The questions surrounding Paul Manafort continue: The Cypriot attorney general said the country’s anti-money-laundering unit handed documents involving bank accounts linked to him to U.S. investigators; a spokesman said the accounts were for legitimate business purposes. All-cash real-estate purchases he made in New York have received attention; he denied wrongdoing. (Quartz, NBC, NBC, WNYC)
Trumpcare’s Lonely, and Seedy, Supporter
Some of the only outside praise has come from the chief executive of Anthem, the country’s second largest insurer.
.. one of the bill’s few high-profile fans may not even support it on the merits. Instead, Anthem appears to be providing political cover to the administration at the same time that company officials are lobbying the administration for a favorable decision on another matter.
.. Anthem’s best remaining hope for the deal is probably to persuade the Trump administration to take a different view of the merger and unblock it.
.. Rather, Swedish lauded a few provisions (which would clearly help Anthem’s bottom line) and offered enough kind words that the White House could claim Anthem supported the bill.
.. More significantly, President Trump and Tom Price, the Health and Human Services secretary, granted Swedish a private meeting this week. At it, Swedish lobbied for changes to the bill that would benefit Anthem
.. Aetna responded with a bold attempt at quid pro quo. It threatened administration officials that it would withdraw from Obamacare insurance markets unless the merger was approved
.. Aetna executives tried to keep their conversations about the threats to phone calls rather than email “to avoid leaving a paper trail,” as a federal judge later found.
Scandal Fatigue and the Trump Ethical Swamp
a major Chinese financial services firm may invest $4 billion in a Manhattan skyscraper owned by the family of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. And that Kushner’s family stands to take home about $500 million for itself from the transaction.
.. The Kushners would become equity partners with the Chinese firm, Anbang Insurance Group.
.. Best of all for the Kushners, the deal would rescue the family company from the consequences of overpaying for the building, 666 Fifth Avenue, which it purchased in 2007 for $1.8 billion. It would also buy out another prominent Trump political backer who invested in the building, Steve Roth of Vornado Realty, for 10 times his original investment.
.. The New York Times reported in January that Kushner spearheaded the talks with Anbang about an investment in his family’s business
.. “A classic way you influence people is by financially helping their family,” one public interest advocate told the Bloomberg reporters about the Anbang deal.
.. If we’ve learned anything about Trump in the chaotic seven weeks since he assumed the presidency, it’s that his entire clan will test our capacity for surprise, distaste and even outrage when it comes to financial conflicts of interest.
.. the sheer volume of flagrant conflicts that have already emerged may induce “scandal fatigue” in anyone who values – in the most nonpartisan and most non-ideological of ways — ethics and good government.
Steve Bannon and the Making of an Economic Nationalist
The controversial White House counselor says his father’s 2008 financial trauma helped crystallize his antiglobalist views and led to a political hardening; ‘I’m going to be totally wiped out’
“The only net worth my father had beside his tiny little house was that AT&T stock. And nobody is held accountable?” Steve Bannon, 63, said in a recent interview. “All these firms get bailed out. There’s no equity taken from anybody. There’s no one in jail. These companies are all overleveraged, and everyone looked the other way.”
.. Steve Bannon idealizes the bygone corporate era that gave his father the kind of stability that he himself never pursued. Marty Bannon, who voted for Mr. Trump, sought a life of security, while the thrice-divorced Steve Bannon craves chaos and drama. He has served in the Navy, dabbled in penny stocks
.. “He’s the backbone of the country, the everyman who plays by the rules, the hardworking dad that delays his own gratification for the family,” Steve Bannon says. “The world is probably 95% Marty Bannons, and 5% Steve Bannons. And that’s probably the right metric for a stable society.”
.. Under his leadership, the site ran increasingly controversial headlines such as “The Solution to Online ‘Harassment’ Is Simple: Women Should Log Off,” “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women In Tech, They Just Suck At Interviews,” and “Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage.”
.. ideology is less about Republicans and Democrats than about middle class versus elites—nationalists versus globalists. He says that explains his opposition to open borders, political corruption and what he views as political correctness.
.. He expected to become a priest as an adult, he says, but met his future wife and soon started his family. He declined an offer to play for the Washington Senators
.. I had great faith in AT&T,” Marty Bannon says. “At their peak they were the best company for service. That was inbred. Fire, flood, storm or whatever, they called you and you went. Whatever time of night. And you stayed out there until the job was finished.”
.. His children nicknamed him “Safety Sam.”
.. Marty Bannon says he lost more than $100,000 because he sold the shares for less than he paid for them. It was a decision he made without consulting a broker or his family, including his two sons with investment backgrounds, who only learned about the sale days after it was finished. The shares subsequently regained much of their value.
.. Jim Cramer told “Today” show viewers to pull money from the stock market if they needed any cash for the next five years. Steve Bannon says the warning spooked his father.
.. “He was older, in his 80s. But all these guys from the Depression, it’s a risk-averse generation because of the horrible things they saw in their youth. He was rattled.”
.. The way Steve Bannon sees it, the institutions his father put his faith in failed him.
.. Steve Bannon thinks U.S. companies should once again feel more responsible to their communities. “Why can’t you revert back to a golden age?” he asks. “You can.”
.. “The government created this problem,” Marty Bannon says. “The elites, they got bailed out. Everybody else in the country, whatever happened, happened, and they just had to move on.”