Donald Trump’s week has gone from bad to worse to full-blown panic. First was the humiliation of being rejected by Nick Ayers, current chief of staff for Mike Pence, who not only said he wouldn’t be taking the top job in the White House, but that he was leaving the administration entirely to go back to Georgia this month. Trump appears to be having a difficult time filling his chief of staff role, something others have equated to being a cabinet-level position because of the prominence this role plays in any presidential administration. Things got so bad in the search for a new chief of staff, Trump ultimately announced John Kelly would be sticking around longer than anticipated.
But, that humiliation is child’s play compared to the mounting criminal investigations surrounding Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Eric Trump, and the cast of criminal deplorables they’ve surrounded themselves with—a group who is flipping on them one-by-one. Case in point, the Wall Street Journal reports federal investigators in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office have launched a criminal probe into the business of Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, which raised a whopping $107 million. The investigation came about as a result of materials seized by the FBI during raids on Michael Cohen’s various properties in April. It seems Cohen’s habit of recording conversations is going to be the undoing of them all.
In April raids of Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents obtained a recorded conversation between Mr. Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to Melania Trump, who worked on the inaugural events. In the recording, Ms. Wolkoff expressed concern about how the inaugural committee was spending money, according to a person familiar with the Cohen investigation.
The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine when the conversation between Mr. Cohen and Ms. Wolkoff took place, or why it was recorded. The recording is now in the hands of federal prosecutors in Manhattan, a person familiar with the matter said.
Why should the Trump world be so worried about a recording between Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and Michael Cohen? Because every single thing about her role in the inauguration is a giant red flag. Wolkoff, who was an unpaid advisor to Melania Trump, created an event company in December 2016. A mere six weeks later, the Trump Inauguration committee paid that company $26 million, the largest payment to any vendor involved in the inauguration. Wolkoff enjoyed special access to the White House until the news broke about the huge amount paid to her start-up company. Melania Trump was quick to publicly distance herself from any of the work her advisor had done around the inauguration.
Two people with direct knowledge of Ms. Winston Wolkoff’s role, who asked to remain anonymous, said she often invoked Mrs. Trump’s name with transition officials as she delivered instructions for the inauguration. But Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Trump, said the first lady “had no involvement” with the inaugural committee “and had no knowledge of how funds were spent.”
The Wall Street Journal reports investigators are looking into three areas of the inauguration committee’s use of funds and fundraising:
- If donations were solicited with the promise of political favors—a violation of federal corruption laws
- If funds were diverted from the inauguration for other purposes—a violation of federal law
- If the Trump inauguration committee accepted foreign money in exchange for access and influence—a violation of federal law
Investigators have already questioned at least one Trump inaugural donor who hired Michael Cohen for “consulting.”
Manhattan federal prosecutors in recent months asked Tennessee developer Franklin L. Haney for documents related to a $1 million donation he made to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee in December 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Haney in early April hired Mr. Cohen, at the time serving as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, to help obtain a $5 billion loan from the Energy Department for a nuclear-power project, the Journal has previously reported. Mr. Haney was asked for documents related to his correspondence with members of the committee, meeting calendars and paperwork for the donation, the person said. A loan application by Mr. Haney’s company is still pending at the Energy Department.
If those criminal inquiries weren’t enough, the New York Times reports federal investigators are also probing Trump’s America First super PAC, the place where many of the Trump administration castaways have landed cushy, high-paying jobs for doing … something. Some of the people who’ve landed jobs at the America First PAC include Trump’s former personal bodyguard Keith Schiller, who is reportedly earning a $15,000 per month salary for security “consulting,” and former Sheriff David Clarke, who campaigned heavily with Donald Trump and is now at the center of the Russian spy case after he accepted a trip to Russia—where he was wined and dined by the redheaded Russian spy Maria Butina and her boss, Alexander Torshin. It’s notable that Clarke’s official role in America First is “spokesman,” but he’s rarely even mentioned the super PAC on his social media feed, although he does occasionally retweet the America First Twitter account. When Omarosa Manigault-Newman left the White House, she says she too was offered a $15,000 per month job at the America First PAC by Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, wife of Eric Trump and senior advisor to Trump’s 2020 re-election team.
Both investigations are looking into whether people from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were funneling money to the inauguration fund and the super PAC. In fact, they are looking at some very specific and suspicious meetings with people from those countries. From the New York Times:
Prosecutors from New York and from Mr. Mueller’s team have asked witnesses whether anyone from Qatar or other Middle Eastern countries also contributed money, perhaps using American intermediaries. Among other issues, they asked about a Mediterranean cruise that Mr. Barrack and Mr. Manafort took after Mr. Manafort was fired in August 2016 from the Trump campaign because of a scandal over his previous work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Mr. Manafort was in serious financial trouble at the time, and Mr. Barrack, who has an extensive business network in the Persian Gulf, may have been attempting to help him find clients.
On the cruise, the pair met one of the world’s richest men, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar. Until 2013, Mr. Al Thani presided over the country’s $230 billion sovereign wealth fund. He remains a highly influential member of the nation’s governing royal family.
Investigators also sought information from a businessman, Rashid Al Malik, an associate of Mr. Barrack’s who heads a private investment firm in the United Arab Emirates, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Mr. Malik, whose lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has been described as close to a key figure in the U.A.E.’s government.
Paul Manafort left the Trump campaign in August 2016 after it came to light that he had accepted $12 million in secret payments from a Ukrainian politician. The response from the Trump campaign? Dispatch a friend of the campaign to take him on a cruise and line-up meetings with the richest people in the world. They should’ve been doing everything they could to distance themselves from Paul Manafort, so, why weren’t they?
Any way you look at it, it now seems increasingly apparent that Donald Trump and his family have been overseeing a criminal enterprise, one that was ignored—or even enabled—by establishment Republicans in Congress who looked the other way.
Finally, it should not go unnoticed that none of these investigations would be happening if one woman hadn’t stood up to tell her story. It was Stormy Daniels’s case that prompted the original investigation into the felonies that Michael Cohen eventually plead guilty to, and for which he received a 36-month prison sentence. It was that investigation that prompted the raid of Cohen’s home and office, which led to a treasure trove for the investigation. In the end, Daniels may just be the reason Donald Trump and/or some of his offspring find themselves in prison. Just one more incredible footnote to the bizarre moment in American history we find ourselves in today.