Patterico's Pontifications

5/27/2019

The New Swamp

Filed under: Politics — DRJ @ 9:20 am



[Headline from DRJ]

Chicago Sun TimesStephen Calk pleads not guilty in bribery scheme: $16 million in Manafort loans in bid for top Trump job :

Stephen Calk, ex-CEO of a Chicago bank is charged with using bank loans to bribe his way into a top Trump administration job

UDATE: Plus today from the APA hefty donation to Trump’s inaugural comes under scrutiny:

Real estate mogul Franklin Haney contributed $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee and all he’s got to show for the money is the glare of a federal investigation.

The contribution from Haney, a prolific political donor, came as he was seeking regulatory approval and financial support from the government for his long-shot bid to acquire the mothballed Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in northeastern Alabama. More than two years later, he still hasn’t closed the deal.

His tale is a familiar one in Washington, where lobbyists and wealthy donors use their checkbooks to try to sway politicians. It’s a world Haney is accustomed to operating in and one that Trump came into office pledging to upend. Yet Trump has left in place many of the familiar ways to wield influence.

— DRJ

19 Responses to “The New Swamp”

  1. I dunno his other credentials, but just from this: Is Haney the guy we want owning a mothballed nuclear power plant? I’m thinking let’s test out his bona fides first on something a little less dangerous, like, say, dynamite factory, for a couple of years, look at his track record then.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  2. Calk’s defense is that the two were;t connected, and/or he didn’t know it was abad loan.

    But what they’re charging him basically is this:

    (I don’t know in what order these things occured.)

    0. (probably) Manafort had no prior relationship with the bank

    1. Manafort was asking the bank for a loan, and went to the CEO, and indicated he needed the money fast.

    2. Calk asked Manafort to help him get a job in the Trump Administration. He alsmot didn’t care what job. He gave him a whole list. (this is not explained but it probably has soe,ething to do with tax law – if a person leaves a job to take a position with the federal government, and divests himself of stock or something, certain tax provisions that would normally kick in do not)

    3. Manafort succeeded in getting him an interview for a job slightly less important than one of those in Calk’s list – a deputy to the Secretary of the Army,but not the position of Secretary of the Army itself. (Explanation: Manafort didn’t have all that much influence)

    4. Calk used his position as CEO at the bank to help the loan go through,

    5. Calk got an interview, but he did not get the job.

    6. The bank made the loan, but the loan went bad, and the bak lost some $12 million.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  3. Contrary to what progressives and even some good-government conservatives might say, I don’t think the right answer here is that Presidential inaugurations ought to be 100% taxpayer funded. I would like to see inaugural festivities scaled-back substantially, especially the stupid parties and balls, but they are monuments to Washington DC vanity.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  4. Make all donations 100% transparent. That is probably enough.

    DRJ (15874d)

  5. Maybe they already are and we don’t care anymore.

    DRJ (15874d)

  6. If I understand what happened, Trump got the million dollars, but he did NOT give the donor what he wanted. To me, this seems like good behavior on Trump’s part. However, the AP story makes it sound like Trump did something wrong.

    David in Cal (0d5a1d)

  7. I have to agree with Mr David. Bribery requires a quid pro quo and, even if promised, not coming through with the action disproves the claim.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  8. Make all donations 100% transparent. That is probably enough.

    The power of officials, particularly the President, to rain hell on those who contribute to their opponents makes this problematical. And if not them, then their minions. Even contributors to ballot questions have been doxxed and retaliated against.

    Gene McCarthy said that he would never have been able to take on LBJ (driving him from office) had it not been for several sizable and secret donations he received. One of the reasons he was a named plaintiff in Buckley v Valeo.

    I would like to see a strong primary challenge to Trump, but our campaign finance laws prevent anyone not themselves wealthy from doing so, and make any significant donor subject to retribution (assuming Trump carries grudges).

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  9. Is Haney the guy we want owning a mothballed nuclear power plant?

    A nuclear plant designed 30 years should not be built, and those that are built should be phased out. The designs aren’t robust. But in return, licenses should be granted to build new-design plants to replace the shuttered ones.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  10. Actually, the future of the plant has been tied up in litigation but Haney was the winning bidder in 2016 so it appears Haney is going to get it. What now, David?

    DRJ (15874d)

  11. Haney already has $30M invested in the project.

    DRJ (15874d)

  12. Trump promised to change how things work — to drain the swamp — but this isn’t new. It may or may not be wrong but it isn’t new.

    DRJ (15874d)

  13. The remedies here aren’t good, but the testimony is:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/opinion/primary-challengers.html

    Challenging Senator John Barrasso last year in the Republican primary, I saw how this works first hand. When I tried to hire the law firm to which I’d directed millions of dollars in business while I was a chief executive, it turned me away, explaining that it could work only for Democrats. When I contacted a law firm known to serve Republicans, that firm told me it couldn’t work for a candidate running against an incumbent because it would put its entire practice at risk. As I tried to build an organization to run a credible primary challenge, this story repeated itself, whether I was recruiting campaign staff or a marketing firm…

    …In 2013, the National Republican Senatorial Committee openly blacklisted an advertising firm for working with a Republican group that targeted Senator Mitch McConnell in a primary challenge. The committee’s spokesman was admirably direct: “We’re not going to do business with people who profit off attacking Republicans in primaries.”

    If you make a living serving candidates in elections, you do as they say because you can’t afford to be blackballed. During the 2018 midterms the parties spent nearly $2.5 billion. They even use legislation to ensure their advantage. In 2014 Congress voted to cap individual contributions to a federal PAC at $5,000, but then, in an astonishing act of self-dealing, gave the PACs run by the two political parties — and only those PACs — a $106,500 limit, money they could divvy up however they choose.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  14. 8. Kevin M (21ca15) — 5/27/2019 @ 11:42 am

    I would like to see a strong primary challenge to Trump, but our campaign finance laws prevent anyone not themselves wealthy from doing so, and make any significant donor subject to retribution (assuming Trump carries grudges).

    ZFrom the article I just linked to and cited:

    Not only do challengers like me have no access to that $2.5 billion war chest, but prominent Republican donors explicitly told me they couldn’t contribute to my campaign and risk their donation showing up in public records, for fear of retribution by the party.

    I think he means Republicans with large campaign funds, who legally can transfer that mney to other candidates, were afraid to transfer any to him.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  15. Steve ‘pilate was a governor’ was Haney mentor through the tva,

    Narciso (983b87)

  16. What is it they say? “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them, you have no business being up here.” How many of our politicians, I wonder, have any business being up there?

    Nic (896fdf)

  17. Sure, anyone can contribute to an insurgency, so long as they win. The people who donated to AOC are not blackballed. They prospered, and so none dare call it treason.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  18. Nic,

    Jesse Unruh said that, along with “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  19. but progressives, rarely are called on it, they are on the media rolodex,

    https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/27/amy-coney-barrett-catholic-dogma/

    narciso (d1f714)


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