Trump 2024 Run Thread

Trump’s Bond Backer Was Sued by the Trump Administration for illegal lending practices to and violating the rights of US Military employees​


When billionaire financier Don Hankey underwrote Donald Trump’s $175 million bond this week, it wasn’t the first time that Trump had taken money out of his pocket—nine months into Trump’s first term in office, his Justice Department sued Hankey’s financial company for unlawful lending practices.

The subject of that suit, however, also revealed a historical commonality with Trump: disrespecting members of the U.S. military.

According to the settlement agreement in the case, Hankey’s company—Westlake Services—had systematically violated the rights of military employees over a period of several years, illegally repossessing dozens of cars in violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Westlake immediately settled, agreeing to pay $700,000 in damages to the affected servicemembers, along with a roughly $61,000 fine to the federal government.

Then, while the government was monitoring Westlake’s compliance, the DOJ discovered new SCRA violations, forcing the firm to pay another $225,000 to settle those allegations in 2022. Combined, the full payout came to just under $1 million. Hankey—Westlake’s founder, chair, and largest stakeholder—was not personally named in the complaint, and the settlement was signed by company president Ian Anderson.


Hankey’s past is important context for his loan to Trump, and his company’s choppy history with federal law enforcement—as well as the fact that his firm would be regulated under a potential second Trump administration—may cast the loan in a new light.

At the time of the repercussions, federal violations weren’t new to Westlake. Hankey, whose estimated $7.4 billion net worth outstrips Trump’s, made his fortune in the repo world, targeting low-income customers with high-interest auto loans.

In fact, two years before the DOJ sued Westlake and its wholly-owned subsidiary Wilshire under the SCRA, those same two entities were nailed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for “illegal debt collection tactics,” resulting in more than $44 million in restitution payouts and a civil fine of $4.25 million.

In the initial DOJ complaint, filed on Sept. 17, 2017, the Trump administration alleged that Westlake had unlawfully seized at least 70 cars from servicemembers, in violation of protections under the SCRA. (While the complaint itself bears the imprimatur of Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, the investigation was launched under President Barack Obama, whose DOJ first notified Westlake of the probe in October 2016.)


According to prosecutors, over a period of five years, Hankey’s firms had repossessed dozens of vehicles belonging to military employees without obtaining the necessary court orders required under the law. Four of the seizures took place while members were either on active duty or within one year of their departure.

“Westlake and Wilshire specifically target servicemembers, including junior enlisted servicemembers, as customers for their subprime and near-subprime loan products,” prosecutors said. The complaint noted that the unlawful repossessions were “intentional, willful, and taken in disregard” for the members’ rights, citing the fact that Hankey’s firms had followed the proper procedures when it was in their interest—like when it came to approving servicemember requests for interest rate reductions.

Hankey’s firms settled the case in 10 days, agreeing to compensate the affected servicemembers at the rate of $10,000 per unlawful seizure—a total of $700,000—and to pay a $60,788 financial penalty to the DOJ.


Then, almost five years to the day after the first complaint, the DOJ announced they had reached a second, amended settlement agreement with the same entities, regarding additional violations uncovered while the feds were monitoring the firms’ compliance with the SCRA. Those infractions involved failing to properly provide interest rate benefits to qualified servicemembers and unlawfully delaying the approval of benefit requests. The additional damages and fines brought the total financial penalties to about $1 million.

Those fines, however, pale in comparison to Hankey’s recent backing for Trump. That support actually started in 2022, when online lender Axos Bank—where Hankey is the top institutional shareholder—floated $225 million to buoy the Trump Organization’s finances after customers and other banks cut ties in the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.


CONTD
 
On Tuesday, Hankey told The Washington Post that he didn’t have advanced knowledge about those earlier Trump Org loans. The bank’s top executive previously said that Axos had approved those loans because they were financially profitable, not for political interests.

The Daily Beast reached out to Hankey, Westlake, and a Trump spokesperson, but did not immediately receive a reply.

This week, however, Hankey underwrote the $175 million bond that Trump needed to post in order to pursue an appeal of a $450 million civil judgment against him, which a New York judge imposed last month after finding Trump guilty of fraudulently misrepresenting his wealth for years to secure favorable terms on loans.

For a while, it didn’t look like Hankey’s money would be needed. An appeals court had previously granted Trump’s request to reduce the bond from the full $450 million, an amount that none of the 30 lenders Trump approached was willing to extend to the cash-strapped candidate, citing a lack of acceptable collateral.


Trump, who hadn’t approached Hankey when making those first rounds, said he had enough cash on hand to front the $175 million, but then, The Washington Post reported, Trump changed his mind. Hankey, who reportedly first reached out to Trump at his wife’s suggestion, got a call—“to his surprise,” according to the Post—and accepted Trump’s request.

Hankey—a conservative California billionaire who recently purchased a Palm Beach mansion not far from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort compound—appears to cut the profile of a typical Trump megadonor, but he hasn’t personally given to Trump. In fact, Federal Election Commission records show that Hankey isn’t an active donor generally, with his only major donations going to Trump opponents—maximum contributions to two of Trump’s primary rivals in 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, along with a total $5,300 in 2014 and 2015 to Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu, in Hankey’s California district.


However, Hankey’s wife and his son—Nowcom president Don Rufus Hankey—are both Trump donors. Debbi Hankey contributed a few hundred dollars to Trump’s failed 2020 re-election bid, and in 2016 Don Rufus Hankey gave $40,400 to a joint fundraising effort supporting Trump and the Republican Party, FEC records show.

Trump faces a tough case on the fraud appeal, which he is pursuing while simultaneously fighting on a number of other legal fronts. Those cases include, but are not limited to, his appeal of an $83 million judgment for sexually assaulting and then defaming writer E. Jean Carroll (which also required a third-party bond).

Also this month, Trump will go on trial again in New York for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film star weeks before the 2016 election. He also faces 10 felony state charges in Georgia related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, along with dozens of additional counts stemming from federal criminal indictments in both Florida and Washington, D.C.—where he is charged with unlawfully retaining national defense information and obstruction of justice, and illegally attempting to retain power after losing to President Joe Biden, respectively.
 

Trump calls migrants 'animals, not human' intensifying focus on illegal immigration​


GREEN BAY, Wisconsin (Reuters) -Donald Trump called immigrants illegally in the United States "animals" and "not human" in a speech in Michigan on Tuesday, resorting to the degrading rhetoric he has employed time and again on the campaign trail.


The Republican presidential candidate, appearing with several law enforcement officers, described in detail several criminal cases involving suspects in the country illegally and warned that violence and chaos would consume America if he did not win the Nov. 5 election.


In a later speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he struck a similarly foreboding tone, describing the 2024 election as the nation's "final battle."

While speaking of Laken Riley - a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan immigrant in the country illegally - Trump said some immigrants were sub-human.



"The Democrats say, 'Please don't call them animals. They're humans.' I said, 'No, they're not humans, they're not humans, they're animals,'" said Trump, president from 2017 to 2021.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump described meeting the family of Ruby Garcia, a local 25-year-old murdered last month by a suspect in the country illegally, according to police. Garcia's sister denied the former president spoke with the family, according to local media reports.


In stump speeches, Trump frequently claims that immigrants crossing the border with Mexico illegally have escaped from prisons and asylums in their home countries and are fueling violent crime in the United States.

While available data on criminals' immigration status is sparse, researchers say people living in the U.S. illegally do not commit violent crimes at a higher rate than native-born citizens.



Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump's rival in the November presidential election, accuses Trump of encouraging Republicans in Congress not to pass legislation this year that would have beefed up security at the southern border and introduced measures aimed at reducing illegal immigration.


"Donald Trump is engaging in extreme rhetoric that promotes division, hate and violence in our country," Michael Tyler, Biden campaign communications director, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of Trump's speeches.

Trump titled his Michigan speech "Biden's border bloodbath," and said he met family members of Garcia, who was allegedly murdered last month in her car by Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, whom she was dating.

"They said she had just this most contagious laughter, and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room, and I've heard that from so many people. I spoke to some of her family," Trump said.

Mavi Garcia, Ruby Garcia's sister, disputed that account, according to local television stations.

"He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us," Mavi Garcia was quoted as saying by a local NBC affiliate.

Reuters was not able to immediately contact Garcia's family. A Trump campaign representative declined to comment on the record.


The murders of Garcia and Riley have allowed Trump's campaign to play simultaneously to some voters' fears about violent crime and immigration.

Some 38% of Republicans cited immigration as the country's top issue in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in late February, as did about one in five independents.Trump frequently claims without evidence that migrants have caused a spike in violent crime in U.S. cities. On Tuesday, he repeated an unfounded claim that Latin American nations are intentionally sending their criminals to the United States.

TUESDAY'S WISCONSIN PRIMARY

During his evening speech in Wisconsin, Trump pledged he would stop the "plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of our American suburbs, cities and towns."

He also warned that the coming election could be America's last.

"This country is finished if we don't win this election," he said. "And I heard somebody say ... two or three days ago, said, if we don't win, this may be the last election our country ever has. And there could be truth to it."


Michigan and Wisconsin are two swing states that could determine whether Biden or Trump occupies the White House next year.

In the 2020 election, Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by less than one percentage point and in Michigan by less than three. Both states are expected to be extremely close again this year.

Although both Trump and Biden have mathematically clinched their presidential nominations, they will be on their party's presidential primary ballots in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

The Biden team will be watching for protest votes by Democrats angry over the president's strong support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

In February's presidential primary in Michigan, a state with a large Muslim population, Biden easily won the primary but more than 100,000 Democrats voted "uncommitted," instead of for Biden, as a protest over his Gaza policy.


A similar option is available in Wisconsin on Tuesday. The protest campaign's goal is to get 20,682 voters to mark their ballots "uninstructed," Wisconsin's version of "uncommitted." The number is significant because it represents Biden's winning margin over Trump in the state in 2020.
 

Jeffrey Clark’s bid to aid Trump election scheme violated attorney rules, DC Bar panel finds​


A disciplinary panel in Washington has found that Jeffrey Clark, a former high-ranking Justice Department official, violated ethics rules for lawyers in his attempt to aid Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

The three-member disciplinary committee determined Thursday that Clark’s campaign to pressure Justice Department leaders to help upend the transfer of power to Joe Biden violated his duties as an attorney.

The preliminary ruling jumpstarts a process that could lead to the suspension or even permanent revocation of Clark’s license to practice law, even as he’s considered a candidate for a senior position in a second Trump administration .Disciplinary investigators who brought the charges against Clark say they intend to advocate for his disbarment.
 
Polds4OSU said:
How do people vote for this...what the hell even is this rant !!??

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7 million followers. Mr Beast is like

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A timeline of Trump's many, many positions on abortion​

October 1999: 'I am very pro-choice'​

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Trump said, “I am very pro-choice. I hate the concept of abortion … I just believe in choice. Again, it may be a little bit of a New York background because there is some different attitude in some different parts of the country … I was raised in New York and grew up and worked and everything else in New York City. But I am strongly pro-choice."

Asked if he would ban any abortion, including “partial-birth” abortion, Trump said, “No. I am pro-choice in every respect in as far as it goes. But I just hate it.”

February 2011: 'I am pro-life'​

In a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference while mulling a 2012 run for the White House, Trump laid out his positions, including a new posture on abortion.

“I am pro-life," he said. "Against gun control... I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it with something that makes sense to people in business and not bankrupt the country.”

August 2015: Divided on defunding Planned Parenthood​

In an interview with CNN at the time, Trump said: “I would look at the good aspects of it and I would also look because I’m sure they do some things properly and good, good for women, and I would look at that.”

February 2016: Says he'll defund Planned Parenthood — while also praising the group​

Trump in a 2016 debate said he would cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood while offering the marquee abortion rights organization a compliment.

“Millions of millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by Planned Parenthood,” Trump said. “I would defund it because I’m pro-life, but millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood.”

March 2016: 'Some form of punishment' for women who seek abortions ​

While he was still a GOP candidate for president, Trump said those who seek abortions should be subject to "some form of punishment." When asked in an MSNBC town hall if there should be punishment, Trump said: “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”

“For the woman?” host Chris Matthews asked Trump.
“Yes,” Trump replied.

October 2016: Trump vows to overturn Roe v. Wade ​

Trump said he’ll appoint the number of justices necessary to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe. v. Wade.

October 2020: Senate confirms Amy Coney Barrett ​

About a week before the 2020 election, Trump had his third conservative Supreme Court justice confirmed to the court.

June 2022: 'God made the decision' to overturn Roe v. Wade​

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. At the time, Trump told Fox News that “God made the decision,” when asked about how he felt about playing a role in appointing the three conservative justices who made up the majority in the landmark reversal.

“I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody," Trump said. He added: “This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged."

November 2022: Republican midterm losses​

In a surprise, the GOP suffered losses in the midterm elections at a time that the party should have swept seats, per tradition of the opposing party in the White House doing well in the midterms. Instead, Democrats held the Senate.

December 2022: McConnell blames Trump​

In an NBC News interview, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. blamed those losses on Trump.

January 2023: Trump blames abortion for the midterm losses ​

“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters.”

September 2023: Trump makes vague promises about an abortion compromise ​

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press," Trump said he would be a voice of consensus on abortion — but didn’t specify how. “Let me just tell you what I’d do,” he said. “I’m going to come together with all groups, and we’re going to have something that’s acceptable.”

February-March 2024: Trump flirts with a national abortion ban​

After reports surfaced that he told others he was considering a federal abortion ban at 16 weeks, his campaign dismissed it as “fake news.” Soon after, Graham told NBC News that “Trump is warming up to 16 weeks.” And then Trump himself in an interview suggested he’d support a 15-week ban.


April 2: Trump avoids answering on Florida's six-week abortion ban​

At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump said his campaign would be “making a statement next week on abortion” after he was asked if he supported a six-week abortion ban that the Florida Supreme Court just upheld.

April 8: Trump says abortion should go back to the states ​

Despite his teasing otherwise, Trump does not announce support for a federal abortion ban. Trump on his Truth Social platform released a video saying that the abortion issue Is appropriately handled by individual states.

“My view is, now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” Trump said.
 
Pence Attacks Trump’s Abortion Statement as a ‘Slap in the Face’
Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian who embraced abortion restrictions at the federal level shortly after Roe was overturned, called Mr. Trump’s statement a “retreat” on the matter.

www.nytimes.com

Pence Attacks Trump’s Abortion Statement as a ‘Slap in the Face’

Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian who embraced abortion restrictions at the federal level shortly after Roe was overturned, called Mr. Trump’s statement a “retreat” on the matter.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Police Report: Trump County Chair Threatened To Rape Boss's Wife, Then Kill Him
Jonathan Stone, a former New Hampshire police officer, has been a part of Trump’s campaign since 2016, when he gave Trump an inscribed AR-15 assault rifle.

www.huffpost.com

Police Report: Trump County Chair Threatened To Rape Boss's Wife, Then Kill Him

Jonathan Stone, a former New Hampshire police officer, has been a part of Trump’s campaign since 2016, when he gave Trump an inscribed AR-15 assault rifle.
www.huffpost.com www.huffpost.com
 
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