Since departing Washington for Miami back in January, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have maintained relatively low profiles. Oh, sure, Kushner penned an op-ed in which he offered Joe Biden some unsolicited foreign policy advice, and Trump has made herself readily available for the paparazzi to catch her jogging with Kushner, eating ice cream with her kids, and pointing at things with her assistant. But otherwise, it’s been unusually quiet on the Javanka front. And that’s probably by design as the couple attempts to rehab their image and shake off the taint of the last four years in general and the January 6 insurrection specifically, not to mention the unfortunate press that comes after forcing one’s Secret Service detail to go to extreme lengths to “find a bathroom.”
Of course, as a couple of people who see themselves returning to the White House in a presidential capacity—they’ve already determined Trump will be the first woman POTUS—the duo are no doubt planning their next moves behind the scenes, and on Tuesday, one of the projects they’ve been working on was revealed.
Per Axios:
Rollins told Axios she hopes the group’s budget will double to $40 million in 2022. It’s not clear how AFPI plans to fundraise, though if it‘s anything like how Trump’s campaign did it, it’ll be wildly underhanded and deceitful. Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that over the course of the 2020 election, Team Trump ripped off unwitting supporters for tens of millions of dollars through a simple yet extremely shady scheme in which the default option for donations authorized the campaign to transfer the pledged amount from people’s bank accounts not once, but every single week. Later, the campaign introduced a second prechecked box that doubled a person’s contribution and was known internally as a “money bomb.” In order for people to have noticed this before it was too late, they would have had to wade through “lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language,” the Times wrote. Few people did, and in the final two and half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and their shared accounts were forced to issue a staggering 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. Days later, the Times reported that the political arm of the House Republicans had upped the ante re: bilking supporters, with a truly psychotic prechecked box that warned “If you UNCHECK this box, we will have to tell Trump you’re a DEFECTOR.”
In other Trump fundraising ploys, a significant portion of the money the ex-president’s legal defense fund raised—ostensibly for 2020 election suits—went to his Save America super PAC, which he can tap to pay for all kinds of personal expenses. But we’re sure this group will be entirely above board and legit. Ivanka and Jared would never be involved with something that wasn’t.
According to expert called by Derek Chauvin’s defense, George Floyd was resisting arrest by attempting to breathe
Incidentally, Barry Brodd, the Chauvin team’s expert witness, is being paid for his testimony.
And speaking of some of the worst people in the world…
Meet Elvis Harold Reyes. Per The Washington Post:
According to the Post, when immigrants would contact Reyes for help, he would promise to obtain driver’s licenses and work permits for them for roughly $5,000. Then, he would ask his victims to sign blank forms and would create fraudulent asylum claims without telling clients what he had told immigration officials. The forms would automatically initiate hearings and interviews, but Reyes listed inaccurate contact information so he could personally receive all the communications. When his clients didn’t show up for the required court dates, removal proceedings were automatically triggered.
According to prosecutors, Reyes filed at least 225 fraudulent forms, stole a minimum of $411,868, and caused at least six of his clients to be deported. “Some client-victims have already lost their life savings and there is no way to estimate the likely thousands of dollars that each victim will have to spend to try to undo the harm that Reyes inflicted on their immigration status,” prosecutors wrote in a memo.
Report: Andrew Cuomo thinks highly of, has bragged about his sexual prowess
So much so that, according to The New York Times, he mentioned it to his staff:
A spokesman for the governor, who has denied accusations of sexual misconduct from a number of women, called the Times’ account “a disgusting and defamatory lie.” The Times also reported that Cuomo previously compared himself to Sonny Corleone, the violent, impulsive son in The Godfather, which the same spokesperson insisted never happened, writing that Cuomo “never uses Godfather references,” and adding, “This is an anti-Italian, bigoted, false, defamatory statement.”
Elsewhere!
Moderna Says COVID Shot Remains 90% Effective After Six Months (Bloomberg)
Biden officials bracing for possibility of weekslong disruption to J&J vaccine supply (Politico)
$50K of student loan forgiveness would wipe out federal debt for 36M, new data shows (Politico)
Kenosha Cop Who Shot Jacob Blake Returns to Work Like Nothing Ever Happened (TDB)
Tax Cheats Are Costing the U.S. $1 Trillion a Year, IRS Estimates (Bloomberg)
Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort has investing advice for the Reddit crowd (NYP)
Egypt impounds Ever Given ship over $900m Suez Canal compensation bill (CNN)
Tortoise with joint problems gets around on roller board at German zoo (UPI)
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