Two breaking stories reveal the Trump kids and Kushner as corrupt, unaccountable, out of control
USA Today reports that Jared Kushner, who has used personal e-mail accounts for government business – had his personal e-mail rerouted to a Trump Organization mail server:
President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump re-routed their personal email accounts to computers run by the Trump Organization as public scrutiny intensified over their use of private emails to conduct White House business, internet registration records show.
The move, made just days after Kushner’s use of a personal email account first became public, came shortly after special counsel Robert Mueller asked the White House to turn over records related to his investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump associates. It also more closely intertwines President Trump’s administration with his constellation of private businesses.
Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the president, first faced scrutiny for his private email use on Sept. 24, when his lawyer confirmed that he had occasionally used a personal email account to communicate with other White House officials. Kushner’s contacts with Russians during the presidential campaign have drawn the attention of federal investigators.
According to internet registration records reviewed by USA TODAY and cybersecurity researchers, Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, who is also a senior adviser, re-routed their email accounts to a server operated by the Trump Organization on either Sept. 26 or 27, as attention from the media and lawmakers intensified.
The Trump Organization did not respond to questions Tuesday about the email accounts.
Last night on MSNBC, a former Watergate prosecutor explained to Ari Melber why that move creates a “huge potential for criminal conduct“:
“And now a third e-mail account,” MSNBC anchor Ari Melber stated in disbelief.
For people watching saying, ‘gosh, the news is repetitive’ no, the hypocritical obvious and potentially incriminating behavior of certain White House officials is repetitive,” Melber explained.
Former Assistant Special Watergate Prosecutor Nick Akerman explained the legal liability to Melber.
“What is really outrageous here is that…he does it after it comes the light that he is using the personal e-mail servers,” Akerman explained.
“So the obvious question is, why did they move it over to the Trump Organization?” Akerman wondered. “Did they take it over there so they could cleanse these emails and take certain emails out of what was in the server?”
In addition to serving on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force under Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, Akerman also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York.
“We just don’t know what the ramifications are, but there’s huge potential for all kinds of criminal conduct that could be charged,” the former federal prosecutor concluded.
Melber, a non-practicing attorney, wondered how special counsel Robert Mueller would view it “if he makes a request for documents and emails and then finds people start moving stuff.”
“That can be an obstruction of justice and particularly if they move them for the purpose of cleansing them and taking documents out and destroying emails,” Akerman noted.
Then there was that time that New York prosecutors were preparing a case against two membwrs of the Trump [crime] family, Donald Jr. and Ivanka. The District Attorney overruled his staff – after a visit from a top Trump donor:
In the spring of 2012, Donald Trump’s two eldest children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., found themselves in a precarious legal position. For two years, prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had been building a criminal case against them for misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development that was failing to sell. Despite the best efforts of the siblings’ defense team, the case had not gone away. An indictment seemed like a real possibility. The evidence included emails from the Trumps making clear that they were aware they were using inflated figures about how well the condos were selling to lure buyers.
In one email, according to four people who have seen it, the Trumps discussed how to coordinate false information they had given to prospective buyers. In another, according to a person who read the emails, they worried that a reporter might be onto them. In yet another, Donald Jr. spoke reassuringly to a broker who was concerned about the false statements, saying that nobody would ever find out, because only people on the email chain or in the Trump Organization knew about the deception, according to a person who saw the email.
There was “no doubt” that the Trump children “approved, knew of, agreed to, and intentionally inflated the numbers to make more sales,” one person who saw the emails told us. “They knew it was wrong.”
…
Donald Trump, Sr., expressed frustration that the investigation had not been closed. Soon after, his longtime personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz entered the case.
Kasowitz, who by then had been the elder Donald Trump’s attorney for a decade, is primarily a civil litigator with little experience in criminal matters. But in 2012, Kasowitz donated $25,000 to the reelection campaign of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., making Kasowitz one of Vance’s largest donors. Kasowitz decided to bypass the lower level prosecutors and went directly to Vance to ask that the investigation be dropped.
On May 16, 2012, Kasowitz visited Vance’s office at One Hogan Place in downtown Manhattan — a faded edifice made famous by the television show, “Law & Order.” Dan Alonso, the chief assistant district attorney, and Adam Kaufmann, the chief of the investigative division, were also at the meeting, but no one from the Major Economic Crimes Bureau attended. Kasowitz did not introduce any new arguments or facts during his session. He simply repeated the arguments that the other defense lawyers had been making for months.
Ultimately, Vance overruled his own prosecutors. Three months after the meeting, he told them to drop the case. Kasowitz subsequently boasted to colleagues about representing the Trump children, according to two people. He said that the case was “really dangerous,” one person said, and that it was “amazing I got them off.” (Kasowitz denied making such a statement.)
