Trump ballroom donors suddenly face LEGAL TROUBLE

Trump ballroom donors suddenly face LEGAL TROUBLE

So, um, you’re renovating and building this new office space in Detroit. Um, much smaller scale than what’s happening in Washington, right? Where the east wing has been demolished, uh, for what’s going to be a very, very, uh, large ballroom of that the president is building. Now, a lot of CEOs have rushed to donate to this, right? And it matters to him, right? So, he looks at the list. On that list, you got Amazon, Coinbase, Google, you got a whole lot of others. Comcast, tons of companies on there. Um, I didn’t see JP Morgan Chase on that list. Did you think about it? Is there any chance you’re going to do it? You know, you have to look at J. But there’s a we have an issue, okay, which is anything we do, since we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world, we have to be very careful how anything’s perceived and also how the next DOJ is going to deal with it. So, we’re quite conscious of the risk we bear by doing anything that looks like, you know, buying favors or anything like that. So, uh, you know, do we do things like that? And but we also have policies. We don’t do certain things, right? Because it just makes it easier for us. We have helped the inaugurations. That was a normal thing that a lot of companies did. So, so we’ll see. But this the concern of buying favors. You’re watching the legal breakdown, Glenn. That was Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, basically suggesting that the reason that he’s not donating or that JP Morgan Chase is not donating to this effort to build Trump’s $350 million ballroom is because, quote, he’s not sure how the next DOJ is going to deal with it, which suggests that there may be some illegality going on. So what is your reaction to this implication by uh Jamie Diamond that maybe there is some illegality happening here? You know, Brian, it sounds like Jamie Diamond, who has been CEO of JP Morgan Chase for nearly 20 years now, um is protecting himself and the organization that he heads. Because, you know, we all saw Donald Trump hastily tear down the East Wing of the White House in what doesn’t look to be an entirely lawful act. Let’s be clear, he doesn’t own the White House. he didn’t get any approval to tear down, you know, a huge chunk of the White House. There was a lawsuit that was filed that he just blew right through. Somebody tried to have a a preliminary injunction issued or a temporary restraining order to get him to stop. So, we have no idea what the what the legalities might be surrounding that or the legalities of now building a big ass gaudy ballroom, presidential ballroom on White House grounds. But, you know, it sounds like Jamie Diamond is looking out for himself and his company by saying, “We’re not going to take part in that.” And when you, you know, you played his statement in the leadin, he was pretty careful about the words he chose. He said, “We have to deal with the next DOJ and we are concerned about, among other things, um, appearing to be buying favors.” You know, that sounds a little extortiony and there’s a good reason for him to be concerned. Remember, Brian, it wasn’t that long ago that Donald Trump posted that he wants Democrats, including JP Morgan Chase, investigated for the Epstein matter. I mean, think about it. If that is something that the president of the United States is pushing, investigating JP Morgan Chase, and all of a sudden JP Morgan Chase says, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We’re going to give you a bunch of money to buy your ballroom. I mean, that whole thing smells like corruption. Smells like it almost could be a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Now, all of that is kind of far-fetched because, you know, Donald Trump is forever posting nonsense about his perceived opponents, foes, and political enemies. But listen, I think um Jaime Diamond uh is is well advised not to have anything to do with any of the Trump administration’s schemes, particularly one that seems as sort of hairrained, out of control, and perhaps corrupt as tearing down parts of the White House and then building ballrooms as basically a tribute to himself. the fact that Jaime Diamond is opting not to participate in what very much seems like a payfor-play scheme. Uh because of course anybody who pays into this administration, we immediately see Donald Trump heap favor onto those organizations or countries, whatever it may be. Does the fact that Jaime Diamond is choosing not to participate because he doesn’t want to give any optics of corruption, does that suggest that some of the some of the organizations, businesses, people that have done it may very well shoulder some personal or or or corporate liability by virtue of engaging in this process. You can certainly read between the lines of what Jaime Diamond said. He said, “We don’t want to participate in this because we’re going to have to deal with the future Department of Justice.” Let me fill in the unspoken blank there. Yeah. A future Department of Justice that might have a legitimate attorney general and might actually be interested in enforcing the law and remaining loyal to the Constitution rather than catering to a convicted felon president. So, it does seem by extension that the people who are engaged in the in what looks to be paytoplay are going to have to answer to, you know, a law-abiding Department of Justice potentially in the future if they dig in to see, for example, how might the former president have been unjustly and unlawfully enriching himself by entering into these, you know, deals and these schemes with those who are willing to actually pay into to this pay-to-play scheme. Just a quick reminder for those who are watching right now, if you’d like to support our work and support independent media more broadly, if you’re not yet subscribed to our channels, please go ahead and subscribe. The buttons right here on this screen, uh, best way to support our work, it is and always will be 100% free. So again, please click the link on the screen or check out the post description of this video. Glenn, just a quick aside here on this idea of the ballroom. You know, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which the next president might be able to needle Donald Trump. What do you think a good name for the ballroom as like an act that a new Democratic president could take within the first 100 days could be? You think a Democratic president could swoop in there and just name rename the ballroom the Joseph the Joseph R. Biden um uh you know pre presidential ballroom. You know, that’s one approach to needle Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump is like trying to convert us into this like ugly chachki fililled, you know, tribute to himself. He wants his face, his likeness on dollar. It really is a shrine to the guy. It’s it’s pretty incredible. He wants his name on ballrooms. He wants his name on new uh sports stadium Washington. I mean, the whole thing is pretty disgusting. What I would like to see happen, frankly, if there is this big, you know, fake gold leafed gaudy ballroom that he will undoubtedly call the Donald Trump ballroom, even though he denies that that’s what he intends to call it. Um, I I would like to see it raised to the ground and see the East Wing rebuilt, quite frankly. But um you know I think there I think we should be in the business of making sure we record accurately for history the the truly dark period of the Donald Trump era. And we’re going to need to enshrine it in lots of ways including in our history books but we’re certainly not going to let monuments to a convicted felon you know remain intact. you know, preserve some of it in museums for posterity so that it will never happen again hopefully in our nation. But, uh, yeah, we’re going to we’re going to have a a massive cleanup mission to go on when Donald Trump is out of office. Another option is maybe the, uh, the, uh, the Hunter Biden presidential ballroom. I’m trying to think what would what would make him even angrier, the uh the Leticia James Ballroom. Um, we can we can workshop all of these uh later on. Glenn, in terms of just this this 30,000 foot view of the broader picture of corruption that we’re going to be dealing with, um what do you think needs to be done on a legislative level so that so that we’re not in a position where this just happens whenever a corrupt president comes into office and we have no tools at our disposal to be able to counteract uh what’s unfolding. You know, legislation is one sort of approach and we’re obviously going to have to take up, you know, what laws can we enact that will have some hope of preventing the abuses that we have seen during the Trump administration. The challenge, Brian, is, you know, we have tens of thousands of federal laws on the books, and they are only as good as the people who populate the institutions that are designed to uphold that law, those laws. So, I think what we really need to do is be a little bit more discerning about who we vote into office. I mean, if you know, you have hardcore conservative, you know, right-wing ideologies and beliefs and principles, that’s fine. Stay true to that, but demand, you know, some minimal allegiance to the law in the people that you choose to elect to office. and let’s get back to arguing over um policy and not arguing over facts and you know truth versus fiction. Um, so we can certainly put laws into place and I think we should consider laws that will, for example, constrain the pardon power and people will say, “Yeah, but the Supreme Court will just strike them all down.” Maybe, but that doesn’t mean we don’t go on the mission of trying to, you know, create a more perfect union by putting laws in place that will have some hope of working as a bull work against a runaway criminal president. I think we need to pass laws involving the Supreme Court. At a minimum, we need to put a mandatory code of ethics with an actual enforcement mechanism so we don’t have to suffer in the future, you know, a a replication of what Alito did or what Thomas did taking, you know, all of this money and what I call inind contributions from these Republican billionaire oligarchs. So, yeah, we have lots of laws that we can put in place to to try to deal with the the weak spots that Trump exposed, but again, it’s only going to be as good as the honor of the people responsible for enforcing those laws. I would also add on top of that, and that’s exactly right. I would add that that okay, we have this giant variable in the US Supreme Court, but I think it’s also incumbent on us to consider expanding the Supreme Court. like we don’t have to just sit idly by while we have a rogue agency, institution, whatever it may be, and just assume that by virtue of stasis that we have to continue stomaching this stuff. The reality is if Republicans were in power and they had a Supreme Court that they that they didn’t like, they would figure out a way to make it bend to their whim. And they did exactly that. Remember, Obama uh uh nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. They they made a new rule out of whole cloth. They just concocted it because they wanted to and prevented Merrick Garland from from uh getting his his um his congressionally deserved uh hearing and and then they violated the rule with Amy Coney Barrett. Correct. And so and so it’s just it’s vibes at this point. But the notion that Democrats have to sit idly by and just defer to the status quo, defer to stasis, defer to norms, whatever it may be, while the Republicans run rough shot over this stuff is why we continue to lose, why we continue to allow or see the other side, you know, create these advantages that that are not being replicated on the left. And so I think that it’s incumbent on Democrats to get a hell of a lot more creative in how they approach these problems and not just say, “Okay, yes, we we obviously need reforms. We need reforms to the pardon power. We need reforms to to how corrupt this administration can be and let’s just cross our fingers and hope that the US Supreme Court will allow this stuff to stand.” It’s like, no, let’s take it a step further. And if reform is needed in the executive branch, then reform may also be needed in the judicial branch. And so we don’t have to neuter ourselves just because this this has existed in a certain way for so long. It’s clearly not working. And so it’s incumbent on the people in power to fix it. Yeah. We we can’t always be on defense. We can’t always be reactive. We can’t always be the victim. We need to go on offense. And I agree with you with respect to expanding the court. You know, Brian, in our nation’s history, we’ve had as as few as five Supreme Court justices. We’ve had as many as 10 Supreme Court justices. Nine is not a magic number. And interestingly, do you know we’ve increased the number of federal court trial judges? We’ve increased the number of federal court uh appeals judges. And it only makes sense given the increase in the case load over time and the increasing population of the United States that we should increase the number of Supreme Court justices. It might have the nice fringe benefit of evening the court out a little bit with respect to, you know, what we’re having to contend with with the the corrupt justices like Thomas and Alito. You know, maybe you can level things out a little bit more, but there are so many good reasons to increase the number of Supreme Court justices. I can’t think of a single legitimate reason not to. We’ll leave it there. For those who are watching, again, if you’d like to support our work and support independent media, the best way to do that is to subscribe to both of our channels. So, I’m going to put the links to those channels right here on the screen. It is completely free and it always will be completely free. So, again, those links are right here on the screen. Just hit the subscribe button. I’m Brian Taylor Cohen and I’m Glenn Kersner. You’re watching the Legal Breakdown. [Music]

Legal Breakdown episode 631: Trump’s ballroom donors may face legal jeopardy

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