Three Republican members of Congress did not report up to $22 million in stock trades made earlier this year within 45 days of the transactions, as required by law, an elections watchdog group said in ethics complaints filed Thursday afternoon. The late disclosures by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), among the most ignorant congressional representative who did not know the three branches of government spelled out in the Constitution, Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) and Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) all violated the STOCK Act, the Campaign Legal Center said in its complaints1 to the Senate Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Ethics.2
Rep Blake Moore (R-UT), Sen Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Rep Pat Fallon (R-TX)
Tuberville and Moore reported their trades in July, six months after their first trades, while Fallon disclosed his trading in June, four months after his earliest transaction. Fallon’s trades, worth between $7.8 million and $17.53 million, included shares of Boeing,3 which he oversees as a member of the House Armed Services Committee.4 Tuberville’s trades, worth between $894,000 and $3.56 million, included shares of healthcare companies that he oversees as a member of the Senate health committee.5 Tuberville, a strong critic of China included stocks and options of Chinese firm Alibaba violating disclosure laws.6 Moore’s trades were between $70,000 and $1.1 million.7 They heard that insider trading was not insider training if Trump did it!8 The SEC during the corrupt reign of Trump brought fewer insider trading fines and lawsuits.9 Trump “whispered” actions that his administration would, such as the assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani,10 to his cronies and wealthy supporters so they could cash in on his corruption.11 Trump’s insider trading and stock manipulation involved hundreds of millions of dollars “perhaps even billions.”12 Donald Trump has no conception of the public interest or the public good. So why wouldn’t he run the White House and the presidency in such a way as to get more money by all available means?
Trump convinced people that the election was stolen–with no proof
Trump knows that he can buy loyalty from people. Anywhere Trump shows up is a nexus for his influence peddling and corruption. It could be his golf courses or Mar-a-Lago or somewhere else.13 Trump is as corrupt and self-serving as Keiko Fujimori of Peru–who, like Trump, contested her lost election with the Trumpian slogan “Stop the Steal”.
Because they made millions off of insider trading thanks to Donald, Republicans did not want an investigation when Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) demanded one because of obscene pandemic profits.14
Loeffler (l), Perdue (r) praise Trump for insider stock information
Elizabeth Warren called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) conduct an insider trading investigation after reports15 that in February, Trump administration officials privately gave dire warnings to conservative allies and Republican donors about the risks to the economy from the COVID-19 pandemic while President Donald Trump was publicly optimistic about the impact of the virus. “Given my concerns about this betrayal of the public by Trump administration officials, and about pandemic-related profiteering by well-connected Republican donors and investors,16 I ask that you investigate this matter,” wrote Senator Warren. Trump’s administration was one of America’s most corrupt political machines.
Warren G. Harding (voted on the worst presidents in US )
Trump comes a close second to Warren G. Harding whose sexual irregularities and philandering was matched by Trump and his anti-immigrant stand and handling of immigrants was matched by Harding. When Harding finally realized the widespread wrongdoing in his administration, he felt betrayed. “I have no trouble with my enemies,” he told a visitor17 in spring 1923. “But my damn friends, my God-damn friends … they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!” The president tried to escape the scandals of Washington that summer with a Western tour, but he succumbed to a brain embolism and died that August.18
51st US AG Harry Daugherty
The most corrupt member of Harding’s cabinet was his Attorney General Harry Daugherty. Ringleader of a loose collection of con men and cheats known as the “Ohio gang,”19 a key Ohio Republican insider, he oversaw a diversified criminal enterprise, selling off government appointments, immunity from prosecution, pardons and paroles for criminals, and various acts of minor graft. Justice came for the Ohio gang too, with several sent to prison and nearly as many dying by suicide to avoid a similar fate. Daugherty destroyed evidence and refused to testify at his own two trials but still managed to avoid a conviction.
Attorney General Bill Barr
His closest imitator was Trump’s Attorney General who now is considered a “historically bad attorney general.”20 Barr’s reputation will forever be sullied with numerous scandals’ beginning with bold-face lie21 that Robert Mueller had exonerated Trump, when he deferred to a longstanding DOJ policy that a sitting president could not be indicted, but sent a massive amount of obstruction of justice to Congress for impeachment consideration. Barr falsely claimed that U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman had resigned and trying to shoehorn S.E.C. Chair Jay Clayton into the position without bothering to go through Senate confirmation.22 He did the same with the Roger Stone23 and Michael Flynn24 prosecutions at Trump’s apparent behest,25 although those pale in his order for federal agents to teargas peaceful protesters26 in Lafayette Square27 so Trump could have a photo op holding a bible that he never read upside-down in front of a church, St. John’s Episcopal Church, that wanted nothing to do with him. The rogue troops attacked the peaceful protesters with tear-gas and flash-bang explosions for Trump.28.
George Floyd protests in Washington DC H St. by Lafayette Square
He cradled a Bible, bouncing it in his hands as if testing its weight. “Is that your Bible?” a reporter yelled. Trump tartly trolled, “It’s a Bible.” Trump has never owned or read a Bible.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of Washington DC
The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Mariann E. Budde, was angry and noted: “He did not pray,” referring to the death of the black man in police custody that set off the protests, she added: “He did not mention George Floyd, he did not mention the agony of people who have been subjected to this kind of horrific expression of racism and white supremacy for hundreds of years. We need a president who can unify and heal. He has done the opposite of that, and we are left to pick up the pieces.”29 Budde was sharp in her attack on Trump. She seethed, “I am the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and was not given even a courtesy call, that they would be clearing [the area] with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop.”
In a written statement, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, head of the Episcopal denomination, accused Trump of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes. This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us.” He called on Trump to be moral: “For the sake of George Floyd, for all who have wrongly suffered, and for the sake of us all, we need leaders to help us to be ‘one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”30
Symbols of hate taken to DC by Trump supporters vowing to hang VP Pence
- https://campaignlegal.org/update/clc-complaint-targets-members-congress-who-failed-disclose-stock-trades. ↩
- https://www.salon.com/2021/07/30/3-gop-congressmen-face-ethics-complaints-for-failing-to-disclose-22-million-in-stock-trades/. Cp. https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-congress-stock-law-tommy-tuberville-pat-fallon-blake-moore-2021-7 ↩
- https://twitter.com/davelevinthal/status/1409819059722522630. ↩
- https://www.businessinsider.com/pat-fallon-congress-texas-stock-trades-boeing-2021-6. cf. https://www.rawstory.com/pat-fallon-stock/. ↩
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/graisondangor/2021/07/29/3-members-of-congress-failed-to-properly-disclose-up-to-22-million-of-stock-trades-watchdog-says/?sh=5cebf6a02060. ↩
- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/27/china-critic-sen-tommy-tuberville-of-alabama-violated-stock-act.html. cp. https://www.businessinsider.com/sen-tommy-tuberville-alabama-violated-federal-law-late-stock-disclosures-2021-7. ↩
- https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/07/26/this-utah-congressman/. Cp. https://www.benzinga.com/news/21/07/22154148/rep-blake-moore-fined-for-undisclosed-stock-transactions-what-he-bought-what-investors-should-know. ↩
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-01-15/money-stuff-it-s-not-insider-trading-if-the-president-does-it. ↩
- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/the-mystery-of-the-trump-chaos-trades. ↩
- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/the-mystery-of-the-trump-chaos-trades-iranmar-a-lago-edition. ↩
- https://www.salon.com/2020/01/26/are-trump-and-his-circle-manipulating-the-markets-for-personal-gain-heres-the-evidence/. ↩
- cf. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/the-mystery-of-the-trump-chaos-trades. ↩
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-twitter-china-chaos-trades-stock-bet-market-a9162251.html. ↩
- https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-calls-for-sec-cftc-insider-trading-investigation-of-pandemic-profiteering-resulting-from-trump-administrations-covid-19-early-warning-to-republican-donors-insiders-and-investors. ↩
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/stock-market-coronavirus-trump.html. ↩
- Among the most corrupt senators was Kelly Loeffler who was known as a “Wall Street Senator”–rather than a senator representing Georgia and Georgia’s “other” senator, the corrupt Senator David Perdue who conducted 2,596 trades in one term. On Loeffler, read: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/us/politics/kelly-loeffler-georgia-senate.html. On Perdue, read: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/us/politics/david-perdue-stock-trades.html. Perdue’s stock traces prompted a Justice Department inquiry, that Trump stopped: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/us/politics/david-perdue-cardlytics.html. ↩
- https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_World_Coming/RvU1p5tjGhgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22they%E2%80%99re+the+ones+that+keep+me+walking+the+floor+nights%22&pg=PA116&printsec=frontcover. ↩
- https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/tom-barrack-donald-trump-other-most-corrupt-white-house-history-n1274900?cid=eml_mda_20210801&user_email=686237db5b0d25479b39ff34a6243ce66c91daf17a2ad0547cfbd09545d3835d. ↩
- https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_American_Story/7TVDAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22harry+daugherty%22+graft+bribes&dq=%22harry+daugherty%22+graft+bribes&printsec=frontcover. ↩
- https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/bill-barr-was-historically-bad-attorney-general-his-resignation-shouldn-ncna1251286. cp. https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/09/injustice-tracking-bill-barrs-misconduct-as-attorney-general/. cf. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/06/cnn-analyst-discusses-bill-barrs-impact/, ref. Elie Honig (2021), Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor’s Code and Corrupted the Justice Department. Harper. Read, also: https://abovethelaw.com/2020/12/the-temptation-and-corruption-of-bill-barr/. ↩
- https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/barr-testimony-mueller-report/h_a1cd232666d54b9faa078f7288b50cd9. ↩
- https://abovethelaw.com/2020/07/bill-barr-tried-to-ratfck-sdny-former-usa-geoffrey-berman-testifies/. cp. https://abovethelaw.com/2020/06/bill-barrs-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-weekend/. ↩
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-stone/u-s-attorney-general-barr-says-trump-adviser-roger-stones-sentence-fair-idUSKBN24A03M. ↩
- https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/11/michael-flynn-case-appeals-court-hears-arguments-over-trump-aide.html/. ↩
- https://abovethelaw.com/2020/12/the-temptation-and-corruption-of-bill-barr/. ↩
- a city-mandated curfew was still 30 minutes away,[1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/us/politics/trump-st-johns-church-bible.html. ↩
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/08/attorney-general-barrs-dishonest-defense-clearing-lafayette-square/. ↩
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_photo_op_at_St._John%27s_Church. cf/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/us/period-tear-gas-study-portland.html ↩
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/us/politics/trump-st-johns-church-bible.html. cf. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/15/new-questions-about-trumps-ugly-bible-stunt-hint-some-dark-truths/. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oRQF68psdY. cf. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52890650. Trump did not hold the Bible upside down: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-hold-bible-upside-down/ cf, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/technology/no-trump-did-not-hold-the-bible-upside-down-at-lafayette-square.html. ↩
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/bishop-budde-trump-church/2020/06/01/20ca70f8-a466-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html. ↩
“Trump has never owned or read a Bible.” Read it, I’m certain you’re correct. He knows about as much about the bible as he does 16th Century French poetry. Owned? You really can’t be sure. I know it was a blistering judgement about his insincerity of that ancient superstition, which he uses as his base of support, but not owning? The damn things are given out free.
The issue of the Bible is thorny and hilarious. Trump took “a” Bible to the photo op to win over the evangelicals. There was a problem: He took a Revised Standard Version (of the King James) Bible (look at the imprint at the center of the spine). The Bible he held translates Isaiah 7:14 as “young woman” not “virgin”. Evangelicals noted this quickly, and questioned if Trump also questioned the alleged Virgin Birth. The error was spotted by Stephen Hendrickson, founder with his brother of Christianbook, LLC, a Christian catalog and internet retailed. “It would be pretty much rejected by the vast majority of evangelicals. It would be seen as a deficient translation of the Bible. A distinctly liberal one,” said Rev. Rob Schenck, an evangelical clergyman, the president of The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, and the author of Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love. “And for many, especially in the very conservative or fundamentalist wing, they might see it as not a version of the Bible at all.” Schenck pointed out in a blog post that Trump’s choice of church was also strange. It’s a distinctly liberal church that supports many tenets that the evangelical right opposes, including same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In an interview on CNN, Rev. Budde said that the president is not a man of prayer and does not worship regularly at St. John’s—or anywhere else—calling his photo op “a charade.” If I knew how to put a photo of the spine in this reply I would add it here but all I can do is this:
The New York Times is the only paper of note that says used a “bible of his own” and the one on which Lincoln took his oath of office. There is no record of who owned it but various media states that he took the one of his daughter Ivanka who carried it in her purse. Thanks for the observation. I guess I will do more research on this hot question.