NY Prosecutor Scrambles To Salvage Anti-Trump Case, Argues Deutsche Bank Being Happy Is 'Irrelevant'

It gets even better…

Not only did that completely dismantle the prosecution's core argument that the bank was harmed by Trump inflating his assets, Trump's former private banker, Rosemary Vrablic, testified on Wednesday that the bank had aggressively pursued the real estate mogul as a 'whale' client.

"We are whale hunting … haven’t seen him yet," she told bankers in a Nov. 29, 2011 email entered into evidence by Trump's defense team and displayed on screens during the trial. "Also maybe Dad will convert like Ivanka did," she added.

Vrablic is one of four current and former employees called to testify this week as part of Trump’s defense against claims brought last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The state alleges Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion a year to get better terms from banks and insurers, reaping $250 million in “illegal profit” over more than a decade.

While James has portrayed Deutsche Bank as a victim of Trump’s lies, the former president is seeking testimony supporting his argument that lenders were eager to do business with him and weren’t bothered by discrepancies in the value of his assets. -Bloomberg

What's more, Trump attorney Jesus Suarez on Wednesday asked Vrablic to comment on internal documents from 2014 which described plans to build "lasting, broad private banking relationships" with a list of US clients.

Vrablic, who brokered a loan for Trump's Doral golf course in Florida as well as properties in Chicago and Washington, testified that Trump fit the bill because "he was in the US commercial real estate market and had a successful track record."

Internal documents further showed that the bank made $6 million from Trump loans in 2013 alone.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ny-prosecutor-scrambles-salvage-anti-trump-case-argues-deutsche-bank-being-happy

Bank raised red flags about $5 million loan from Chinese firm to Hunter Biden, memo reveals

Some of proceeds from 2017 Chinese loan ended up in Joe Biden's account, congressional investigators say

Amoney laundering investigator for a bank raised serious concerns in 2017 about a $5 million loan that the Biden family received from the arm of an Chinese energy firm, flagging the transaction as "high risk" and possibly tied to efforts by the communist to gain influence through Hunter Biden, according to an explosive new memo released by congressional investigators Wednesday.

The unnamed examiner specifically raised concerns that the loan had no paperwork, that a Biden family firm distributed large sums of the money to a Hunter Biden law firm and that the recipient firm inside the Biden family did not appear to have an investments in need of a loan, the memo released by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer stated.

"We have been monitoring the subject customer due to the PEP designation and observations on the account activity as well as recent negative news Indicate this entity to be high risk," the money laundering investigator wrote bank official as he traced the money from Northern International Capitol Holdings (HK) Limited, a firm tied to China CEFC Energy, through the Biden family's Hudson West III firm and to Hunter Biden's Owasco PC law firm.

"These payments were indicated as management fees and reimbursements. We find It unusual that approximately 58% of the funds were transferred to the law firm in a few months and the frequency of payments appear erratic," the investigator's memo noted, "It was also previously indicated Hudson West III LLC does not currently have any investment projects at this time, which raises further concerns as millions in fees are being paid but does not appear to have any services rendered by Owasco PC."

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/bank-raised-red-flags-about-5-million-loan-chinese-firm-hunter

'Censorship-Industrial Complex' architect suggested tanking Tesla after Musk purchased Twitter

Tesla shareholders should be "really angry" at Musk for crossing regulators that demand more censorship, Stanford Internet Observatory leader said while warning Musk could cripple misinformation research.

An architect of a Department of Homeland Security-backed private consortium whose aim was squelching purported election "misinformation" suggested that Tesla investors retaliate when its cofounder and CEO Elon Musk bought Twitter, according to a little-noticed podcast at the time.

On an "emergency edition" of the Stanford Internet Observatory's in-house show Moderated Content Oct. 28, 2022, a day after the sale went through, then-director Alex Stamos and Stanford law professor Evelyn Douek repeatedly invoked the threat to Tesla from Musk's stated intent to make Twitter less censorious.

SIO co-led the Election Integrity Partnership, which reported a 35% success rate of getting tech platforms to label, remove or restrict content in the months leading up to the 2020 election.

Emails from another participant, recently made public by the House Judiciary Committee, showed DHS and its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency asked the groups to set up the consortium, with CISA and other agencies reporting purported misinformation through the ticketing system. Removal requests targeted Just the News among other media outlets.

Stamos, also Facebook's former chief security officer, and Douek mentioned Tesla 14 times on the podcast, which was flagged this week by Foundation for Freedom Online Executive Director Mike Benz, a former State Department official and critic of the "Censorship-Industrial Complex" that includes SIO.

Tesla shareholders should be "really angry" at Musk for his "huge strategic mistake" in buying Twitter, Stamos said, because the electric-car company has "huge exposure to all of these different regions that want to control the internet," which will be "the number one fight over the next 10 years" around the world.

Musk has made himself "personally responsible for content moderation" on Twitter when Tesla has a factory in Berlin, "the headquarters of European content moderation with Germany and NetzDG," and a quarter of its revenue comes from Communist-controlled China, Stamos said.

"Musk has bought himself into a hellish existence" especially overseas because "his personal focus has been on a handful of US political disinformation decisions or harassment decisions," including Twitter's de-platforming of President Trump and satire site The Babylon Bee and suppression of reporting on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, Stamos said.

https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/censorship-industrial-complex-architect-suggested-tanking-tesla-after-musk

"They Can Go F**k Themselves" - Musk Unleashes On Advertising Boycott "Blackmail"

In a truth-bomb-filled interview with Andrew Ross-Sorkin, at the DealBook Conference, Elon Musk silenced a room full of liberal elites as he proclaimed that: "…if someone wants to blackmail me with advertising, they can go fuck themselves."

Reflecting on the actions of various companies to his now-viral retweet of a so-called anti-semitic comment - specifically mentioning 'Bob' (Iger from Disney) - Musk confirmed he did not want them to advertise while noting that "an advertising boycott will kill X."

"Don't advertise. If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f**k yourself.

Go f**k yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is."

But, he explains, "the whole world will know those advertisers killed the company… and we'll document it in great detail."

Sorkin replies "those advertisers will say, 'we didnt' kill the company' to which Musk cuts him off:

"Oh yeah, tell that to earth.. and let's see how earth responds to that."

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/they-can-go-fk-themselves-musk-slams-advertising-boycott-blackmail