was paid $5.2 million in speaking fees in 2015. The former president was paid another $1.6 million in consulting fees by GEMS Education, an education company based in Dubai, and Laureate Education Inc, which owns a collection of for-profit colleges and universities. Hillary Clinton earned almost $1.5 million from speaking fees and another $3 million from a book deal. Both Clintons reported income from royalties and retirement plans and just over $84,000 in income from an investment in the Vanguard 500 Index mutual fund.

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This story has been updated to clarify that the Clintons donated to the Clinton Family Foundation, a private foudnation used by the couple to make charitable donations, and not the better-known Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

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Clinton Releases Tax Returns, Upping Pressure on Trump to Show His (Or Maybe Not)

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Krugman: “Russia Keeps Looking More Vulnerable to Crisis”

by mAskasieie45gg Posted on December 14, 2014

Mother Jones

Paul Krugman just left a conference in Dubai, and decided to write a bit about oil prices because all the geopolitical stuff he heard was pretty grim. But the oil stuff wasn’t that interesting. His one paragraph about geopolitics is:

My other thought is that Venezuela-with-nukes (Russia) keeps looking more vulnerable to crisis. Long-term interest rates at almost 13 percent, a plunging currency, and a lot of private-sector institutions with large foreign-currency debts. You might imagine that large foreign exchange reserves would allow the government to bail out those in trouble, but the markets evidently don’t think so. This is starting to look very serious.

Yes it is, and the reference to Venezuela-with-nukes is telling. A Russian economic crash could just be a crash. That would be bad for Russia, bad for Europe, and bad for the world. But it would hardly be the first time a midsize economy crashed. It would be bad but manageable.

Except that Russia has Vladimir Putin, Russia has a pretty sizeable and fairly competent military, and Russia has nukes. Putin has spent his entire career building his domestic popularity partly by blaming the West for every setback suffered by the Russian people, and that anti-Western campaign has reached virulent proportions over the past year or two. If the Russian economy does crash, and Putin decides that the best way to ride it out is to demagogue Europe and the West as a way of deflecting popular anger away from his own ruinous policies, it’s hard to say what the consequences would be. When Argentina pursues a game plan like that, you end up with a messy court case and lots of diplomatic grandstanding. When Russia does it, things could go a lot further.

I have precious little sympathy for Putin, whose success—such as it is—is based on a toxic stew of insecurities and quixotic appetites that have expressed themselves in a destructive brand of crude nativism; reactionary bigotry; disdain for the rule of law, both domestic and international; narrow and myopic economic vision; and dependence on an outdated and illiberal oligarchy to retain power. Nonetheless, there are kernels of legitimate grievance buried in many of these impulses, as well as kernels of necessity given both Russia’s culture and the post-Cold War collapse of its economy that has left it perilously dependent on extractive industries.

I don’t know if it’s too late to use the kernels as building blocks to improve, if not actually repair, Western relations with Putin’s Russia. But it’s still worth trying. A Russian crash may or may not come, but it’s hardly out of the realm of possibility. And if it happens, even a modest rapprochement between East and West could help avoid a disastrous outcome.

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Krugman: “Russia Keeps Looking More Vulnerable to Crisis”

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