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Top Trump advisor tried to shake down cabinet hopefuls

Boris Epshteyn is in big trouble:

A top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump asked potential administration nominees to give him monthly consulting fees in exchange for advocating for them to Trump, a written review by Trump’s legal team concluded.... It found that among those whom Epshteyn had unsuccessfully solicited for payment was Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary.

Trump commissioned the report after he heard allegations that Epshteyn had been asking potential Cabinet nominees and others for money, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal document.

Epshteyn is already under indictment in Arizona for promoting a fake electors scheme to overturn the 2020 election, but obviously Trump doesn't care about that. He's also been charged with assault a couple of times stemming from bar fights, but Trump doesn't care about that either. He's also something of an asshole, getting into screaming matches with colleagues, but Trump doesn't care. And guess what?

Trump told Just the News in a brief interview, "I suppose every President has people around them who try to make money off them on the outside. It's a shame but it happens," he said. "But no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money. They should only be here to Make America Great Again."

He continued to Just the News: "No one can promise any endorsement or nomination except me. I make these decisions on my own, period."

It sure doesn't sound like Trump cares much about this either. "It's a shame," but hey, in Trumpworld everyone is expected to be on the take.

26 thoughts on “Top Trump advisor tried to shake down cabinet hopefuls

  1. cmayo

    What he's saying with both his words and his actions is that the bribes have to come to him, not to his flunky. The only crime his flunky committed from his crime boss's perspective was not paying the don his due.

    1. Altoid

      Or alternatively, the only bribing/grifting he wants to hear about is bribing/grifting he's authorized. No underling can run his own game unless the boss gives the okay (and maybe the boss gets his cut, but maybe he lets that go), and *especially* not when it's grifting off access to the boss himself.

      I think that's what he means by "no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money": that only he gets to decide who makes money and how-- a little rake-off by servants padding their expenses can sometimes be tolerated, but no free-lancing or horning in on the boss's game.

      OTOH this is the kind of behavior he not only expects from his underlings but *wants* from them. If he didn't, he'd be looking for a different class of underlings.

      1. gibba-mang

        This is exactly it. Trump is running a federal organized crime operation and nobody, I mean NOBODY, can shake anyone down without his approval and cut.

        His tariffs and deportation operations will offer "protection" to those that pay him in power, control or money. He's gonna be Putin 2.0

        1. Altoid

          And just think of how much he can rake in from the tariff exemptions that presidents can give to individual named firms . . .

  2. Brett

    I think it’s great when they rip each other off. Trump steals from his friends, so it’s fitting that the rest do too - fish rots from the head.

  3. msobel

    This is excellent news for Trump. Now he has an additional source of income, assuming Boris shares his information on who paid, And of course, Trump must wet his beak.

  4. kenalovell

    Provided Epshteyn's clients all paid Trump the Mar-a-Lago "membership fee", which is now a cool million, I assume he had no objection.

  5. pjcamp1905

    "I suppose every President has people around them who try to make money off them on the outside."

    Um, no. Some presidents associate themselves with people who don't take bribes.

  6. Josef

    "But no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money. They should only be here to MAKE ME MONEY". A variation of the Truman sign, the bribe starts here.

  7. QuakerInBasement

    "The scathing review of Boris Epshteyn, a top lawyer to Trump who has extensive sway in the transition, was prepared by Trump’s attorneys in recent days, according to two people familiar with the report."

    And does one of those two people have a name that rhymes with Schmelon Shmusk?

  8. Gilgit

    OK, for some reason no one wants to come out and say whether or not he is still a Trump advisor. I can assume since no one said he is no longer an advisor he still is one and, as Kevin said, Trump doesn't care about this.

    But if he's still an advisor or not would seem to be a big part of the story and no one wants to say it out loud. Is Trump going to make a decision later? Is he not going to?

  9. KJK

    This schmuck obviously didn't give Trump his cut, that's why he is in trouble. Based on "Goodfellas" and "The Sopranos" , he was suppose to kick up 10% to the boss. I assume it is the same in the Trump Crime Organization (aka, his second term). So now he owns the principal plus the vig for every week he doesn't pay up.

      1. KJK

        The mafia is a much better organized, effective, and disciplined crime family, than the Trump Crime Organization, with rules that have been passed on for generations. These shit stains will eat each other alive, to get close to the Orange Jesus.

        1. Altoid

          And that's exactly the way Cheeto wants it. None of this "keep things humming smoothly along as a demonstration of my control" and watching the money roll in. No, he loves and needs the shows, both of them-- the public flim-flam where his every outsized whim is all anybody can talk about, and the more private one where the underlings are tearing each others' throats out over which of them is farther up the boss's ass.

  10. The Big Texan

    It's like having a Corleone Administration. For a second time because Americans didn't learn anything the last time. We as a society apparently have the memory of a goldfish.

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