The King and the Pauper of Queens

Remember when Zohran proclaimed he would "Trump-proof" New York City as Mayor, this is the reason why he never will.

Mayor Eric Adams may be on a visit to Israel, but Monday he left Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani a headache. He increased the budget for city government spending in the current fiscal year by about $2 billion to $118 billion, bequeathing a projected $4.7 billion deficit to be closed before the 2027 budget is adopted next summer. And he offered no plans to deal with federal aid cuts that could reach billions of dollars. The November report provides an update on where the city stands financially with the current fiscal year and the three future years it is required to project. Mamdani will have to propose his own budget by Feb. 1, a month after taking office.

The mayor’s added spending included new commitments Adams has been touting in recent weeks including money to start adding 5,000 additional police officers — while Mamdani has said he wants to keep the police force at its current level of about 34,000 officers.

Adams’ move came in for criticism from outgoing Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) and finance chair Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), who called it irresponsible to saddle future budgets with money for new police officers without addressing the fact that the city is unable to keep staffing at current levels because it can’t retain officers. The mayor also increased money for rental assistance and expanded a caregiver program for elderly residents by 3,000 spots. The mayor also increased expected revenues in November for the first time in his four years in office, adding a little more than $400 million for 2026. And he says he is leaving the city in good financial shape. “Over the course of four on-time, annual budgets, our administration has delivered for working-class New Yorkers time and again, and this November financial plan update is another example of how our strong fiscal management is making New York City safer, more affordable, and improving New Yorkers’ quality of life,” he said in a statement. NYPD officers arrest an anti-ICE protester outside the Federal Building in Lower Manhattan.

Budget experts don’t agree. The Citizens Budget Commission responds that the administration is underestimating costs by as much as $4 billion, including at least $1 billion for city-funded housing vouchers and $600 million for homeless shelters. And police overtime is almost always higher than projected in the budget. “This plan simply reaffirms that Mayor-elect Mamdani’s first budget proposal will have to close a $5 billion to $8 billion budget gap, prepare for federal hits, and fund progress on his priorities,” CBC President Andrew Rein said.

AG Letitia James's whale of corruption and hypocrisy

 

White Collar Fraud

This comprehensive investigative report presents original research conducted by the author, consolidating key findings to date—including documented evidence that New York Attorney General Letitia James has engaged in a consistent pattern of financial and property disclosures that raise serious legal questions. By bringing these discrepancies together in one document, the report offers a clear roadmap for further investigation by journalists, regulatory authorities, and ethics officials. The evidence points not to isolated errors, but to a systematic pattern of misrepresentation that raises serious questions about James’s legal compliance, transparency, and ethical obligations as New York’s top law enforcement official.

• Principal Residence Misrepresentation: In August 2023, James signed a Specific Power of Attorney declaring her intent to make 604 Sterling Street in Norfolk, Virginia her “principal residence”—a legally binding statement that may have automatically vacated her position as NY Attorney General under Public Officers Law § 30. This declaration came just 45 days before she launched her landmark civil fraud case against Donald Trump. It also potentially constituted mortgage fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1014, which criminalizes false statements made to obtain a loan.
• Hidden and Phantom Mortgages: On her first Virginia property at 3121 Peronne Avenue, James used a $109,600 mortgage from OVM Financial in 2020 but never disclosed it on any of her NY financial disclosure forms, despite legal requirements to do so. Later, in her 2023 disclosure, she reported two different mortgages—one from Freedom Mortgage ($150,000-$250,000) and one from National Mortgage ($100,000-$150,000)—but a 2025 title search found no record of either loan, suggesting they may be fictional.
• Severe Overleveraging: If all three mortgages are considered, James claims $509,600 in mortgage debt on a Virginia property assessed at just $187,300—a loan-to-value ratio of 272%, far beyond any rational underwriting standard and likely impossible to obtain through legitimate lending channels.
• Brooklyn Property Unit Count Misrepresentation: Since 2001, Letitia James has repeatedly represented her property at 296 Lafayette Avenue as a four-family dwelling on mortgage applications and permit filings—even though its official Certificate of Occupancy designates it as a five-family building. Under federal lending guidelines, buildings with five or more units are treated as commercial properties, subject to stricter underwriting standards, including higher down payments, lower loan-to-value limits, and more complex documentation requirements. By misclassifying the property, James may have obtained more favorable residential loan terms—such as lower interest rates and easier approval criteria—that she would not have qualified for if the property had been accurately reported. This misrepresentation also enabled her to secure a federal HAMP mortgage modification in 2011, despite the program explicitly excluding buildings with more than four units. The pattern raises serious questions about the accuracy of her mortgage filings and her compliance with lending and disclosure regulations.
• Undisclosed HAMP Mortgage and Handwritten Alterations: In 2011, James received a federally subsidized HAMP mortgage modification that required the property to have no more than four residential units. The official Certificate of Occupancy showed five. My investigation revealed critical last-minute handwritten notations in the mortgage document, including “4 fam” in one corner and a contradictory note stating “not more than 6 residential units“—suggesting deliberate manipulation to maintain technical eligibility while creating plausible deniability about the property’s true status.
• Missing and Misclassified Mortgages: James’s financial disclosures reveal a pattern of delayed reporting, missing mortgages, and unexplained classification changes. A 2019 Citibank HELOC went undisclosed for three years, then mysteriously disappeared from her 2023 disclosure with no record of satisfaction. Similarly, a 2021 Citizens Bank mortgage went undisclosed that year, appeared as a mortgage in 2022, then was reclassified as a HELOC in 2023—all without corresponding documentation in public records.
• Undisclosed Rental Income: In 2013, Crain’s New York reported that James had failed to disclose rental income from her Brooklyn property for at least five years. Even after being exposed, she understated her actual rental income of $44,400 when filing corrections. Similarly, she reported rental income from her Norfolk property in 2020, then reported zero income in subsequent years while still claiming ownership—leaving unexplained why the active mortgage on the property was never disclosed as required.
• Taxpayer-Funded Private Jet Travel: Between 2020-2021, the Attorney General’s Office spent $41,807.80 in taxpayer funds on private jet travel through Venture Jets Inc., a vendor used by no other state agency. Several flights coincided with James’s campaign activities, including a Martha’s Vineyard trip and the politically significant SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico where she was described as being “fully in campaign mode.”
• Luxury Campaign Spending with Creative Accounting: Campaign filings show a pattern of luxury travel with inconsistent expense categorization. The same hotel charges on the same day were often split between different expense categories (“Office,” “Lodging,” “Transportation”), making it nearly impossible to track true expenditure purposes. In May 2022, after her office stopped paying Venture Jets, her campaign picked up the tab—paying over $12,000 to the same charter company.
• Selective Enforcement of Building Codes: When a complaint was filed about the discrepancy between James’s property’s five-unit Certificate of Occupancy and her four-unit permit applications, building authorities dismissed it as a “MINOR ERROR”—a striking contrast to how such violations are treated for ordinary New Yorkers, who face stop-work orders, substantial penalties, and even forced vacancy for similar infractions.
• The 1983 Queens Property “Husband and Wife” Designation: Records show that in 1983, Letitia James and her father, Robert James, co-signed a mortgage document identifying themselves as “husband and wife”—a legal classification that typically confers specific benefits not available to a father-daughter relationship. 
  

These aren’t isolated incidents but reveal a systematic approach to financial and property reporting that spans multiple jurisdictions, decades, and legal filings. The fact that these patterns have persisted throughout James’s rise to become New York’s chief law enforcement officer—the very official responsible for prosecuting similar misrepresentations—makes these findings particularly significant and demands thorough investigation.

 

NY Post 

 New York Attorney General Letitia James was hit with a federal criminal referral for instances of alleged mortgage fraud on Tuesday, according to a letter obtained by The Post.

Federal Housing FHFA Director William Pulte sent the missive to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche, alleging that James had “falsified records” to get home loans for a property in Virginia that she claimed was her “principal residence” in 2023 — while still serving as a New York state prosecutor.

In February 2001, James also purchased a five-family dwelling in Brooklyn — but has “consistently misrepresented the same property as only having four units in both building permit applications and numerous mortgage documents and applications,” the letter noted.

Eric Adams Exonerated

 

 

 NY Daily News

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed sweeping public corruption charges against Mayor Adams “with prejudice,” blasting the Trump administration’s bid to potentially revive them while leveraging the mayor’s help in hardline immigration enforcement as a “disturbing” bargain.

While the judgment caps a months long legal saga by letting Adams off the hook, Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho’s decision was not based on the merits of the case against him or a belief of whether he was innocent or guilty. It served as a searing condemnation of the Justice Department’s position that it could drop the case to secure the mayor’s cooperation on immigration matters, which he called “disturbing in its breadth.”

“DOJ’s immigration enforcement rationale is both unprecedented and breathtaking in its sweep. DOJ cites no examples, and the Court is unable to find any, of the government dismissing charges against an elected official because doing so would enable the official to facilitate federal policy goals,” Ho wrote in his 78-page decision.

“And DOJ’s assertion that it has ‘virtually unreviewable’ license to dismiss charges on this basis is disturbing in its breadth, implying that public officials may receive special dispensation if they are compliant with the incumbent administration’s policy priorities. That suggestion is fundamentally incompatible with the basic promise of equal justice under law.”

Less than a month after Trump took office, Emil Bove — Trump’s former criminal defense attorney turned top Justice Department official — on Feb. 14 asked Ho to dismiss the case without prejudice, which would have meant federal authorities could bring it again, a provision Adams agreed to.

Bove argued that the case had national security implications by restricting Adams’s ability to cooperate with the feds on immigration matters, interfered with the mayor’s ability to govern, and was improperly filed within nine months of the mayoral primary. Bove declined to comment on Ho’s decision when reached by the Daily News on Wednesday.

 

Ho rejected assertions that the timing of the case was improper as “not just thin, but pretextual,” finding it was entirely consistent with previous public corruption prosecutions.

His ruling was in line with the findings of an independent lawyer, Paul Clement, who he appointed to advise him on the matter. The former solicitor general under President George W. Bush recommended that the judge dismiss the case for good. Clement found that the possibility of the mayor feeling indebted to the president rather than New Yorkers out of fear that he could be reindicted was “deeply troubling.”

“In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents,” Ho wrote.

“[After] DOJ decided to seek dismissal of his case, the Mayor took at least one new immigration-related action consistent with the preferences of the new administration. Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” the judge later added, referencing Adams’s decision to let ICE operate on Rikers, which he said appeared “to be contrary to New York City law.”

In addition to the government’s motion, Ho had to consider a separate request from the embattled Democratic mayor to toss the charges permanently and arguments from former federal judges and prosecutors, which urged him to scrutinize the terms behind the dismissal deal closely and consider appointing a special prosecutor.

Ho found that even if he were to deny the bid to dismiss the case, it would almost “certainly” be futile, with prosecutors able to run out the clock by delaying the trial that was set to start this month by more than 70 days, which would lead to a dismissal.

“[A]bsent a sudden change of heart at DOJ, such a denial would produce only a staring contest,” Ho wrote.

In a brief appearance outside his Gracie Mansion residence after Ho’s order, Adams said he’s “happy that our city can finally close the book” on his indictment and railed against the press and his critics for spreading what he called “false” information about his criminal case.

Throughout his opinion on Wednesday, Ho, a Biden appointee, noted it was not based on the case’s merits. He entirely rejected parts of the DOJ and the mayor’s claims that the prosecutors who were trying the case before the Trump administration intervened had political motivations.

Both sides also lobbed accusations at former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, accusing him of bringing the prosecution that stemmed from an investigation that began before Adams won the 2021 mayoral election for personal gain. Williams declined to comment when reached by The News Wednesday.

“[The] Southern District of New York prosecutors who worked on this case followed all appropriate Justice Department guidelines. There is no evidence—zero—that they had any improper motives,” the judge wrote.

The mayor faced scathing criticism for agreeing to the terms laid out by the Trump administration and saw calls for his removal amid concerns he was sacrificing New York City’s immigrant communities to save his own skin.

Those criticisms reached a fever pitch when Adams appeared on “Fox & Friends” with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who said he’d be “up [the mayor’s] butt” if he didn’t play ball with the Trump administration as it sought to carry out deportations.

Bove filed the dismissal bid after the interim head of the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, Danielle Sassoon — a veteran prosecutor and registered Republican whom Trump had installed in the senior role on his first full day in office — quit rather than obey the order to wind down the case, in which Adams faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Sassoon wrote to Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi before resigning, saying she had been preparing to sign off on more charges accusing the mayor of attempting to conceal his crimes from the FBI and ordering others to do the same. She said the proposed arrangement amounted to a “quid pro quo” between Adams and the Trump administration, “indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were d

“[The] Southern District of New York prosecutors who worked on this case followed all appropriate Justice Department guidelines. There is no evidence—zero—that they had any improper motives,” the judge wrote.

The mayor faced scathing criticism for agreeing to the terms laid out by the Trump administration and saw calls for his removal amid concerns he was sacrificing New York City’s immigrant communities to save his own skin.

Those criticisms reached a fever pitch when Adams appeared on “Fox & Friends” with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who said he’d be “up [the mayor’s] butt” if he didn’t play ball with the Trump administration as it sought to carry out deportations.

Bove filed the dismissal bid after the interim head of the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, Danielle Sassoon — a veteran prosecutor and registered Republican whom Trump had installed in the senior role on his first full day in office — quit rather than obey the order to wind down the case, in which Adams faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Sassoon wrote to Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi before resigning, saying she had been preparing to sign off on more charges accusing the mayor of attempting to conceal his crimes from the FBI and ordering others to do the same. She said the proposed arrangement amounted to a “quid pro quo” between Adams and the Trump administration, “indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed

 

Congestion pricing is dead again

 

Eyewitness News 

  The U.S. Department of Transportation has pulled its approval for the MTA's congestion pricing toll program, but the MTA is vowing to take the decision to federal court to ensure the plan will continue.

In a release Wednesday, the DOT's Federal Highway Administration said it sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul informing her that the department had rescinded the agreement.

"New York State's congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. "Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes. But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It's backwards and unfair. The program also hurts small businesses in New York that rely on customers from New Jersey and Connecticut. Finally, it impedes the flow of commerce into New York by increasing costs for trucks, which in turn could make goods more expensive for consumer. Every American should be able to access New York City regardless of their economic means. It shouldn't be reserved for an elite few."

Duffy said in the letter to Hochul that the plan is being terminated for two reasons:

1.) The scope of the CBDTP is unprecedented and provides no toll-free option for many drivers who want or need to travel by vehicle in this major urbanized area.

 

2.) The toll rate was set primarily to raise revenue for transit, rather than at an amount needed to reduce congestion.

MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber released a statement that the MTA has already filed papers in federal court in response to the DOT's letter:

STFU Janno. You're done.

 

The President's Day Massacre

NY Post 

Half of New York City’s deputy mayors dramatically resigned Monday in a major blow to Eric Adams’ administration – as a top rival threatened the mass exodus could lead to his ouster.

The resignations of Adams’ four senior aides — led by First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer –thrust City Hall even deeper into uncharted territory as the mayor faces mounting questions about whether he can govern the city after his controversial reprieve from his historic corruption case by President Trump’s Justice Department.

The four deputy mayors — Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Deputy Mayor for Health Human Services Anne Williams-Isom and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chauncey Parker — resigned as dozens rallied in support of Adams unfolded in Rehoboth Cathedral in Brooklyn.

The rally contrasted with the growing calls for Adams to resign or Gov. Kathy Hochul to remove him from office in light of Trump’s DOJ moving to scuttle his criminal case — a move that many critics argue makes the mayor a hostage to the president.

 “I am disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future,” Adams said in a statement.

 orres-Springer, Williams-Isolm and Joshi issued a joint statement, citing the outgoing aides cited “the extraordinary events of the last few weeks” and “oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families” as what led them to the “difficult decision” to leave.

Parker said the role was an “honor of a lifetime” but gave no reason for his departure.

City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running for mayor in the Democratic primary, quickly fired off a letter to Adams demanding a “contingency plan” by Friday for how he’ll run the nation’s largest city.

He argued the leadership vacuum – as well as growing questions about whether Adams is beholden to Trump – could require him to invoke an obscure portion of the City Charter that sets up an “inability committee” with the powers to boot the mayor from office.

“In the absence of a contingency plan, the resignation of four or more deputy mayors, and the chaos created by the Justice Department’s actions regarding indictments against you, may well constitute inability to govern,” Lander wrote. 

“Should your office be unable or unwilling to formulate such a plan promptly, I will seek to convene a meeting of the Inability Committee.”

 

The five-person inability committee would consist of the city comptroller, corporation counsel, a deputy mayor, City Council Speaker and longest-serving borough president.

Other than suspension or removal by the governor, the inability committee is one of the only ways to remove a New York City mayor from office.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, no relation to the mayor, said Monday that the resignations by the four deputy mayors showed the writing on the wall.

“(Eric Adams) now must prioritize New York City and New Yorkers, step aside and resign,” the speaker said in a statement. “This administration no longer has the ability to effectively govern with Eric Adams as mayor.”

 At least three of the exiting senior aides had signaled their intent to depart Adams’ troubled administration over the weekend, prompting a desperate Zoom meeting in which the increasingly isolated mayor tried to convince them to stay, or at least delay their exits.

 

At least one other deputy mayor — Fabien Levy, the chief mouthpiece for Adams — is also unhappy and eyeing an exit, multiple sources have told The Post.

“Rats jumping a sinking ship is always pretty bad,” one pundit quipped

Eric Adams is free

 

 associated press

The Justice Department on Monday ordered federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, arguing in a remarkable departure from long-standing norms that the case was interfering with the mayor’s ability to aid the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

In a two-page memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told prosecutors in New York that they were “directed to dismiss” the bribery charges against Adams immediately.

Bove said the order was not based on the strength of evidence in the case, but rather because it had been brought too close to Adams reelection campaign and was distracting from the mayor’s efforts to assist in the Trump administration’s law-and-order priorities.

“The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime,” Bove wrote.

The memo also ordered prosecutors in New York not to take “additional investigative steps” against the Democrat until after November’s mayoral election, though it left open the possibility that charges could be refiled after that following a review.

The intervention and reasoning — that a powerful defendant could be too occupied with official duties to face accountability for alleged crimes — marked an extraordinary deviation from long-standing Justice Department norms.

Public officials at the highest level of government are routinely investigated by the Justice Department, including President Donald Trump during his first term, without prosecutors advancing a claim that they should be let off the hook to attend to government service.

An attorney for Adams, Alex Spiro, said the Justice Department’s order had vindicated the mayor’s claim of innocence. “Now, thankfully, the mayor and New York can put this unfortunate and misguided prosecution behind them,” said Spiro, who has also represented Elon Musk.

A spokesperson for the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, declined to comment. The case against Adams was brought under the previous U.S. attorney for the district, Damien Williams, who stepped down before Trump became president.

 

(Don't fear) The Driver's Tax Reaper

Queens man returns to White House

We live in interesting times.

Queens Man is President Again

 

Impunity City

Remember, remember the fifth of November

 They tried assassination. And tried and tried again.

They tried lawfare for over a year.

They tried virtue signaling, platitudes, and propping up a diversity, equity and inclusion candidate.

And Donald J. Trump still won.

This is the end of a decade and a half of fauxgressive rule and values and hopefully an end to horrendous domestic and immigration policies (U.S. foreign policy is still going to be an issue beyond Trump) fomented by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the worst administration in American History. It’s still amazing that Comma-la Harris had the audacity to think she would be running the country after nearly four years of cackling and vomiting word salads.

After all the fear mongering about Trump the first time around, and it was understandable given his inexperience in elected office, he never turned out to be a dictator and he only grew more popular with Black, Latinos and now Asians and Muslims and even White liberals that helped put him over the top and it’s a certainty that America will still be a free country in his next four years.

NY Post  

Donald Trump was projected to become the 47th president early Wednesday, completing the most incredible political comeback in American history.

Trump, 78, was on course for an Electoral College landslide over Vice President Kamala Harris after he reversed his 2020 losses in the crucial states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — running up big margins among his white rural and working class base while making significant inroads among ethnic minorities.

“There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond,” the Republican nominee told a rapturous victory celebration at the Palm Beach County Convention Center not far from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

“We’re going to help our country heal,” Trump added, “and it needs help very badly. We’re going to fix our borders … fix everything about our country.”

Donald Trump survives assassination attempt at campaign rally

Former President Donald Trump was wounded on a Pennsylvania campaign stage by a sniper’s bullet Saturday night in an apparent assassination attempt that nearly claimed his life, law enforcement sources told The Post.

The Secret Service said Trump is safe. A campaign spokesperson added that he is “fine” and being checked out at a local medical facility.

“He came within inches of having his face shot open,” a senior law enforcement source told The Post. 

The shooter was killed by a Secret Service assault team.

One other person, believed to be a civilian standing behind Trump on the podium was killed by the sniper, sources said. Another person was reportedly wounded.

The gunman was believed to have been positioned on the roof of building hundreds of yards from the former president at the Butler County Fairgrounds — outside the security perimeter, according to law enforcement sources. Trump confirmed his own brush with death in a post Saturday night on Truth Social: “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”

The bullet may have been deflected by glass before Trump was struck in the face, law enforcement sources said.

Following the attack on Trump at a rally in Butler — about 35 miles north of Pittsburgh — nine shots rang out and Trump ducked for cover before being surrounded by Secret Service agents, video from the event shows.

Happy President's Day from Queens

 

Caption Donald Trump

 

 

Bragg indicts Trump

NY Post

The NYPD is beefing up its presence as newly indicted former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender in New York on Tuesday, according to his lawyers.

Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office — which filed an unprecedented indictment against Trump, 76, related to hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels — wanted him arraigned Friday, sources said.

But Trump’s lawyers wouldn’t agree to that and instead, he’s expected to turn himself in Tuesday, his legal team said.

The ex-president will likely appear in court for his arraignment the same day, according his lawyers and a court administrator.

In a statement, Bragg said his office was in touch with Trump’s legal team on a surrender date.

“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan DA’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” the statement said. “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”

 

"It's not lying, it's commercial real estate"

AG James would have an easier time getting indictments and fines from all the developers and real estate owners in the last 5 years.

de Blasio missed the cut again, Trump gets to run his golf course

 

NY Post

Donald Trump is back in the Bronx.

A state Supreme Court judge ruled Friday that the city did not have the right to cancel Trump’s contract to run the Ferry Point Golf Course. Mayor Bill de Blasio had nixed the deal after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, arguing that Trump would not be able to attract golf tournaments.

In her decision and order filed on Friday, Justice Debra James said there was nothing in the contract that required a tournament — only that the city would share in any proceeds. That means either Trump gets to continue to run the course, or the city needs to pay him to leave. Trump’s son Eric said they’ll stay.

“The judge didn’t buy their nonsense and this is a well-reasoned and appropriate decision and we look forward to running the best golf course for years to come,” Eric Trump said.

De Blasio tried to freeze Trump out of all city contracts. The Parks Department had reassigned Ferry Point to an out-of-state operator, Bobby Jones Links, causing Trump to file an Article 78 to appeal that city move. It’s unclear how much it will cost the city to cancel the Bobby Jones contract.

James granted a temporary restraining order last fall, allowing the organization to continue its operations, and has now sent the matter back to the Parks Department.

“De Blasio did this for his own political theater,” Eric Trump said. “He wasted tremendous amounts of time and city resources on his own vendetta. He is a disgrace to New York and everyone is glad he is gone.”

 

Get Trump

  

NY Post

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign paid an internet company to “infiltrate” servers at Trump Tower and the White House in order to link Donald Trump to Russia, a bombshell new legal filing alleges.

The Friday filing from a Department of Justice prosecutor tasked with investigating the origins of the FBI’s Russian probe served to throw cold water on Democrats’ longstanding allegations of collusion.

Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion related to potential conflicts of interests in connection with the case of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who is charged with lying to the feds, according to Fox News.

Sussmann allegedly told the FBI he was not working on behalf of Clinton when he presented the agency with documents that supposedly linked the Trump Organization to a Kremlin-tied bank two months before the election.

The lawyer has pleaded not guilty to the charge of making a false statement to a federal agent.

Durham’s motion reportedly alleged Sussmann “had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a U.S.-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign.”

Records showed he “repeatedly billed the Clinton Campaign for his work on the Russian Bank-1 allegations,” which involved an investigative firm, a tech executive, cyber researchers and numerous employees at internet companies, the motion reportedly stated.

In 2017, Sussmann provided “an updated set of allegations” about then-President Trump’s Russian connection to another government agency, the motion said, according to the outlet.

Among the accusations leveled at that time was that suspicious DNS lookups by Russian-affiliated IP addresses “demonstrated Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations,” the motion reportedly said.

The allegations “relied, in part, on the purported DNS traffic” that Tech Executive-1 and others “had assembled pertaining to Trump Tower, Donald Trump’s New York City apartment building, the EOP, and the aforementioned healthcare provider,” according to Fox’s report.

Durham said his office found “no support for these allegations,” claiming the supposed evidence Sussmann provided was incomplete and skewed.

Homeless service provider forms LLC to take over Trump golf course

 

 THE CITY 

 While Donald Trump battles Bill de Blasio over the mayor’s decision to dump the former president as operator of a Bronx golf course, the city is playing through — proposing a new firm to run the Ferry Point links.

A notice published Monday shows a company called Ferry Point Links LLC is set to be awarded a 13-year Parks Department deal to take over the Jack Nicklaus-designed 18-hole course at the foot of the Bronx-Whitestone bridge.

A firm incorporated under that name in late August, state corporation records indicate — sharing both an executive’s name and address with one of the city’s biggest homeless shelter operators, CORE Community Services.

An attorney for the former president vowed to fight the city — and the proposed new golf course operators — for control of the links, charging Trump is a victim of “political retaliation.”

A spokesperson for the city Department of Parks and Recreation said that CORE will be teaming up with Bobby Jones Links, an Atlanta company that will be “managing the operation of the concession.” CORE Community Services did not respond to requests for comment Monday, and Bobby Jones Links was not immediately reachable.

According to the notice posted in Monday’s City Record, Ferry Point Links, LLC will pay a minimum of $300,000 a year to the city — or a share starting at 7% of the gross proceeds and gradually escalating to 10% by year 13, whichever is higher.

Those terms are slightly more favorable to the operator than those granted to Trump in 2012, in a 20-year deal struck to salvage a troubled project. Trump also committed $10 million to build a clubhouse.

@LogicalDonaldTrump

 

Queens Post

 Former US President Donald Trump has blasted the New York City Board of Elections handling of the Democratic primary mayoral vote, labeling it as “an embarrassment and total mess.”

Trump, in two separate emails sent out to his supporters Wednesday morning, ripped the Board for revealing overnight that more than 135,000 test ballots were included as part of the count – thereby plunging the vote into disarray.

The Queens native pounced on the confusion as justification for his own claims – and those of many of his supporters – that the 2020 Presidential Election was a “scam and a hoax.”

“Just like in the 2020 Presidential Election, it was announced overnight in New York City that vast irregularities and mistakes were made and that Eric Adams, despite an almost insurmountable lead, may not win the race,” Trump wrote in his first email.

“The fact is, based on what has happened, nobody will ever know who really won.”

Adams led Maya Wiley by around 9 percent and Kathryn Garcia by around 12 percent in the first-round tally results released last week in the crucial primary. The tabulation was based on the number of voters who had ranked each candidate first on their ballots.

The vote was thrown into chaos Tuesday when the Board of Elections released its preliminary results – only to yank them five hours later. The count was supposed to allocate ranked-choice votes and saw Garcia leapfrogging Wiley into second place and narrowing Adams’ lead in the process.

However, that count included thousands of test ballots that should not have been tallied.

The Board of Elections attributed the discrepancy to a technical error caused by a test run of the ranking system that had not been cleared from its computing system before the latest tabulations, according to The City.

Nevertheless, Trump was quick to take advantage of the controversy and ridiculed the city’s election process.

“Watch the mess you are about to see in New York City, it will go on forever. They should close the books and do it all over again, the old-fashioned way, when we had results that were accurate and meaningful,” Trump wrote.

City throwing $$$ at Trump cronies through homeless shelter non-profits

From Patch:

The 75-bed shelter at 243-02 Northern Blvd. will be run by the nonprofit Samaritan Village. It is slated to open in late 2021.

It would be the first homeless shelter in the Northeast Queens district overseen by Community Board 11, according to the NYC Department of Social Services, the umbrella agency for the Department of Homeless Services.

Oh? Well, Samaritan Village has a stellar reputation! (J/K. We know all about them.)

Hey, has anyone looked into who owns this building now? Let's take a look.

Hmmm...that address...that phone number...those initials... Why, this is LLC is part of the Bayrock Group! And we all know who Bayrock was deeply involved with, yes?

But that's not all! They also own a shelter in Hollis AND the controversial Manhattan shelter. We could keep going (and we will later)...but suffice it to say that they have entered the homeless shelter business head on. Years ago they were eyeballs deep in a development nightmare in Whitestone which got foreclosed on during the financial crisis.

So we're taking Trump's name off buildings and canceling his contracts with the city with righteous indignation while simultaneously enriching his checkered-past pals via multi million dollar social service contracts? Sounds very de Blasio-esque!

Does ANYONE in the media or government look into this shit or are they too busy navel gazing on Twitter and reflexively painting the people who question these things as bigots?

Queens Man gets acquitted again