The Liberal Gun Club Forum

President Donald Trump’s private golf resorts are once again in a scandal after a bombshell report published by Politico on Friday evening.

“In early Spring of this year, an Air National Guard crew made a routine trip from the U.S. to Kuwait to deliver supplies. What wasn’t routine was where the crew stopped along the way: President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort, about 50 miles outside Glasgow, Scotland,” Politico reported.

The event has been under investigation for over four months.

“Since April, the House Oversight Committee has been investigating why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane made the unusual stay — both en route to the Middle East and on the way back — at the luxury waterside resort, according to several people familiar with the incident,” the report noted.

Military expenditures may be keeping the resort afloat.

“According to a letter the panel sent to the Pentagon in June, the military has spent $11 million on fuel at the Prestwick Airport — the closest airport to Trump Turnberry — since October 2017, fuel that would be cheaper if purchased at a U.S. military base,” Politico reported. “Taken together, the incidents raise the possibility that the military has helped keep Trump’s Turnberry resort afloat — the property lost $4.5 million in 2017, but revenue went up $3 million in 2018.”

The Pentagon has reportedly provided no answers to congressional investigators.

“On previous trips to the Middle East, the C-17 had landed at U.S. air bases such as Ramstein Air Base in Germany or Naval Station Rota in Spain to refuel, according to one person familiar with the trips. Occasionally the plane stopped in the Azores and once in Sigonella, Italy, both of which have U.S. military sites, the person added. But on this particular trip, the plane landed in Glasgow — a pitstop the five-man crew had never experienced in their dozens of trips to the Middle East. The location lacked a U.S. base and was dozens of miles away from the crew’s overnight lodging at the Turnberry resort,” Politico reported.

On Saturday, Politico’s Natasha Bertrand spoke with MSNBC’s Joy Reid about her new reporting that Air Force transports made unusual stopovers at the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland, as the resort gained $3 million in revenue in 2018.

“How unusual is it for a military transport to stop at a private hotel, any private hotel, rather than like Ramstein Airbase in Germany and the other official military bases where they stop?”

“Very unusual, Joy,” said Bertrand. “[Trump Turnberry] made about $11 million off of U.S. military expenditures, off of the fuel that they’re selling to the U.S. military, and that really is kind of at the heart of all of this, because the airport is really necessary in order to keep Trump’s resort afloat, because the nearest airport other than that tiny airport is about an hour and a half away in Glasgow.”

“So what we’re seeing is not only are they using the airport in order to boost both the airport itself for the Scottish government and also Trump’s resort about 30 miles away,” said Bertrand. “They’re also sending the crew that go there to refuel overnight to stay at Trump’s resort, which then puts even more money into the pocket of the president, because the military is having to pay for the per diem allowances for food and drinks and the rooms themselves.”

“Per your reporting, was Prestwick Airport doing well financially before Donald Trump started using it instead of the airport they would normally use?” Joy pressed.

“No, it’s been struggling financially for years,” said Bertrand. “It was bought by the Scottish government in 2013 for one pound because it was essentially going into bankruptcy. The Scottish government considered selling it as recently as June of this year, because it was still struggling financially, but it has seen a boon from these expenditures that the U.S. military is spending on fuel at the airport, and it’s kind of keeping the airport afloat.”

“What we’re seeing, though, is that the crew members are kind of confused by what’s going on, because they’ve never before had to make this stop in Scotland, let alone in the United Kingdom at all,” added Bertrand. “Usually it’s Spain or Germany or the Azores or Italy, where they stop to refuel, but never before have some of these crews ever stopped at this tiny airport in Scotland, let alone at this tiny airport, so they are kind of baffled by this, which is why one of them blew the whistle and told a friend, and that is ultimately how we came upon this story.”

“It would be the equivalent of President Jimmy Carter forcing the Pentagon to buy its peanuts from his peanut farm, right?” said Reid. “He of course got rid of his peanut farm when he became president but that’s the equivalent, forcing you to do business with the president.”

“This could be a violation of the domestic emoluments clause, because the president, other than his own salary, is not supposed to get any money from the federal government,” said Bertrand. “The fact the U.S. military seems to be spending money at Trump resorts seems to be in direct violation of that which is what the house oversight committee was getting to, when they wrote the letter, asking about the documents who approved this because it could be a violation of the Constitution.”

“What we also saw is foreign governments might be exploiting this as well,” added Bertrand. “We don’t know whether militaries of foreign governments and foreign potential adversaries are trying to curry favor with the president by propping up his resort in Turnberry by landing at this airport, by spending money there. This is all kind of interconnected, and just because the U.S. military is doing it, doesn’t mean that others aren’t taking cues from that. Whereas the military should be setting an example here and not, you know, allowing the president to profit off of the military, what we’re seeing is that they’ve actually just kind of gone along with this and we still don’t know who approved it at the highest levels.”

YankeeTarheel wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 1:09 pm Because we have a thief/grifter/liar/sexual assaulter/fascist in the White House who doesn't understand or care that every dollar he steals represents someone else's REAL work and effort.
Money to him is something you have, borrow, or get by any means possible, but it's not something you EARN by producing something of value. Of value to whom? Of value to someone else.

For classicists, the times we live in have given rise to an entertaining, if depressing, parlour game: which lunatic/depraved/autocratic Roman emperor does Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States of America, most resemble? Caligula might seem an obvious go-to. According to the scurrilous, highly unreliable and yet utterly enjoyable imperial biographer Suetonius, he made his horse a consul—which, frankly, Trump has all-but done, what with the series of donkeys on whom he has bestowed so many high offices.

And yet in her book SPQR Mary Beard has offered the compelling, if not entirely convincing, notion that Caligula the depraved was really Caligula the cynical, poking fun at the innate absurdity of his role and of the Roman empire. Perhaps Trump is an arch-satirist, but that would seem to accord to the man too much intelligence and wit.

Nero is a possibility. Like Trump, he adored performing—in his case in the gladiatorial arena, the reality television of its day, competing in chariot races, or otherwise singing or playing his lyre. Such was his obsession, writes Suetonius (the Michael Wolff of his day) that he forbade anyone to leave the theatre during his recitals. Women went into labour during these interminable sessions and gave birth.

Men faked their own deaths, just to have an excuse to be removed from the scene. Then there was Nero’s Domus Aurea, the “golden house,” a stately pleasure dome of a palace that stretched out luxuriantly over acres of Rome, where the Colosseum now stands. A Trump Tower of its time, perhaps? Though it’s clear from the wall paintings alone that Nero had about 1,000 times more taste than the president.

Who else? Hadrian, what with his enthusiasm for walls? It doesn’t quite wash: Hadrian’s wall was not about keeping migrants out, but rather a demonstration of Roman power to keep the natives suitably impressed, which admittedly does have a Trumpian echo.

There is Commodus, one of the nastiest of the Roman emperors—he is instantly recognisable when you come across his likeness in museums, since he’s the only emperor whose dreadful chubby baby face stares at you through the actual jaws of a lion. (He identified himself, absurdly, with the mythical hero Hercules, whose emblem was the skin of the Nemean lion he killed.)

The American scholar Jenny Davidson has compared Commodus’s weird, sinisterly over-the-top self image and personality-cult with the president’s, pointing to a most peculiar photograph consisting of Trump on a throne while Melania stands beside him dressed in a skimpy toga, and their son Barron sits astride a life-size stuffed-toy lion, the whole image set off by a background of the most disgusting gilded classical pillars. Still, Trump hasn’t yet renamed all the months of the year after himself. There’s always time.

Maybe in the end, the honour ought to go to the thuggish, power-crazed, stonkingly wealthy aristocrats of the 1st century BC—Julius Caesar, Clodius, Catiline, take your pick—who cynically positioned themselves as on the side of the masses against the political elite, destroying the Roman republic and its institutions as they fought for power.

The civil wars they engendered came to a bloody end only with the appearance of Augustus, who, having brutally removed all potential rivals, cleverly branded his own deeply autocratic rule as a return to traditional Roman values. He could easily have delivered his autobiography, the charmlessly named Res Gestae—“Things Achieved”—as a series of all-caps tweets.

The scandal over U.S. military financially propping up President Donald Trump’s Scottish golf course continued to expand on Saturday.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating the bizarre situation of why millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent at the local airport serving Trump’s Turnberry resort.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Friday called it, “uncharted waters in terms of presidential corruption.”

The story was confirmed on Saturday by The New York Times.

“United States military personnel have occasionally stayed at the Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland while Defense Department planes stop over and refuel at the nearby airport,” The Times reported, based on a single source.

“A representative for the Trump Organization confirmed Saturday that United States military personnel have occasionally stayed at the Trump Turnberry. But the representative said that it happened only a few times a year and that the company was charging the government a discounted rate,” The Times reported.

CDFingers wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:43 pm
Then, either some generals retire or we have some fascism creepin' round the barn corner.

CDFingers

Even as House lawmakers investigate suspicious U.S. military refueling stops close to Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort, a Defense Department agency is finalizing a new contract for continued stops at the airport into 2024, The Scotsman newspaper has reported.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating refueling stops at the remote Glasgow Prestwick Airport just 23 miles from Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland. Military personnel stayed nights at Turnberry, spending federal funds for lodging and food that went to the president’s company, both Politico and The New York Times reported.

The fuel could have been obtained more cheaply at an American military base.

Both the government-owned Prestwick and Trump’s Turnberry have struggled financially, but their bottom lines have improved since Trump moved into the White House.

Prestwick’s refueling contract with the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) is about to expire. Total payments to the airport since 2017 could total as much $21 million by the time the contract ends, The Scotsman reported.

But the airport has a new, longer contract beginning October 1 and running through the end of September 2024, the newspaper reported. The value is yet to be determined. But the new deal would involve supplying some 12.4 million gallons of aviation fuel — about 3 million more than the current deal, according to The Scotsman.

The House Oversight Committee has spent months looking into the U.S. military activity near Turnberry as part of its investigation into the Trump administration’s potential violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which forbids presidents from using their office to enrich themselves.

In a June letter obtained by Politico to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-Md.) called on the Pentagon to turn over documents regarding the military stops. The letter indicated the refueling arrangement may be part of a plan to help keep the struggling Prestwick airport open and aid sales at Turnberry. “U.S. military expenditures at the airport appear to increased substantially since the election,” the lawmakers noted.

The Pentagon has so far refused to cooperate with Cummings’ request for documents, a source told Politico.

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
“Donald Trump pledges to make Prestwick Airport 'really successful'”
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/299644-dona ... uccessful/ … via @STVNews

Donald Trump pledges to make Prestwick Airport 'really successful'
Tycoon announces partnership between Trump Turnberry resort and Ayrshire hub.
stv.tv

The Scottish government is taking heat from the public over Prestwick’s link to the U.S. military as the government-owned airport collects money from the Trump administration while leaders publicly attack the president’s character and his foreign policies, The Scotsman has reported.

The U.S. military is currently Prestwick’s biggest customer. According to records viewed by The Scotsman, Prestwick was paid $11 million over just six months from last October to March.

Some 64 pages of American procurement records viewed by The Scotsman detail 644 separate orders placed for aviation turbine fuel by the energy division of the DLA, which is located in Virginia and manages the global supply chain for the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Prestwick held discussions in 2017 about “potential partnership opportunities” and business development targets with Trump Turnberry, according to documents obtained by The Scotsman’s Sunday newspaper. Prestwick is currently up for sale.

The House Oversight Committee also now plans to investigate Vice President Mike Pence’s stay at Trump’s Irish golf resort during an official visit to Ireland last week, even though the resort was 180 miles away — on the other side of the island nation — from planned meetings in Dublin.

The House Judiciary Committee has also said it will look into the president’s suggestion that next year’s G7 summit be held at his Miami golf resort.

K9s wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:33 pm

CDFingers wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:43 pm

I really, really like that one. Too bad that it would probably get me banned from Twitter or Facebook for using it.

The U.S. Air Force is ordering a worldwide probe after outrage over a huge increase in refueling stops at an airport near a Trump property and an overnight stay at a Trump luxury resort by military personnel.

The public has been focused recently on news an Air Force jet was directed to refuel at Prestwick, a small commercial airport in Scotland, with crews ordered to stay at Trump’s Turnberry resort (photo). Now Politico reports this odd instance was not the first.

“In September 2018, on its way back to the U.S. from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, a unit of the Maine Air National Guard landed at Prestwick Airport, the airport closest to Trump’s luxury waterfront resort. The crew and their passengers then spent the night at his hotel, according to one person who was present, an Instagram post and a voucher detailing the crew’s itinerary reviewed by POLITICO.”

Politico and The New York Times reveal a huge escalation in the use of that small airport.

“Stopovers at Scotland airport have tripled since 2015 and overnight stays in the area are up five-fold,” Politico notes.

“The Defense Department has been using the Prestwick airport since at least 2015, when it had 95 stopovers, but that number rose to 145 by 2016, and then 180 in 2017, 257 as of last year and 259 so far this year. The 259 stops this year included 220 overnight stays,” The Times adds. “Since October 2017, records show 917 purchases at the airport worth a total of $17.2 million.”

The Air Force says it will look at the guidelines in its investigation with the understanding “that U.S. service members lodging at higher-end accommodations, even if within government rates, might be allowable but not advisable.”

The Air Force investigation comes fiver months after another startling revelation. Liberty University, run by key evangelical Trump supporter Jerry Falwell, Jr., has sold more than $1 million in jet fuel to the Pentagon since Trump’s inauguration.

TrueTexan wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:56 amI can't believe that buying jet fuel from Jerry Falwell, Jr."s Liberty University is cheaper than buying it from Exxon,Texaco or any other major oil company. Maybe they told whoever this is special Jet Fuel blessed by Jerry in the name of Jesus and will make you bombs fall straight onto the heathen Liberals and other non-Christians.

“We’re not a school; we’re a real estate hedge fund,” said a senior university official with inside knowledge of Liberty’s finances. “We’re not educating; we’re buying real estate every year and taking students’ money to do it.”

--snp--

In January, the Wall Street Journal reported that in 2014 and 2015, Michael Cohen hired Gauger’s side business, RedFinch LLC, to rig online polls in Donald Trump’s favor while he considered a run for the presidency. Gauger’s work consisted of writing a computer script to repeatedly vote for Trump in two online polls; his company would get paid $50,000 in return. Instead, Gauger told the Journal that after a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan, Cohen paid Gauger roughly one-fourth of that amount—between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash—and gave him a boxing glove worn by a mixed martial arts fighter.

--snp--

Under Falwell Jr., Liberty University is “a totally dysfunctional organization,” one board member wrote in an email reviewed for this article. “Very similar to Trump’s White House.”

President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Air Force told senators at her confirmation hearing Thursday she wouldn’t specifically ban members of the military branch from spending taxpayer funds at the president’s properties.

During a tense exchange with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Barbara Barrett refused to tell the Senate Armed Services Committee whether she thinks it is inappropriate for Air Force personnel to spend government funds at Trump-owned businesses. A recent report from Politico detailed numerous instances in which air crews lodged at the president’s struggling Turnberry Resort in Scotland as they traveled from the U.S. to the Middle East.

“It seems that we should have generic rules and regulations that look to the best value and the best acquisition, and those rules should be enforced equally,” Barrett said. She added that such rules wouldn’t be “specific to any particular owner.”

When Blumenthal asked specifically about presidential self-dealing and pressed Barrett on the possibility Trump is violating the Constitution by the ways in which money is flowing to his properties, Barrett repeated her comment about the need for generic rules and regulations.

Barrett told Blumenthal she would comply with his request for a “complete accounting” of Air Force expenditures at Trump properties if she wins Senate confirmation to the branch’s top position.

In a Sept. 9 tweet, Trump denied having anything to do with members of the Air Force staying at his hotel in Scotland ― while adding that they had “good taste” in doing so.

The Air Force has since launched an investigation into how it chooses airports to land at and lodging accommodations during international travel.

Ethics watchdogs and Democrats in Congress have been sounding the alarm about Trump potentially using the presidency to enrich himself, given that he refused to divest himself of his business holdings upon taking office. Several reports have detailed instances in which foreign governments, U.S. companies and U.S. officials have spent money at Trump’s resorts since he became president.

The practice was spotlighted last month when Vice President Mike Pence stayed at the Trump resort Doonbeg, Ireland, while on a state visit to that country. The hotel is 180 miles from Dublin, where Pence’s meetings with Irish leaders took place.

Two lawsuits were filed charging that Trump has violated the Constitution’s “emoluments” clause, which prevents federal officeholders from accepting payments from foreign governments without congressional consent. One of those suits was dismissed in July by a federal appeals court panel.

Trump picked Barrett, a former aerospace executive and diplomat, to replace Heather Wilson, who resigned as the Air Force chief earlier this year to become president of the University of Texas at El Paso.

Deepak Gupta
‏Verified account @deepakguptalaw

BREAKING: We just won our appeal in our Emoluments Clause case against Donald Trump, on behalf of Trump's restaurant and hotel competitors. The Second Circuit panel unanimously reverses the district court's dismissal, across the board. Opinion coming shortly.