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Yorkie Mom

Yorkie Mom's Journal
Yorkie Mom's Journal
March 13, 2019

'Tillerson "told Kushner that his interference had endangered the US"

Jared Kushner challenged on conflicts of interest by Trump aides, book claims

Revealed: Donald Trump’s son-in-law challenged by Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn for mixing personal interests with US foreign policy


Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was confronted by two of the most senior US government officials for mixing his personal interests with US foreign policy, according to a new book.

Kushner, an envoy to the Middle East for his father-in-law, is said to have been robustly challenged by both Rex Tillerson, then secretary of state, and Gary Cohn, formerly Trump’s top economic adviser.

The confrontations are detailed in Kushner Inc by the journalist Vicky Ward, who also describes interference in foreign relations by Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump. The book is scheduled to be released on 19 March. A copy was obtained by the Guardian.

... snip

Tillerson “told Kushner that his interference had endangered the US”, an unidentified Tillerson aide tells Ward. Tillerson is also said to have read negative “chatter” about himself in intelligence reports after Kushner belittled him to Kushner’s friend Mohammed bin Salman, the controversial Saudi crown prince.

Meanwhile, Cohn is said to have rebuked Kushner in January 2017 after it was revealed Kushner had dined with executives from the Chinese financial corporation Anbang, which was considering investing in the Kushner family’s troubled tower at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

More: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/13/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-conflicts-of-interest-rex-tillerson-gary-cohn
March 13, 2019

New: Facebook's Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation

By Michael LaForgia, Matthew Rosenberg and Gabriel J.X. Dance

March 13, 2019

Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into data deals Facebook struck with some of the world’s largest technology companies, intensifying scrutiny of the social media giant’s business practices as it seeks to rebound from a year of scandal and setbacks.

A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices, according to two people who were familiar with the requests and insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential legal matters. Both companies had entered into partnerships with Facebook, gaining broad access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users.

The companies were among more than 150 firms, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Sony, that had cut sharing deals with the world’s dominant social media platform. The agreements, previously reported in The New York Times, let the companies see users’ friends, contact information and other data, sometimes without consent. Facebook has phased out most of the partnerships over the past two years.

“We are cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions and pledged that we will continue to do so.”

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/technology/facebook-data-subpoenas.html
March 13, 2019

BREAKING: Manhattan DA Vance unseals 15 fraud & conspiracy charges against Manafort (No Pardon!)

No pardon for you, Manafort!

BREAKING: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance unseals 15 fraud and conspiracy charges against Paul Manafort.

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1105871012065935366



Correction: It's actually 16!

New York Charges Paul Manafort With 16 Crimes. If He’s Convicted, Trump Can’t Pardon Him.

Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, has been charged in New York with mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., said Wednesday, an effort to ensure he will still face prison time if Mr. Trump pardons him for his federal crimes.

News of the indictment came shortly after Mr. Manafort was sentenced to his second federal prison term in two weeks; he now faces a combined sentence of more than seven years for tax and bank fraud and conspiracy in two related cases brought by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but has no such authority in state cases.

While Mr. Trump has not said he intends to pardon his former campaign chairman, he has often spoken of his power to pardon and has defended Mr. Manafort on a number of occasions, calling him a “brave man.”

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/nyregion/manafort-indictment.html

March 12, 2019

☢️🔥Mitch McConnell gets ready to go Nuclear again to speed confirmations of district court judges &

☢️🔥Mitch McConnell gets ready to go Nuclear again to speed confirmations of district court judges and lower-level appointees -->
https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/status/1105574663642599424
March 10, 2019

Organized crime/Chinese gov't angle is BFD & a huge scandal for Trump & the GOP. (Cindy Yang)

Cindy (Li) Yang story has a long way to run yet. If she is indeed connected to PRC's United Front, then she is working directly for Beijing. Running "Day Spas" in Florida may be the least of her activities

https://twitter.com/911CORLEBRA777/status/1104745517811036160


This is the photo being quoted by various journalists. Cindy (Li) Yang is at the far left in the blue dress. If she was / is Deputy Director of this Association, then she is a full blown Chinese asset, with a Mar a lago membership

https://twitter.com/911CORLEBRA777/status/1104748702562869249



Here is an article that explains the relationship between CCP UFWD (ie Beijing) and various fronts worldwide, including Associations for the Peaceful Reunification of China.




March 10, 2019

Mueller vs Barr, and the battle to indict Trump

Mueller vs Barr, and the battle to indict Trump

Cockburn hears that Mueller wants to indict the President but Barr doesn’t – while the two men agree that Trump’s children should be charged


A good rule in journalism is, or ought to be: Never predict. (Just report.) So Cockburn has some explaining to do, having quoted one source saying that Robert Mueller would hand in his report yesterday. The story said members of President Trump’s family would be charged but also noted that it is Department of Justice policy not to indict a sitting President. However, there was no frenzy at the DoJ on Friday, no throng of reporters to make the tourists heading up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House stop and look. So what happened?

Several sources tell Cockburn that the Special Counsel has indeed completed his report. It is said to recommend indicting three of President Trump’s children – Don junior, Ivanka and Eric – as well as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Attorney General, William Barr, is said to have ‘silently assented’ to this. It’s also claimed that Mueller wants President Trump himself to be indicted. Barr is said to oppose this. The two men met on Friday but apparently could not agree and this was the reason for the delay in any announcement from the DoJ. At least this is what the sources say.

So who are these sources? Joseph Heller mocked Washington’s – and journalism’s — culture of ‘sources’ in his novel Good as Gold.

‘I believe I got that information about you from a reliable unnamed source.’

‘I’ve been doing a lot of work here as an unnamed source,’ Gold answered with nervousness and haste, ‘so it may have come from me. No truth to it at all.’


None of Cockburn’s sources was ‘in the room’ – as they say in Washington — for the (alleged) discussions between Mueller and Barr and their two staffs. And none of the sources was briefed by the people ‘in the room’. But they did talk to the people briefed by the people in the room and – twice removed from the original conversations — they all give the same account. It is that the older Trump children and Jared will be indicted for financial crimes while Mueller wants to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. The charges, Cockburn is told now, will not be about ‘Russia collusion’.

... snip

One theory is that Mueller will deliver only an interim report. ‘Russia collusion’ would be saved for another day. But whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia is specifically what the Office of the Special Counsel was set up to investigate. And as Brennan said on MSNBC, if Mueller were to ask for indictments of Trump’s family, he would know this would have to be his ‘final act’. ‘That would basically be the death of the Special Counsel’s office, because I don’t believe Donald Trump would allow Bob Mueller to continue in the aftermath of those types of actions.’ That would go double for any indictments of Trump himself. It might be now or never for Mueller to set out the case for collusion.
More: https://spectator.us/mueller-vs-barr-and-the-battle-to-indict-trump/
March 9, 2019

Major prostitution bust: Seattle police raid 11 massage parlors... (Chinese organized crime)

Major prostitution bust: Seattle police raid 11 massage parlors, freeing 26 women

Five owners and operators were arrested and the massage parlors were shuttered last week in the raids in Seattle's Chinatown-International District and Beacon Hill neighborhoods.


From the outside, the commercial space below a three-story apartment building on Beacon Hill doesn’t look like much: Beige paint. A small neon sign. Grimy windows blacked out with heavy fabric.

In January 2015, a woman whose daughter lived in the apartment building noticed a male-only clientele visiting the storefront, mostly at night. After some online research, she found the name of the business — “Magic Touch” — on Rubmaps.com, a site listing illicit massage parlors where men write reviews and rate the women they pay for sexual services.

The complaint she sent to police set in motion a vast prostitution and money-laundering investigation, tying massage parlors and spas in Seattle to a sophisticated criminal network that brings Chinese women into the U.S. through hubs in California and New York and funnels millions of dollars back to China, said Sgt. Tom Umporowicz of the Seattle Police Department’s Vice & High Risk Victims Section.

There’s just so much money involved. It’s a crazy amount of money,” Umporowicz said. “This is Chinese organized crime, plain and simple.”

More: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/a-crazy-amount-of-money-seattle-police-raid-prostitution-network-in-massage-parlors/
March 9, 2019

Reminder: High-End Russian-Prostitute Ringleaders Busted Inside Miami's Trump Towers

High-End Russian-Prostitute Ringleaders Busted Inside Miami's Trump Towers

Jerry Iannelli, Meg O'Connor | July 20, 2018 |

According to Facebook, Russian national Ksenia Khodukina grew up in Chelyabinsk before eventually moving to New York City and then to Trump Towers III in Sunny Isles Beach. Here, she runs a salon service called "Beauty by Ksenia" in Hallandale Beach.

Or maybe not. According to Manhattan prosecutors, Khodukina and her husband, Yevgen Rizanov, both age 29, were, in fact, remotely running a high-end prostitution service called the "Russian Dolls" from their Trump Towers III apartment, the New York Post first reported Wednesday.

Khodukina and Rizanov were arrested in Sunny Isles Beach July 11, according to Miami-Dade County court records. The pair has since been shipped back to Manhattan: Reporters were on-scene Wednesday as the two were arraigned in New York County court. Both Russian nationals have pleaded not guilty to third-degree counts of promoting prostitution.

... snip

It's perhaps not surprising that two sketchy Russian nationals would flee New York for Sunny Isles Beach. Even without the connection to the president, Sunny Isles is home to so many Russian immigrants that the neighborhood has even earned the nickname "Little Moscow." Likewise, Russian nationals also seem to have a habit of buying or renting spaces at Trump properties in Miami, New York, and other cities around the world.

Trump Towers III is owned by Miami's Dezer family, who are personal friends of Donald Trump's. They have a licensing agreement with the Trump Organization, which is run by the president's family. There is no tie between the president and the prostitution ring.

More: https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/russian-prostitute-ring-busted-in-miami-trump-tower-10546831

March 9, 2019

A Florida Massage Parlor Owner Has Been Selling Chinese Execs Access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago

A Florida Massage Parlor Owner Has Been Selling Chinese Execs Access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago

The strange, swampy saga of Trump donor Li Yang.


David Corn, Dan Friedman and Daniel SchulmanMarch 9, 2019 6:26 AM

The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago—suggests she had some success in doing so.

Yang, who goes by Cindy, and her husband, Zubin Gong, started GY US Investments LLC in 2017. The company describes itself on its website, which is mostly in Chinese, as an “international business consulting firm that provides public relations services to assist businesses in America to establish and expand their brand image in the modern Chinese marketplace.” But the firm notes that its services also address clients looking to make high-level connections in the United States. On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, Yang’s company says its “activities for clients” have included providing them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures.” The company boasts it has “arranged taking photos with the President” and suggests it can set up a “White House and Capitol Hill Dinner.” (The same day the Herald story about Yang broke, the website stopped functioning.)

The short bio of Yang on the website, identifying her as the founder and CEO of GY US Investments, shows her in a photo with Trump bearing his signature. It says she has been “settled in the United States for more than 20 years” and is a member of the “Presidential Fundraising Committee.” According to the Herald, Yang is a registered Republican, and since 2017 she and her relatives have donated more than $42,000 to a Trump political action committee and more than $16,000 to Trump’s campaign. Her Facebook page, which was taken offline on Friday, was loaded with photos of her posing with GOP notables: Donald Trump Jr., Rep. Matt Gaetz or Florida, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, among others.

The GY US Investments website lists upcoming events at Mar-a-Lago at which Yang’s clients presumably can mingle with Trump or members of his family. This includes something called the International Leaders Elite Forum, where Trump’s sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau, will supposedly be the featured speaker. Attendees, the site says, will include “Chinese elites from various countries, including the US states, as well as elite leaders from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Australia, Europe and other countries and regions.” Another event for which Yang’s firm says it can provide access is Trump’s annual New Year’s celebration at Mar-a-Lago. Elsewhere on the website, the firm boasts that “GY Company arranged a number of guests to attend the 2019 New Year’s Eve dinner. All the guests took photos with” members of Trump’s family. This page displays photos of Chinese executives and a Chinese movie star with Donald Trump Jr., suggesting that these pics were arranged by the company, and also includes a photo of Yang with Elizabeth Trump Grau.

More: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/
March 8, 2019

In light of Robert Kraft prostitution news, how does this IVANKA/ TRUMP ORG trademark read to you?

In light of Robert Kraft prostitution news - where he was caught engaging the services of women trafficked out of China to become sex slaves, working in massage parlors... how does this IVANKA/ TRUMP ORG trademark news read to you now?

https://twitter.com/LincolnsBible/status/1098994008225792000

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