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All posts tagged "sidney blumenthal"

Ex-Trump official issues grim warning to 'nefarious' president: 'This will unwind him'

Donald Trump has been criticized by a former aide who believes the president is personally profiting from the war in the Middle East.

Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as the White House Communications Director in Trump's first term, claimed that the Trump family is aiming to leverage the war and position of Donald Trump to build family wealth. Speaking to Legal AF, Scaramucci issued a warning to Trump and claimed corruption within the administration had hit a new high.

"People don't feel like he [Trump] is helping them at all," Legal AF host Sidney Blumenthal said. "He's welched on all of his promises in his second term. But more than that, there's something else going on. He's building a kleptocracy. He's stealing like crazy, from what I hear.

"I hear all kinds of anecdotes from all kinds of business people about what's going on and every way he's stealing. If you had a flashlight and wanted to look for where Trump was stealing, what would you look for? Where would you look?"

Scaramucci replied, "You would look in the Middle East. There's a lot of money that's been drafted to him in the Middle East for different things. There are a lot of donors who have given him money that have influenced his policy decisions. There's a lot going on. The insider trading is legendary.

"He's making announcements on Sunday. They're trading the markets, and then he's reversing those announcements before they can close out the positions. They've told people they want to be the richest family when he leaves office, and that they're estimating three or four billion dollars.

"It took 250 years, 47 elections. You finally got somebody in the seat that is malevolent and nefarious and a self-dealer to this extent. Yes, I know we had different scandals over time, but we're talking about mega, mega corruption. This will unwind him and unwind his party because if you look at what Viktor Orbán did, okay, Trump's got his playbook.

"Manipulate and intimidate the media, crush the judges, expand executive immunity, graft corruption, kleptocracy, and funnel the money to myself and then also see if I can alter and corrupt the elections and the electoral process. He's doing everything."

'Retribution?' Ex-White House aide argues Susie Wiles planned to hit Trump with interview

A former White House adviser questioned President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles after her explosive Vanity Fair interview dropped last week — suggesting she may have devised the move as "retribution."

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, argued that Wiles could be positioning herself as the "innocent bystander at the circus presiding as an enabler," in an opinion piece published in The Guardian Tuesday.

Blumenthal described how Wiles plays a role: she shirks responsibility, shrugs things off and blames others.

She also deceived Trump, he said.

"Conducting her interviews with Whipple, she misled Trump," Blumenthal wrote. "She walked out of a meeting with him at one point to see the Vanity Fair writer. 'Is this an emergency, that you have to leave?' Trump asked her. 'It’s an emergency,' she lied. 'It doesn’t involve you.' If Trump didn’t think it was about him, she knew he would not care."

And despite her actions, nothing has changed. Trump has said that he trusts her.

"If any White House aide had behaved as Wiles did with Whipple, that staffer would be either severely admonished or dismissed by the chief of staff," Blumenthal wrote.

Her moves could be viewed as payback against Trump — after Wiles admitted to having "quiet qualms" about some of his policies and inner circle, Blumenthal wrote. Ultimately, she has not pushed back against Trump, and it's likely because she wants to maintain her position.

"As chief of staff, she has stifled her temptation to intervene," Blumenthal added. "She knows it would be in vain and endanger her. In her interviews with Whipple, she presents herself as a manifestation of learned helplessness.

"But she may know instinctively that Trump, humiliated by her disclosures, might find a way slowly to humiliate her until she resigns. Or were the interviews themselves her retribution for the ineffectiveness he imposes on her?"