Dispatches

‘MONEY LAUNDERING’ AND ‘THE PRESIDENT.’

As if there weren’t enough reasons in Robert Mueller’s report for people of good will and patriotism to consider ending a presidency, the New York Times reported (5/19), “Anti-money laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog. The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.”

Charles P. Pierce noted at Esquire.com (5/20), “The president” and his son-in-law, who has anywhere between three and 81 jobs in the administration, were shuffling money around in such a funky fashion that money-laundering experts — at the only bank in the world from which the president can get more than a souvenir calendar — felt compelled to raise an alarm. Putting the words ‘money laundering’ and ‘president’ in the same sentence used to be enough for network news to throw up one of those scarifying ‘BULLETIN’ graphics. Putting the word ‘Russian’ in there, too, used to be enough to get Walter Cronkite to sail his sloop all the way from the Vineyard to Black Rock.”

The Times continued, “In the summer of 2016, Deutsche Bank’s software flagged a series of transactions involving the real estate company of Mr. Kushner, now a senior White House adviser. Ms. McFadden, a longtime anti-money laundering specialist in Deutsche Bank’s Jacksonville office, said she had reviewed the transactions and found that money had moved from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals. She concluded that the transactions should be reported to the government — in part because federal regulators had ordered Deutsche Bank, which had been caught laundering billions of dollars for Russians, to toughen its scrutiny of potentially illegal transactions.”

Apparently, according to the people interviewed by the Times, Deutsche Bank functioned as an all-purpose international laundromat for various people who needed money cleaned, Pierce noted. “Of course, the stakes rise considerably when one of the folks waiting for the spin cycle to finish is the president of the United States.”

The Times continued, “After Mr. Trump became president, transactions involving him and his companies were reviewed by an anti-financial crime team at the bank called the Special Investigations Unit. That team, based in Jacksonville, produced multiple suspicious activity reports involving different entities that Mr. Trump owned or controlled, according to three former Deutsche Bank employees who saw the reports in an internal computer system ... Senior executives worried that if they took a tough stance with Mr. Trump’s accounts — for example, by demanding payment of a delinquent loan — they could provoke the president’s wrath. On the other hand, if they didn’t do anything, the bank could be perceived as cutting a lucrative break for Mr. Trump, whose administration wields regulatory and law enforcement power over the bank.”

None of this is normal, Pierce concluded. “None of this is right. None of this comes within several hundred hectares of complying with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution that this guy swore to preserve and protect. Presidents are not supposed to scare bankers into hand-waving money-laundering allegations. That’s not in the job description.”

TRUMP CAMP STANDS AGAINST CONSTITUTION. Donald Trump’s Department of Justice contends that the House of Representatives may not compel Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, to testify to them after he spent 30 hours chatting with Robert Mueller’s folks, and whom, according to their report, was tasked by the president to fire that same Robert Mueller, Charles P. Pierce noted at Esquire.com (5/20). McGahn no longer works in the White House, and, therefore, one would think the White House cannot direct him to tie his shoes, let along ignore congressional subpoenas.

The Washington Post reported that the 15-page legal opinion written by Assistant Attorney General Steven A. Engel argues McGahn cannot be compelled to testify before the committee, based on Justice Department legal opinions regarding the president’s close advisers. The memo says McGahn’s immunity from congressional testimony is separate and broader than a claim of executive privilege.

“This testimonial immunity is distinct from, and broader than, executive privilege,” Engel wrote, arguing that the immunity “extends beyond answers to particular questions, precluding Congress from compelling even the appearance of a senior presidential adviser – as a function of the independence and autonomy of the president himself.” That immunity, the memo insists, does not evaporate once the adviser in question leaves the government, because the topics of interest to Congress are discussions that occurred when the person worked for the president, and, Trump’s Justice Department says, Congress may not constitutionally compel the president’s senior advisers to testify about their official duties.

Pierce noted, “One might logically inquire if the DOJ is here stipulating that criminal obstruction of justice were part of McGahn’s ‘official duties.’ And the opinion sails off to the Planet Bafflegab when it claims that McGahn still enjoys this dubious ‘immunity’ even though he doesn’t work in the White House anymore.”

The defiance of the subpoena raises the possibility that the House will hold McGahn in contempt of Congress, as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has threatened, the Washington Post reported (5/20).

JUDGE DENIES TRUMP’S BID TO DENY HOUSE HIS FINANCIAL RECORDS. In another case, Donald Trump’s vow to defy subpoenas by House Democrats investigating his business dealings were dealt a blow when a federal judge denied Trump’s big to quash a House subpoena for years of his financial records from his accounting firm.

US District Judge Amit P. Mehta of Washington, D.C., refused to block the records request to Mazars USA from the House Oversight and Reform Committee while the lawsuit continues. Attorneys for Trump and associated businesses argued Congress is not entitled to investigate his past personal financial dealings for potential corruption.

“So long as Congress investigates on a subject matter on which ‘legislation could be had,’ Congress acts as contemplated by Article I of the Constitution,” Mehta said in a 41-page opinion. Mehta ruled the committee’s claims that Trump’s records will help it consider strengthening ethics and disclosure laws and enforce a constitutional ban on acceptance of foreign gifts by a president were “facially valid,” saying, “It is not for the court to question whether the Committee’s actions are truly motivated by political considerations.”

In an additional blow to Trump’s lawyers, the Washington Post reported, Mehta denied their request to stay his order beyond the seven days both sides previously agreed to for an appeal, finding the public’s interest in “maximizing the effectiveness of the investigatory powers of Congress” was greater than any harm to Trump or his businesses.

In court, Douglas N. Letter, general counsel of the House of Representatives, has charged that the lawsuit would dismiss Congress’s constitutional oversight powers as “a nuisance . . . getting in [Trump’s] way while he’s trying to run the country.”

An appeal would test decades of legal precedent that have upheld Congress’s right to investigate, arguing the theory that a president’s past dealings are irrelevant to the legislative branch’s fundamental job of writing bills, Spencer S. Hau noted at the Post (5/20). The legal battle comes as House Democrats seek to probe Trump’s finances, his campaign and allegations he sought to obstruct justice in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

AUDITS OF RICH PEOPLE PLUMMETED LAST YEAR. Never let it be said that rich people don’t get their money’s worth from the Republicans they vote for, Kevin Drum noted at MotherJones.com (5/20).

The Wall Street Journal reported (5/20) that audits of the highest-income households dropped sharply, to their lowest levels since the IRS began reporting that data in 2008. In fiscal 2018, the IRS audited 6.66% of returns of filers with more than $10 million in adjusted gross income, down from 14.52% in 2017.

The IRS is trying to persuade Congress to make long-run investments in the agency’s technology and enforcement staff. So far, however, key Republicans in Congress remain skeptical, and there are mixed signals about whether the government will reverse the steady decline in tax enforcement. “I’m not averse to beefing up their budget a little bit but I want to see results,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who heads the subcommittee that oversees the IRS budget. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in the new commissioner and in the new secretary, but I’m not into just throwing money at the wall because the bureaucracy says we need more.”

Republican have cut spending 19% below peak funding in 2010 and the number of examiners that performs audits shrunk 38% from 2010 to 2017.

Drum noted, “reducing the IRS enforcement budget and its number of auditors has been the whole point of Republican policy toward the IRS over the past couple of decades. Rich people are unhappy when they get audited, and we can’t have that, can we?”

TRUMP’S IN TROUBLE IN BATTLEGROUND STATES. Donald Trump still lags in popularity nationwide, as FiveThirtyEight.com’s average of leading polls showed him with 41.8% approval and 53.3% disapproval as of May 20. Morning Consult running statewide polls through April showed Trump behind in three Great Lakes states that provided him with the Electoral College margin of victory in 2016: He was 10 points net negative in Michigan, with 43% approval and 53% disapproval; 7 points net negative in Pennsylvania (45% approval, 52% disapproval), and 13 points net negative in Wisconsin (42% positive, 55% disapproval). Trump is also behind in several states he carried in 2016, including Arizona, where he had 8 points net negative (44% approval, 52% disapproval); Florida, where he had a 2-point net negative (47% approval, 49% disapproval); Iowa, 8 points net negative (44% approval, 52% disapproval); North Carolina, 2 points net negative (47% approval, 49% disapproval); and Ohio, where he had a 4-point net negative (46% approval, 50% disapproval). Trump is still holding onto a 4-point net positive rating in Texas (50% approval, 46% disapproval).

BRAZILIAN MEAT BARONS GOT MILLIONS FROM TRUMP BAILOUT FOR FARMERS. After ramping up his trade war against China early May with a new round of tariffs on Chinese goods, Donald Trump took to Twitter to assure our “Great Patriot Farmers” that he would shield them from the fallout, Tom Philpott noted at MotherJones.com (5/16). Soon after, US Department of Agriculture chief Sonny Perdue announced that the president had directed him to “work on a plan quickly,” adding that “@POTUS loves his farmers and will not let them down!” Trump later hinted he would come up with “about $15 billion” in public funds to offset the losses expected due to retaliatory tariffs on American exports.  

This promise comes on the heels of the $12 billion “trade mitigation package” the administration rolled out last year to assist farmers “suffering from damage due to unjustified trade retaliation by foreign nations.” To finance the tariff reimbursement program, Trump and company took funds from a USDA agency launched during the Great Depression to stabilize crop prices for farmers.

But in January, the Greeley, Colo., Tribune reported that as part of the trade-bailout package, the USDA signed contracts to purchase $22.3 million of that pork from JBS USA, the American arm of JBS, a gigantic Brazil-based meat company that owns massive shares of the US beef, chicken, and pork markets. The news drew outrage. The Organization of Competitive Markets, a farmer-led group that organizes against corporate control of agriculture, called for a halt to sending cash meant for struggling farmers to “global meatpacking corporations.” Undaunted, the USDA has signed two additional contracts to buy JBS pork with bailout funds, the environmental advocacy group Food and Water Watch points out: one on Feb.15 for $14.5 million and another one on May 2 for $25 million. 

“Why is the USDA bailing out plants operated by JBS, the largest meatpacker in the world, with a program designed to help domestic companies and producers under economic duress?” said Tony Corbo, a senior lobbyist for Food and Water Watch. “This company does not seem to be hurting.” The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, which administers the program, wrote that the agency “buys American commodities, produced on American farms by American farmers … regardless of who the vendor is, the products purchased are grown in the US and benefit US farmers. JBS qualifies as a bidder under this criteria.”

Just as Trump was shoveling bailout money to JBS, the Center for American Progress released a report finding that, because big buyers like JBS dominate the market, farmers face few choices to market their hogs. JBS is one of four companies that slaughter more than two-thirds of US-grown hogs, and their buying power “not only holds down the prices that hog farmers get for their product, but affects the entire nature of their operations … forcing them to take on burdensome debt, accept low prices derived from opaque formulas, and assume risky liabilities,” the CAP report states. Soon after taking office, Trump had a chance to sign an Obama proposal to rein in the power of big meat packers called the Farmer Fair Practice Rules. He nixed it instead. 

Just as JBS’ US pork arm is being handed bailout money, its Brazil operations are cashing in on the US-China trade spat. China has started to shift its meat purchases to Brazil to punish the US. After JBS’ CEO told investors that growing demand in meat from China would boost its profits this year, the company saw its share price jump in late March. A JBS exec told investors the company “may also re-direct some pork production from the United States to China if demand warrants,” Reuters reported. JBS (5/13) reported first-quarter profits of $273 million, with nearly a quarter of its exports going to its biggest customer, China.

As if that wasn’t enough, last year, Philpott noted the USDA also agreed to buy $240,000 worth of pork under the bailout from another enormous corporation that exports to China, Smithfield Foods, which is owned by China-based meat conglomerate WH Foods. So a China-based company was going to get taxpayer cash to buffer it from Trump’s trade war with China. After public outrage, Smithfield quietly terminated the contract. 

TRUMP ADMITS HE DOESN’T REALLY WANT TO STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. E-Verify is a system that employers can use to make sure they hire only people who are legally allowed to work in the US, Kevin Drum noted at MotherJones.com (5/20). So should it be made mandatory for all employers? Donald Trump isn’t sure:

In an interview with Fox News Channel (5/10), Trump said a new White House plan to overhaul portions of the legal immigration system could “possibly” include the use of E-Verify. But he also said that the verification system could be overly onerous on certain employers, such as farmers, who Trump said were “not equipped” to use it.

He continued: “So it’s a very tough thing to ask a farmer to go through that. So in a certain way, I speak against myself, but you also have to have a world of some practicality.”

Drum noted, “it’s not clear what Trump is talking about here. Is he seriously suggesting that when they hired workers for his DC hotel, 29 out of 30 applicants were undocumented? That’s ridiculous.

“Nor does it make any sense to say that farmers are ‘not equipped’ to use E-Verify. All you need is a smartphone or a computer with an internet connection. It’s insulting to suggest that farmers aren’t up to this.

“Needless to say, what Trump really means is that farmers would be seriously pissed off if he tried to make them hire only legal workers. E-Verify would do that. Unspoken—but obvious—is the corollary to this: Trump’s wall doesn’t piss off farmers because they know it won’t accomplish anything. It’s just something that sounds good to his base.

“Trump’s tariffs have already hurt farmers, and the last thing he wants to do is lose their votes for good by making it hard to hire undocumented workers. That’s why he’s for a wall but against mandatory E-Verify. It’s all about practicality.”

WORLD ‘NOT ON TRACK’ TO STOP 1.5 DEGREES OF GLOBAL WARMING, UN SECRETARY GENERAL WARNS. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned the world is “not on track” to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, Kyla Mandel reported at ThinkProgress (5/12).

Speaking in New Zealand ahead of traveling to Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Fiji — nations among the most vulnerable to climate change — Guterres said: “Climate change is running faster than what we are… the last four years have been the hottest registered.”

Indeed, according to data released in February by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the past five years (2014-2018) have been the hottest years ever recording in NOAA’s 139 years of tracking global temperatures. And with more intense hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and flooding, the impacts of climate change are already being felt around the world.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, 195 nations agreed to take action to limit global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, “and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7 degrees Fahrenheit].”

So far, global temperatures have already increased by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution.

And according to the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last fall, under the current emissions path the world will cross the 1.5 degrees threshold by 2040; and absent significantly stronger global action the world will surpass the 2 degrees target two decades after that.

Global warming beyond these targets would risk triggering irreversible climate tipping points including the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and with it dangerous sea level rise, along with melting permafrost — this frozen Arctic tundra stores carbon dioxide and methane, emissions which would be released into the atmosphere if it melts, further triggering even more warming.

Scientists in the IPCC report warned that in order to avert this dangerous warming urgent action must be taken to sharply reduce carbon emissions by 2030.

Guterres’ statement comes after he warned last week in an interview with the Associated Press (AP) that countries must stop building new coal plants otherwise the world will face “total disaster.”

GAS CAR SALES ‘HAVE ALREADY PEAKED AND MAY NEVER RECOVER’ AS BATTERY PRICES PLUNGE. Plunging battery prices are bringing the age of gasoline-powered cars to an end faster than anyone expected, according to a new report from Bloomberg NEF (BNEF). That means peak oil demand will also arrive sooner than expected — which in turn means ambitious climate goals will be more affordable than previously thought, Joe Romm reported at ThinkProgress (5/15).

“Sales of internal combustion passenger vehicles have already peaked, and may never recover,” BNEF’s Electric Vehicle Outlook 2019 finds.

Electric vehicle (EV) sales are now seriously eating into internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales — and that trend is projected to accelerate in the coming years.

BNEF projects oil demand will peak in 2028 for passenger vehicles, and in 2035 for commercial vehicles. “We expect demand in both sectors combined to peak in 2030,” a BNEF spokesperson told ThinkProgress in an email.

Thus, the rapid rise in EV sales will drive a slowdown, a peak, and then a drop in oil consumption. And that means oil prices and the value of investments in oil companies will fall.

Other findings in BNEF’s chart-filled report are equally astonishing. For instance, the EV adoption rate is so rapid that EVs will reach 50% of new car sales in both China and Europe around 2030 — at which point EVs will make up some 40% of new US passenger vehicle sales.

Driving the rapid adoption of EVs is, first and foremost, the sharp and ongoing drop in battery prices. From 2010 through 2018, the average lithium-ion battery pack dropped a remarkable 85%, from $1,160 to $176.

BNEF projects that the sharp price drop will continue, as average battery pack prices “reach $87/kWh in 2025 and $62/kWh in 2030” — a further drop of 65% from 2018 prices.

These price drops mean that the economics of owning an EV will quickly surpass that of owning a gasoline-powered car.

In three years, EVs will actually be cheaper up front than combustion vehicles, which will make EVs the increasingly attractive option. After all, they are already superior to gasoline cars in many key respects: EVs have faster acceleration, lower maintenance costs, zero tailpipe emissions, and a much lower per-mile fueling cost than gasoline cars , even when running on carbon-free fuel.

Also, as batteries get cheaper, EV ranges are getting longer — 300, 400, or even 500 miles.

The time needed to charge a battery is also dropping fast. Some chargers take only 20 minutes to charge an EV, and new chargers can cut that time in half. Ultimately, next-generation batteries may be chargeable in three to five minutes.

This rapid adoption of batteries and EVs — combined with the accelerating price drops and adoption rates for renewable energy — mean that the world can decarbonize the transportation sector faster and cheaper than we thought just a few years ago.

MONSANTO HIT WITH $2B VERDICT IN ROUNDUP CANCER SUIT. An Oakland jury awarded a staggering $2 billion-plus in damages Monday to a Bay Area couple who both came down with cancer after spraying Monsanto Co.’s widely used Roundup weed killer on their properties for more than 30 years, the San Francisco Chronicle reported (5/13).

It’s the third such verdict against Monsanto, all in Bay Area lawsuits, and by far the largest judgment against the company.

Alva Pilliod, 76, of Livermore was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011, and his wife, Alberta Pilliod, 74, was diagnosed in 2015. They had used Roundup to kill weeds on the grounds of three properties they owned in the area, applying it once a week for nine months out of the year. Their lawyer estimated they sprayed 1,500 gallons of the herbicide over three decades.

Doctors say both their cancers are in remission but could recur.

After less than two days of deliberations, an Alameda County Superior Court jury awarded each of them $1 billion in punitive damages against Monsanto, with additional damages of $37 million for Alberta Pilliod and $18 million for her husband for pain and suffering and economic losses.

The jury voted 11-1 to find Monsanto responsible for the Pilliods’ cancers — only nine votes were needed in the civil case — and found unanimously that the company should be punished for failing to warn users that the herbicide was dangerous. The company heatedly disputes that a warning was needed.

The couple’s lawsuit was among the first of more than 13,000 cases nationwide to go to trial against the agrochemical giant. Monsanto denies that Roundup is dangerous and notes that it has been repeatedly found safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

In August, a San Francisco Superior Court jury awarded $289 million in damages to former school groundskeeper Dewayne ”Lee” Johnson of Vallejo, whose doctors say he may have less than a year to live because of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A judge later reduced the award to $78.5 million. And in March, a federal court jury awarded more than $80 million to Edwin Hardeman of Sonoma County, who was diagnosed with the same often-lethal lymph node cancer after spraying the herbicide on his property in Forestville for more than 26 years.

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2019

Populist.com