Biden Announces He’ll Be Exposing Trump’s Traitorous Ass

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Donald Trump really, really doesn’t want people to find out what exactly he was up to on January 6, 2021, probably because it makes him look really, really bad. We know he feels this way because he’s responded to the House select committee’s investigation into the events of the day like a caged feral pigeon—frantically flapping his wings, shitting everywhere; because his lawyer has instructed at least four of his lackeys to obstruct justice; and because he’s insisted that any and all documents detailing what he was doing before, during, and after the Capitol attack must remain under lock and key. In a letter sent to the National Archives on Friday, Trump wrote that the records sought by the committee contain information shielded by “executive and other privileges, including but not limited to the presidential communications, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges,” adding that he would assert the same privilege in the case of any future requests.

Only, as Trump may or may not know, he’s no longer president, and therefore he has no executive privilege to assert. Instead, there’s a new president in the White House, and that guy? Says the documents are going to Congress!

Per The Washington Post:

President [Joe] Biden rejected former president Donald Trump’s request to block documents from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the White House said on Friday, likely setting up a legal and political battle. Trump has claimed executive privilege in seeking to evade the committee’s demands for details about Trump and his aides’ activities during the Jan. 6 attack. But in the letter to the National Archives and Records Administration, the White House said Biden “determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States.”

At a White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden decision reflected the gravity of the attack. “The president’s dedicated to ensuring that something like that could never happen again, which is why the administration is cooperating with ongoing investigations,” Psaki said. “The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House that have been provided to us by the National Archives.”

Biden’s decision came after Trump told four former advisers, according to Politico, not to comply with congressional subpoenas, and former White House strategist Stephen Bannon told the committee he won’t be responding to its requests for documents. According to the Post, former chief of staff Mark Meadows and national security aide Kash Patel are said to be “engaging with the committee,” despite President Trump’s demands. “While Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel are, so far, engaging with the Select Committee, Mr. Bannon has indicated that he will try to hide behind vague references to privileges of the former President,” the committee’s leaders said in a statement released Friday. The committee added that it is considering holding Bannon in criminal contempt. (For his part, Bannon knows a little something about running afoul of the law. In August 2020, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly scamming thousands of border-wall donors. He pleaded not guilty and, naturally, was pardoned by Trump before going to trial. Separately, in November 2020, Bannon was permanently kicked off of Twitter after suggesting Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.)

Biden’s decision triggers at least a 30-day window for Trump to challenge the call in court before the documents are released, which he no doubt will. On the Hill, members of the committee investigating the insurrection have pledged to take a hard line with anyone refusing to cooperate with the probe. “This is a matter of the utmost seriousness, and we need to consider the full panoply of enforcement sanctions available to us,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin. “And that means criminal contempt citations, civil contempt citations and the use of Congress’s own inherent contempt powers.”

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Nothing to see here, just Trump’s company getting “preferential” treatment to the tune of tens of millions of dollars from Deutsche Bank while he was president

Sort of seems like the kind of thing a president would try to avoid since it looks super corrupt—but not this guy! Per The Washington Post:

Donald Trump’s luxury Washington hotel lost more than $70 million while he was in office despite reaping millions in payments from foreign governments, according to federal documents released by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Friday. The committee, chaired by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), released hundreds of pages of financial documents on the property Friday that it received from the General Services Administration, the agency that has leased the federally owned property to Trump’s company since 2013. Trump was required to submit the documents to the GSA as a condition of his lease. Maloney and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) allege the documents show that Trump received an estimated $3.7 million from foreign governments and got “preferential treatment” from Deutsche Bank, which had previously loaned Trump $170 million to renovate the hotel.

The committee released documents showing that, in 2017, Trump’s company told the GSA that it would be required to start repaying the principal of its Deutsche Bank loan—not just the interest—in August 2018, “subject to certain conditions outlined in the loan agreement.” Paying interest alone, the Trump Organization owed annual mortgage payments on the hotel between $5 and $7 million. Then, in the filing for 2018, Trump’s company said no principal would be due until 2024. The financial documents did not give an explanation for the change in wording. The House Oversight Committee said it did not know why the wording changed, and did not offer a reason for its claim that this was “preferential treatment” by Deutsche Bank.

A Trump Organization spokesperson naturally claimed there’s no story here, except for the fact that the press has it out for the 45th president, who is a saint and has never been accused of corruption in his life. “We have been great custodians of this iconic building, continue to have a great relationship with the GSA and are in full compliance with our leasehold obligations,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Post. “Simply stated, this report is nothing more than continued political harassment in a desperate attempt to mislead the American public and defame Trump in pursuit of an agenda.… At no time did the company receive any preferential treatment from any lender.” The company did not offer an explanation for why the terms of the loan changed. Deutsche Bank, which kept lending Trump money when other banks wouldn’t touch him with a 10,000-foot pole, also disputed the committee’s findings. “The Committee’s letter makes several inaccurate statements regarding Deutsche Bank and its loan agreement,” a spokesperson told the Post without specifying what those inaccurate statements are.

In a letter to GSA administrator Robin Carnahan, Maloney and Connolly wrote that the documents warrant further examination. The findings “raise new and troubling questions about former President Trump’s lease with GSA and the agency’s ability to manage the former President’s conflicts of interest during his term in office when he was effectively on both sides of the contract, as landlord and tenant,” the two Democrats said in a separate news release.

A reminder re: Deutsche Bank’s long history as the lender of choice for the worst people in the world

Report: Florida and Texas could have saved thousands of lives if they weren’t so anti-vaccine

It’s almost as though—and stick with us here because we’re about to get technical—the vaccines actually work and people shouldn’t hesitate to get them. Per the Post:

The two Sun Belt states, among the hardest-hit during the delta surge, fell behind the Northeastern states, including Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine, in getting shots into arms. About 58% and 52% of residents in Florida and Texas are vaccinated, respectively. If they had reached the New England states’ average of 74% fully vaccinated, they could have collectively prevented more than 95,000 hospitalizations and 22,000 deaths, according to an analysis in the Lancet.

Researchers from several institutions, including Yale School of Public Health, developed a model of coronavirus transmission to study infections, hospitalizations, and deaths from when immunizations began on Dec. 12 to the end of August, capturing a record peak for Florida and Texas during the summer. Vaccination rates in both states rose in the spring, as in the rest of the country, but never at the same pace as in states in New England.

Hopefully this study will inspire Texas and Florida residents to go out an get inoculated, but with Ron “Grim Reaper” DeSantis and Greg “Give Me All the COVID” Abbott running the joints, it probably won’t.

Dogs and cats living together!

Elsewhere!

Defense Department warns climate change will increase conflicts over water and food (CNBC)

Global Deal to End Tax Havens Moves Ahead as Nations Back 15% Rate (NYT)

Biden becomes first president to commemorate Indigenous Peoples Day (Axios)

Hiring falls short of expectations as pandemic stifles recovery (Washington Post)

Sources say they’re not buying Matt Gaetz’s new “happy husband” rebrand as the FBI’s sex trafficking investigation continues (Insider)

How Texas Is Chipping Away at Women’s Rights (Bloomberg)

Idaho bills MyPillow CEO for election audit that showed no fraud (Independent)

Hot tub on wheels: Suit says party vehicle lacks pool permit (AP)

Firefighters: “Woman” stranded on cliff was movie mannequin (UPI)

Men lost at sea 29 days say it “was a nice break” from reality (NYP)

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