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Parallels Between Trump Media Loans and Infamous Trump Tower Meeting Drawn by Reporter

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Trump Media accepted two loans from a pair of Russia-linked entities as the fledgling tech company struggled to stay afloat, and a reporter revealed why investigators started probing the transactions as possible money laundering.

Federal prosecutors in New York have expanded a criminal inquiry of Donald Trump’s business venture last year and began probing the loans totaling $8 million Paxum Bank and ES Family Trust, both of which appear to be controlled by the relative of a Vladimir Putin ally, and The Guardian‘s Hugo Lowell explained his reporting on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“There was an existing criminal investigation into Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social, that started last year,” Lowell said. “Then towards the end of last year, what happened was they got a tip and they started looking at basically two $8 million payment that came through at a time they were cash poor, because it happened late because of the SEC investigation they went and got bridge financing from first a bank, then in February 2022 they got a second loan of $6 million from two different companies. As it turned out, they’re pretty much one and the same company, and if you trace the beneficiaries back you get to the nephew of a Putin ally who was the first deputy justice minister in Russia and previously served in Putin’s executive office.”

“When you look at the whole thing,” he added, “difficult to know there’s going to be exposure here, but the optics of Trump coming out of the White House his first business venture is getting loans from conduits from offshore banks is not a great look.”

READ MORE: ‘Seditionist square’: Trump allies gobbling up properties two blocks from the US Capitol

The loans raised concerns inside the company, but the startup was struggling financially while awaiting approval for its merger with the blank-check company Digital World at the time, and board member Donald Trump Jr. had personally approved acceptance of the funds.

“Some of the officers of the company saw the $2 million and the later $6 million, and saw that there had been no vetting, really no information about the people who were lending $8 million to Truth Social company, effectively. I mean, they had $12 million in cash, $8 million a significant portion of the stuff they had in their account. It’s funny you say, going back to the beginning in December, when the first $2 million was coming in, a lawyer e-mails Don Jr. to say, hey, this $2 million is coming in, no guarantee it’s going to get signed, are we going to proceed with this? Don Jr. goes, ‘Thanks, John, much appreciated — let’s go ahead with it.'”

“I don’t want to tie too many connections to Natalia Veselnitskaya and Trump Tower, but somehow Don Jr. ends up getting involved,” Lowell said, referring to the infamous meeting investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller. “Later in February and then in spring 2022 when they’re trying to audit these payments, there’s flags raised for Trump Media. The then-CFO Phillip Juhan, of Trump Media, weighs returning the money, but they realize actually the $8 million out of the $12 million is such a big segment, [they] don’t want to return it.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

 

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‘Restore My Account Immediately’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Cries After Twitter Suspends Her Over Anti-Trans Tweets

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March 28, 2023

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is lashing out at Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk after the social media company, she says, suspended her official government account for seven days for posting apparently anti-transgender tweets. At least four of her tweets appear to have been deleted.

Rep. Greene appears to have been promoting an unverified claim that “Antifa” and transgender activists are planning a “Trans Day of Vengeance.” Fox News is also claiming there is a “Trans Day of Vengeance,” and a website the report links to says it will be on April 1.

“My Congressional account was suspended for 7 days for exposing Antifa, who are organizing a call for violence called ‘Trans Day of Vengeance.’ The day after the mass murder of children by a trans shooter. Restore my account immediately,” Greene demanded, tagging Musk, Twitter Safety, and the head of Twitter Safety, Ella Irwin.

There is no evidence that “Antifa” which is not an actual group, has anything to do with the alleged Trans Day of Vengeance.

The Independent adds Greene made “unfounded” claims “about the Nashville school shooting being a product of ‘Antifa’ and ‘trans-terrorism.'”

According to The Hill, Congresswoman Greene tweeted a poster of the alleged event, and Twitter removed the post, so she repeatedly reposted it, only to have Twitter remove it.

Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, tweeted: “We had to automatically sweep our platform and remove >5000 tweets /retweets of this poster. We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. ‘Vengeance’ does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok.”

On her personal Twitter account, Greene also promoted a similar, baseless claim:

“In the wake of a transgender shooter targeting a Christian school and murdering kids, every American should know the threat of Antifa driven trans-terrorism. Twitter should not whitewash the incitement of politically motivated violence,” she said, pointing to another of her tweets that had been removed.

Greene on Monday made anti-trans remarks in the wake of the the Nashville shooting.

“How much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville school shooter taking? Everyone can stop blaming guns now,” she said.

Currently, numerous right-wing and far-right wing Twitter accounts are linking the alleged Trans Day of Vengeance to Monday’s horrific Covenant Presbyterian elementary school shooting in Nashville, where three nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death. The shooter allegedly identified as transgender, according to Nashville police.

 

 

 

 

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Pence Ordered to Comply With Subpoena, Testify Before Special Counsel’s Grand Jury

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March 28, 2023

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Mike Pence, the ex-vice president, must testify before Dept. of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection, a federal judge has ruled, rejecting his claims of executive privilege.

The judge is requiring Pence to answer questions about his conversations with Donald Trump leading up to the insurrection, and to answer any questions related to any possible illegal acts Donald Trump may have committed, according to ABC News’ senior investigative reporter Katherine Faulders and CNN’s Abby Phillip.

Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “outright rejected Trump’s executive privilege challenge, but ruled more narrowly on Pence speech and debate challenge,” Faulders adds.

The judge, apparently citing Pence’s “speech and debate clause” claim, said “that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election,” CNN reports.

READ MORE: ‘We’re Not Gonna Fix It’: TN Republican Says Congress Can Do Nothing to Stop Gun Violence – Calls for Christian ‘Revival’

NBC News reports Judge Boasberg “did, however, grant Pence a partial victory as to his argument that he was shielded from having to testify about Jan. 6 because of his constitutional role as part of the legislative branch.”

In what some legal experts dismissed as a faulty argument, “Pence’s legal team had argued that the Constitution’s ‘speech and debate’ clause should prevent special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors from eliciting any testimony about communications or activity related to Pence’s role as president of the Senate in presiding over the certification of the election results.”

Overall CNN calls it “another win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the Trump-aligned effort to subvert the 2020 election. Smith subpoenaed Pence for testimony and documents earlier this year.”

Pence can still appeal.

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

This is a breaking news and developing story.

This article has been updated to add video.

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‘We’re Not Gonna Fix It’: TN Republican Says Congress Can Do Nothing to Stop Gun Violence – Calls for Christian ‘Revival’

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March 28, 2023

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U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) says there’s nothing the 535 elected officials in the House and Senate can do to reduce gun violence and gun deaths.

“We’re not gonna fix it,” Congressman Burchett said on the steps of the Capitol.

“I don’t see any role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly,” he said in response to Monday’s school mass shooting in Nashville, where three nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death by a shooter with two AR-15 style assault rifles and a handgun.

READ MORE: Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

Instead of Congress enacting stricter gun laws, background checks, and a ban on assault weapons, Congressman Burchett said, “you’ve got to change people’s hearts,” as he called for a Christian revival.

“As a Christian, we talk about the church. I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country.”

Monday’s shooting at the Covenant Presbyterian Elementary School was the 130th mass shooting this year in America, bringing the death toll from all gun violence across all causes to 9989, including 403 children 17 or younger, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Congressman Burchett is a member of the far-right Republican Study Committee, which has strong ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA).

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

On Monday, Burchett released a statement saying, “Kelly and I are praying for everyone at The Covenant School, especially the families of the shooting victims. No one should have to go through that kind of horrific event or lose a loved one like that. I’m so thankful to those brave folks who brought down the shooter and took care of the students and their families.”

Earlier this month Rep. Burchett was one of 26 House Republicans on the Oversight Committee who refused to sign a simple two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy.

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