Federal prosecutors demand Cindy Yang records from Mar-a-Lago, Trump campaign

[OnDoutside]

Surprised this slipped under the radar yesterday...

Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., this week sent subpoenas to Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, and Trump Victory, a political fundraising committee, demanding they turn over all records relating to Republican Party donor Li “Cindy” Yang and several of her associates and companies, the Miami Herald has learned.

Yang, a South Florida massage-parlor entrepreneur, is the target of a public corruption investigation seeking to determine if she funneled money from China to the president’s re-election campaign or otherwise violated campaign-finance laws. She became a GOP donor in the 2016 election cycle and opened a consulting company that promised Chinese businesspeople the chance to attend events at Mar-a-Lago and gain access to Trump and his inner circle. Some of those events were campaign fundraisers that required guests to buy tickets for entry, payments that are considered political contributions. Foreign nationals are prohibited from donating to U.S. political campaigns.

SNIP

One subpoena, issued by a federal grand jury in West Palm Beach, compels Mar-a-Lago to turn over all documents, records and communications relating to Yang, as well as 11 other people, one charity and seven companies affiliated with her, according to a person familiar with the investigation who asked for anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. The people named in that subpoena include Yang’s family members, former employees at her massage parlors and several donors to Trump Victory. Prosecutors were trying to serve the subpoena to Mar-a-Lago through a South Florida law firm, the source said.

The second subpoena, for Trump Victory, was served to attorneys at a Washington, D.C., law firm. It seeks campaign-finance records relating to Yang and her associates. Mar-a-Lago is owned by the Trump Organization, the president’s family company. Trump Victory is a joint fundraising committee for the president and the Republican National Committee. It supports his re-election efforts.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article230946518.html

[SHRED]

1. More for tRump to ignore

[Maru Kitteh]

2. Help from GY-NA! He'll fall all over himself kissing their asses now, moreso

than he already is.

[gratuitous]

3. This would appear to be a significant development

There were other stories to cover yesterday, but yeah, this should have made the cut. The details are pretty damning, as evidenced by the assault on the comments section by the flying monkey brigade, in all-out defense of their emperor.

[real Cannabis calm]

4. here's a 5th recommendation

[real Cannabis calm]

5. It won't "slip under the RADAR today!

[real Cannabis calm]

6. kick

[struggle4progress]

7. Trump Donor Acknowledges Providing Chinese Execs "Access" in US

MAY 17, 2019
DAVID CORN
DAN FRIEDMAN

... Li “Cindy” Yang, the Florida massage parlor entrepreneur and Trump donor who has been part of the recent controversy involving Donald Trump’s private resort, Mar-a-Lago, filed a defamation lawsuit against the parent company of the Miami Herald. The suit focused on a Herald story that had placed Yang in the spotlight by reporting she had posed for a photo with Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club during a Super Bowl party in February and noting that Yang had founded the day spa where Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, had been busted for allegedly soliciting prostitution. (Yang sold that particular spa years earlier.) The suit claims the newspaper published false statements about Yang and her business that suggested illegal conduct had occurred in her spas. But the suit also contained a surprising passage that acknowledged that Yang had also run a business that provided Chinese executives “access to American business and political culture”—and this included entry to events at Mar-a-Lago.

After the Herald story appeared in March, Mother Jones reported that Yang owned a firm that had offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family via visits to Mar-a-Lago. The company, GY US Investments, noted on its website—which has since been taken down—that its business consulting services addressed clients looking to make high-level connections in the United States. On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, the firm said its “activities for clients” included offering them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures.” The company boasted it had “arranged taking photos with the President” and suggested it can provide clients with access to a “White House and Capitol Hill Dinner” ...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/in-defamation-lawsuit-a-trump-donor-acknowledges-providing-chinese-execs-access-in-us/