Hansen represented a group of investors in Trump’s casino company, which was going bankrupt (potentially costing the investors $1.25 billion in defaulted debt). Hansen told the local police department that the caller threatened his wife and children:
My name is Carmine. I don’t know why you’re fucking with Mr. Trump but if you keep fucking with Mr. Trump, we know where you live and we’re going to your house for your wife and kids.
According to Leopold, the FBI found Hansen’s account credible enough that they gave him a portable recording device and asked him to record any other calls he got. Meanwhile, they traced the number that had shown up on Hansen’s BlackBerry back to a Manhattan phone booth across the street from the theater that hosted The Late Show With David Letterman— on which Trump taped an appearance a few hours after the call was made.
.. Four men prevented Hatixbe Bajrushi and her son from leaving. Matthew Calamari, the hulking head of security, shoved the boy. Trump’s brother-in-law, James Grau, barked questions, demanding to know why they were there. Michael Nicoll, another guard, pushed them back when they tried to leave. Grau snatched her purse and passed it to Calamari, Nicoll, and Domenic Pezzo to rifle through.[…]
Calamari threatened to harm the family if they spoke to police about what happened, according to the lawsuit. After 90 minutes, the police arrived and the Bajrushis were freed.
None of the security guards named in the lawsuit were charged, although FBI special agents told BuzzFeed News that two of them were questioned as “persons of interest.”
Because neither of these allegations resulted in criminal charges, much less convictions, they’re not proof of anything. But they bear a resemblance to some aspects of Daniels’s story: the threatening phone calls, the willingness to threaten or harm children. At the very least, they’re evidence that she’s not the first person to accuse Trump surrogates of acting like B-movie thugs.
.. Cohen threatened Mak and the Daily Beast:
“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”
“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up … for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet … you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added.
Lawsuit threats from Trump lawyers aren’t unusual, but “What I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting … I’m going to mess your life up” goes beyond a simple lawsuit threat.
.. What’s really interesting is that Cohen hasn’t publicly denied threatening to make Daniels’s life hell in 2018. What he is denying is being involved in sending the thug to intimidate Daniels in 2011 — something Daniels isn’t actually accusing him of.
How Trump’s Bodyguard Keith Schiller KO’d James Comey
Ask around how Schiller got to where he is and you hear the story of a day in 1998 when he chanced to see Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples.
.. He happened to be at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on a drug case when he saw Maples there, as a complainant against her publicist Chuck Jones, whose fetish for shoes had prompted him to steal as many as 200 pairs from her. She was accompanied by a bodyguard.
.. Schiller decided that there was no reason why he himself could not also be a bodyguard. An assistant district attorney in the Maples case agreed to call Trump’s director of security, who in turn agreed to give Schiller a try.
.. Schiller became head of security in 2014—his predecessor, Matthew Calamari, having been promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Trump Organization.
.. by figuring that Trump would be worse for America and therefore better for Russia.
.. More often than not, Trump does not so much act as react to something he had seen on television
.. Trump no doubt resented Comey’s remark about feeling “mildly nauseous” at the thought he may have influenced the election. That was tantamount to saying that Trump had not won a great victory.
.. Imagine how those agents felt upon seeing video of Trump happily meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, along with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak
.. If nothing else, Trump and Schiller appear devoutly loyal to each other.