TWGB: Bust Out?

 

BREAKING - Trump moved docs from Mar-a-Lago to Bedminster in 2022, according to another Trump employee who confirms what has long been reported - including this video from spring 2022:

pic.twitter.com/eUxW1sESVV

— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) March 12, 2024

The savvy among you know perfectly well this blog title isn't about how the classy ladies of Mar-a-Lago are wearing their cleavage this year but is actually a term of art. The above reference in the embedded Tweet to Bedminster reminds of that quintessentially New Jersey show--The Sopranos.

There's a great episode that lets us know what Tony Soprano's business is--Bust Out. Davey Scatino, a gambler, thinks he understands who Tony Soprano is and what his business is. He thinks they are friends. But his business is ruined because he's in debt to Tony. Why? Business, and respect. Tony is a mob boss. His business is getting paid back in full. Friendship doesn't get in the way of that. 

When Trump was betrayed by the American people by their not re-electing him, he took a few things from the White House. (He would have taken things anyway.  He takes. He's funny that way.) For all I or you know or The Mahoff of Jabib knows, he still has documents at Bedminster, where one of his Mar-A-Lago employees has broken omerta and told us he knows some of these boxes of documents went there. A lot of water has run under the bridge since then. It would be great if it could be confirmed there is still something there. (I'm guessing a legal pretext for a warrant needs something more substantial than "COOMMMME OOOONNNNNN!")

I just think maybe it's time to see a case opened up in New Jersey. "Loose" Cannon seems to be okay with giving Trump infinite delays. And I am definitely not. 

Anyway, TrumpWorld has officially taken control of the RNC, and changes are being made--big changes. There will be dozens of staffers let go, and believe me, any replacements will be Trump loyalists. You can already foresee what the fundraising goals will look like. And where the money will go. How assets will be used. How "help" will be steered to the Trumpiest candidates for down ticket offices, if at all, and might even be withheld for candidates that just aren't Trumpy enough. All with the strategic know-how of people named Trump or Yunaska or behind the scenes ass-wipers from the set of Celebrity Apprentice. 

Intimidation is the Point

 

It's a beautiful thing, seeing Trump use a crime underboss with blood on his hands as his character witness calling for "strength and honesty in our New York courts." It really takes you back. Once upon a time in America, the specter of the NY mob and the menace of the Five Families might have fucked with a prosecutor or a judge. Maybe after Rudolph Giuliani and Gravano's own turn, this isn't as certain as it used to be. 

Am I being tongue in cheek? I recall when Trump was proud of a mob celeb at one of his South Florida businesses not so long ago. He's not shy about his associations with this kind of people--he has relied on it as a business fact. He was denied a casino license in Australia because of this business fact. 

Now, I don't pretend I've researched a lot into what degree Trump, the builder, had to ingratiate himself with the mafia consortium who owned everything to do with concrete back in the day, when he was supposedly changing the NYC skyline (I only expect those contractors, for sure, were the ones who got paid), but I do understand what he's doing here:

He's just letting people know he's got friends in all kinds of places. Loyal ones. Maybe dangerous ones.

TWGB: Just the Mob, Russia, Echoes of 2016 and 1776

 

Depicted above is Donald Trump, former president, with Skinny Joey Merlino, formerly, to the best of my knowledge, of the Philadelphia mafia, if that's a thing, about which I have little to say. Anyhow, Trump very recently crowed that he had information about every person who came down to Mar-A-Lago and should know who Merlino is and so I would be astonished if this was accidental. Please--he doesn't care. He didn't care about Nick Fuentes, and he doesn't care about Joey Merlino--he needs all the friends he can get. He has long depended upon the kindness of strange people. 

Why is this my lead-in into today's TrumpWorld Grab-Bag? Because this is a long and strange journey spurred by an echo of the 2016 campaign: a former head of FBI counter-intelligence in the NY office was arrested for taking money from a Russian oligarch with ties to the Trump Russia probe.  This is the outcome of an interesting story that gives us a little more about McGonigal back when this was in the grand jury stage. 

The federal scrutiny of McGonigal is especially striking given his work at the FBI. Before his retirement in 2018, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, busted Bill Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger for removing classified material from a National Archives reading room, and led the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. In 2016, when reports surfaced that Russia had hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee, McGonigal was serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington. In that capacity, he was one of the first officials to learn that a Trump campaign official had bragged that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, sparking the investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Later that year, FBI Director James Comey promoted McGonigal to oversee counterintelligence operations in New York. 

Pretty flipping fascinating, no? Anyway, the NY office was described back in 2016 as TrumpLand and definitely leaked info regarding Anthony Weiner's laptop to various people, prompting James Comey's announcement of the reopening of the Clinton email case, which a lot of folks are pretty sure sank the election for her. And I don't know this for a fact and don't want to impugn the NYT's reporters on this, but even though the CI investigation of Trump in 2016 was based in DC, I would not be surprised if the front page news that the FBI found no connection to Russia in 2016 was leaked from that office. Funny how the folks not looking for it weren't finding it.