Trump’s Future: Tons of Cash and Plenty of Options for Spending It

Trump’s Future: Tons of Cash and Plenty of Options for Spending It

Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman  December 18, 2020
Election workers during the Fulton County ballot recount in Atlanta on Nov. 14, 2020. (Nicole Craine/The New York Times)
Election workers during the Fulton County ballot recount in Atlanta on Nov. 14, 2020. (Nicole Craine/The New York Times)

 

Donald J. Trump will exit the White House as a private citizen next month perched atop a pile of campaign cash unheard-of for an outgoing president, and with few legal limits on how he can spend it.

Deflated by a loss he has yet to acknowledge, Trump has cushioned the blow by coaxing huge sums of money from his loyal supporters — often under dubious pretenses — raising roughly $250 million since Election Day along with the national party.

More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, according to people familiar with the matter, which Trump will control after he leaves office. Those funds, which far exceed what previous outgoing presidents had at their disposal, provide him with tremendous flexibility for his post-presidential ambitions: He could use the money to quell rebel factions within the party, reward loyalists, fund his travels and rallies, hire staff, pay legal bills and even lay the groundwork for a far-from-certain 2024 run.

The postelection blitz of fundraising has cemented Trump’s position as an unrivaled force and the preeminent fundraiser of the Republican Party, even in defeat. His largest single day for online donations actually came after Election Day — raising almost $750,000 per hour Nov. 6. So did his second-biggest day. And his third.

“Right now, he is the Republican Party,” said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who worked on Trump’s reelection campaign. “The party knows that virtually every dollar they’ve raised in the last four years, it’s because of Donald Trump.”

Trump has long acted with few inhibitions when it comes to spending other people’s money, and he has spent millions of campaign dollars on his own family businesses in the last five years. But new records show an even more intricate intermingling of Trump’s political and familial interests than was previously known.

Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and a senior campaign adviser, served on the board — and was named on drafts of the incorporation papers — of a limited liability company through which the Trump political operation spent more than $700 million since 2019, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The arrangement has never been disclosed. One of the other board members and signatories in the draft papers of the LLC, American Made Media Consultants, was John Pence, the nephew of Vice President Mike Pence and a senior Trump adviser. The LLC has been criticized for purposefully obscuring the ultimate destination of hundreds of millions of dollars of spending.

Lara Trump and John Pence were originally listed as president and vice president on the incorporation papers, documents reviewed by the Times showed. Sean Dollman, the campaign chief financial officer, was the AMMC treasurer.

“Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the AMMC board in October 2019 to focus solely on their campaign activities; however, there was never any ethical or legal reason why they could not serve on the board in the first place,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesperson for Trump. “John and Lara were not compensated by AMMC for their service as board members.” Murtaugh also said the two were not compensated for other positions they were listed as holding.

For Trump, the quarter-billion dollars he and the party raised over six weeks is enough to pay off all of his remaining campaign bills and to fund his fruitless legal challenges and still leave tens of millions of dollars.

Trump’s plans, however, remain extremely fluid. His refusal to accept Joe Biden’s victory has stunted internal political planning, aides say, with some advisers in his shrinking circle of confidants hesitant to even approach him about setting a course of action for 2021 and beyond.

Those who have spoken with Trump say he appears shrunken, and over his job; this detachment is reflected in a Twitter feed that remains stubbornly more focused on unfounded allegations of fraud than on the death toll from the raging pandemic.

Trump has talked about running again in 2024 — but he also may not. He has created this new PAC, but a different political entity could still be in the works, people involved in the discussions said. Talk of counterprogramming Biden’s inauguration with a splashy event or an announcement of his own is currently on hold.

Trump had been tentatively planning to go to Georgia on Saturday, according to a senior Republican official, to support the two Republicans in Senate runoff races there. But he is still angry at the state’s Republican governor and secretary of state for accepting the election result and simply doesn’t want to make the trip. There is some discussion about him going after the Christmas holiday, but it’s not clear he will be in a more magnanimous mood by then.

But even as he displays indifference toward the Georgia races, the Trump political apparatus has taken advantage of the grassroots energy and excitement over the two runoffs to juice its own fundraising. Email and text solicitations have pitched Trump supporters to give to a “Georgia Election Fund,” even though no funds go directly to either Republican senator on the ballot, irritating some Senate GOP strategists.

Instead, the fine print shows 75% of the donations to the Georgia fund go to Trump’s new PAC, called Save America, with 25% to the Republican National Committee.

After weeks of shouting “FRAUD” to supporters in emails and asking them to back an “Election Defense Fund” (which also sent 75% of donations to his new PAC), the Trump operation has subtly shifted its tone and focus, returning to more sustainable pre-election themes, like hawking signed hats and opposing socialism.

Trump and the RNC did spend about $15 million combined in legal costs and other spending related to disputing the election between Oct. 15 and Nov. 23, according to federal records.

Besides a $3 million payment to Wisconsin to fund a partial recount in the state, Trump’s largest recount-related payment did not go to attorney fees but to American Made Media Consultants, the Trump-linked LLC on which Lara Trump was listed an original signatory. The firm received $2.2 million Nov. 12 in two payments labeled “SMS advertising,” better known as text messaging.

American Made Media Consultants was the subject of a complaint to the Federal Election Commission earlier this year that accused it of “laundering” funds to obscure the ultimate beneficiary of Trump campaign spending. Federal records show the firm had more than $700 million in funds flow through it since 2019. The vast majority of funds were spent before Lara Trump resigned from the board.

For a sense of scale of just how much money Donald Trump will have at his disposal, the new Trump PAC’s $60 million-plus haul — and counting — is about as much money as he spent to win his party’s presidential nomination in 2016.

Some campaign finance experts have speculated that Trump might try to use the excess of cash in his new PAC, formally known as a leadership PAC, to pay for his own personal future legal quagmires as he faces investigations once he leaves office. (A senior Trump adviser said they don’t expect the money to be used for personal legal needs.)

“A leadership PAC is a slush fund,” said Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a group that supports increased political transparency. “There are very, very, very few limits on what he can’t spend money on.”

In the last five years, Trump has never shied from spending hundreds of thousands of dollars from his contributors on his private businesses, a practice he could continue or expand while out of office.

Just since mid-October, the Trump Victory Committee, a joint account operated with the RNC, has paid more than $710,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection, while his reelection account has continued to pay more than $37,000 per month to rent space in Trump Tower.

It is not clear where his post-presidential operation will be based or who will run it, although several advisers expect it will be in Florida, where he is planning to move.

But as a former president, Trump will be allocated a certain amount of taxpayer money for staff and office space for life after leaving the White House, and he is beginning to have discussions about which aides from the West Wing will accompany him.

His senior political advisers — Bill Stepien, Justin Clark and Jason Miller, among others — are among those who may stay involved with him politically.

While Trump’s post-presidency remains largely shapeless, he has demonstrated his desire to exert his control on national politics, especially among Republicans.

He has already endorsed Ronna McDaniel, a close ally, to serve another term as chair of the RNC. He has floated primary challenges to Republicans, such as Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who have crossed him by rejecting his baseless theories of election fraud. He has even asked aides how he can retain control of the party if he isn’t a candidate.

One person close to Trump said that he has sounded less certain about declaring he’s running in 2024 than he had just two weeks ago. That uncertainty is causing anxiety for a number of advisers and aides to the president, some of whom might join other campaigns but are stuck in limbo until Trump makes up his mind. Announcing for president would trigger tighter rules on Trump’s political spending and added financial disclosures, including of Trump’s personal finances, that simply operating a PAC would not.

Trump’s future ambitions have also created a cloud over who exactly will control some of the most valuable assets from the 2020 campaign, including Trump’s lengthy list of supporters from whom he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Both the RNC and Trump are entitled to some of this valuable voter data, and efforts at “decoupling” the data are underway but expected to last months.

The RNC has typically stayed out of presidential primaries, but no former president in the modern era has seriously considered running again after losing reelection, putting the party apparatus in uncharted territory. His embrace of McDaniel as an ally in running the party could further complicate matters.

“There’s no bully pulpit as large as the presidency, but nevertheless, President Trump is likely to play a significant role in the future of the Republican Party,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “It’s very difficult to imagine him following the same pattern as George W. Bush, Barack Obama and other presidents have followed in keeping their mouths shut and letting the new president try to govern.”

White House counsel’s office warned Trump not to fire Chris Wray

White House counsel’s office warned Trump not to fire Chris Wray

December 16, 2020

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has come so close to firing FBI Director Christopher Wray in recent months that the White House counsel’s office has warned him not to do so because it could put him in potential legal jeopardy, according to a senior administration official with direct knowledge of the discussion and a U.S. official familiar with the discussion.

White House lawyers “strongly” advised Trump against firing another FBI director out of concern that doing so would risk creating the perception that a “loyalty test” was being imposed on a position that traditionally has maintained independence from the White House, according to the senior administration official.

The lawyers, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, specifically said that firing Wray could spark legal issues similar to those raised after Trump ousted James Comey as FBI director in 2017 in the midst of the Russia investigation, the officials said.

Their concern was that firing Wray could be seen as retaliation because the president has publicly pressured him to take specific actions on certain investigations — such as announcing a probe into President-elect Joe Biden’s son — and then expressed frustration that Wray has not followed his suggestions.

Trump’s firing of Comey, whom he’d asked to drop an investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, became a key part of the special counsel’s probe into whether he had obstructed justice.

As a result, the president’s legal team advised him against firing Wray, the officials said.

While Trump’s frustrations with Attorney General Bill Barr boiled over in recent days, and Barr resigned on Monday, the president’s advisers hope he’s been persuaded against ousting Wray. Multiple current and former senior administration officials said firing Wray does not appear imminent, but they also point out that the president could make such a decision on a whim at any time. Indeed officials said they are prepared for Trump to go on a firing spree before leaving office next month.

“I wouldn’t take anything off the table in coming weeks,” the senior administration official said of personnel changes, as well as presidential pardons. The official said to expect “some more fairly significant terminations in the national security or intelligence community.”

It’s unclear how Trump’s complaints that Wray hasn’t done anything to investigate Biden’s son Hunter might affect his job given the announcement last week that the FBI has already been conducting such an investigation since 2018. Trump had criticized Barr for not publicly disclosing the investigation before the election.

Trump also recently threatened to fire acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, according to two senior administration officials. The president blamed Wolf for the public statements from Christopher Krebs, the former head of the agency in charge of election security at the Homeland Security Department. Krebs has called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”

But some of the president’s advisers convinced him to leave Wolf in his job, and they believe — or at least hope — he won’t be fired.

The White House declined to comment on the president’s current thinking about firing members of his administration. “If the president doesn’t have confidence in someone he will let you know,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “We have no personnel announcements at this time.”

The likelihood of Trump firing top officials he’s been frustrated with or feels betrayed by is expected to increase over the holidays, the current and former officials said.

CIA Director Gina Haspel was so convinced she might be fired that she was seen cleaning personal items out of her office at CIA headquarters last month after Trump ousted Defense Secretary Mark Esper, according to three former and current administration officials familiar with the matter.

Haspel’s job has been rumored to be in doubt in the weeks after the election, in part because of her reluctance to release classified documents related to Russian interference in the 2016 election, even when other intelligence community leaders like John Ratcliffe have pushed to release the information. But her position may now be more secure than it was even a few weeks ago, officials said, given that several Senate Republicans conveyed their support for her to the White House.

Still, officials said Trump could decide to fire Haspel anyway. “That hasn’t been put to rest,” one former senior administration official said.

When asked about Haspel packing up her personal items in her office, a CIA spokesperson said, “I stopped by Director Haspel’s office, and right there on her conference room table was one of her favorite mementos, a bowl with the London skyline.”

Florida shuts down bay known nationally for its oysters

Florida shuts down bay known nationally for its oysters

Brendan Farrington                            

 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Because of a dwindling oyster population, a Florida agency voted unanimously Wednesday to shut down oyster harvesting in Apalachicola Bay through the end of 2025, dealing a blow to an area that historically produced 90% of the state’s oysters and 10% of the nation’s.

People in the area are divided between coming up with a long-term plan to save the industry, and allowing it to continue on a limited basis. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation commission did express the hope of reopening the bay before the ban on commercial and recreational harvesting ends if oysters recover sooner.

“If we can get there faster, that’s everyone’s desire,” Commissioner Michael Sole said. “Look, time is money for these people. I understand why we’re saying a five-year time horizon, I just think that should be the outside edge of our closure and we should be driven to doing what we can to make this as fast as possible.”

The state is using a $20 million grant to help restore the bay, which used to support more than 100 families with its abundance of oysters.

“It breaks my heart, man. I’ve watched boats out there my whole life,” said Brandon Martina, who works at Lynn’s Quality Oysters, a bay-front business his family has run since 1971. The business started out as a wholesale oyster-shucking house, but as supplies dwindled, they converted it into a retail seafood shop and restaurant.

But instead of serving Apalachicola oysters, they’re buying them from Texas.

“We went from running tractor-trailer loads to getting maybe eight to 10 bags a day, so we just started doing a hatch shell bar,” he said.

The commission issued an emergency order in July shutting down oyster harvesting on Aug. 1 until it could consider the five-year shutdown. The industry has struggled for years, in large part because of a drain on freshwater flowing into the bay. Atlanta uses the water upstream as a water supply, and as it has drawn more water, it’s affected the salinity level in the bay that helps oysters thrive.

David Barber owns a wholesale and retail oyster and seafood business in nearby Eastpoint. He’s one of less than a handful of wholesalers in a region that used to have dozens, but now he’s selling Texas oysters.

Still, he thinks a five-year closure is going too far, saying the right conditions could help oyster populations spring back quickly.

“They should listen to the people who work the bay, especially some older guys,” Barber said. “I don’t think nobody in the county is against them closing it for a little while to let them repopulate. … If it takes five years, that’s another thing, but they can do it year by year.”

The sweet, salty, plump mollusks are prized well beyond the region, and tourists have flocked to tiny, lost-in-time Apalachicola — population 2,354 and known to locals as Apalach — to enjoy water views at restaurants that served raw, shucked oysters pulled out of the bay that morning.

The once-booming oyster industry is part of the lifeblood of Apalachicola, a town that has had to reinvent itself over the past two centuries. In the 1830s as the cotton industry grew, the town became the third-largest port on the Gulf of Mexico, trailing only New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.

Cotton made Apalachicola wealthy, but after the Civil War it turned to a new source of wealth: lumber. When lumber faded, it reinvented itself again and prospered on shrimping and oyster harvesting.

As the seafood industry took a hit, Apalachicola turned to tourism and is now known for it’s 19th- and early 20th-century buildings, quaint independent shops, restaurants, bars and easy-going pace.

Still, the oyster industry provides jobs, leaving many to have to look elsewhere for work. For decades, Apalachicola by far led the state in oyster production, but the decline began about three decades ago and the industry nearly collapsed in 2012.

Shannon Hartsfield used to work the waters, but gave it up eight years ago because of shrinking oyster supplies. He now works with university researchers studying the bay and efforts to help it recover.

“It doesn’t need to reopen until it can sustain 100, 150 families instead of just three or four,” Hartsfield said, recalling the days when the industry was booming. “Shoot, all the way down the beach there were oyster houses, and right now there’s only one. David Barber is the only one that’s even got a shucking house in Eastpoint, and there’s only two in Apalach. That’s crazy. Between Apalach and Eastpoint there were probably over 60 processing plants.”

City to auction spot to push demolish button on Trump casino

City to auction spot to push demolish button on Trump casino

Wayne Perry                      

 

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — One of President Donald Trump’s former Atlantic City casinos will be blown up next month, and for the right amount of money, you could be the one to press the button that brings it down.

The demolition of the former Trump Plaza casino will become a fundraiser to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City that the mayor hopes will raise in excess of $1 million

Opened in 1984, Trump’s former casino was closed in 2014 and has fallen into such a state of disrepair that demolition work began earlier this year. The remainder of the structure will be dynamited on Jan. 29.

“Some of Atlantic City’s iconic moments happened there, but on his way out, Donald Trump openly mocked Atlantic City, saying he made a lot of money and then got out,” said Mayor Marty Small. “I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”

The Boys & Girls Club has hired a professional auction company to solicit bids from Thursday through Jan. 19, when the top bids will be revealed and a live auction will determine a winner. The organization provides after-school and summer recreation, education and career-training programs for Atlantic City children and teens.

Trump, then a real-estate developer, opened the casino in a prime spot at the center of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk where the Atlantic City Expressway deposited cars entering the resort. It was the site of many high-profile boxing matches, which Trump would regularly attend.

It closed in 2014, one of four Atlantic City casinos to shut down that year, followed by another former Trump casino, the Taj Mahal, in 2016. That property has since reopened as the Hard Rock casino.

The third casino Trump used to own here, Trump Marina, was sold to Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta in 2011 and is now the Golden Nugget.

Trump cut most ties with Atlantic City in 2009 aside from a 10% fee for the use of his name on what were then three casinos in the city. That stake was extinguished when billionaire Carl Icahn took ownership of the company out of bankruptcy court in February 2016.

Trump Plaza has sat empty for six years, and has been deteriorating. Earlier this year, large pieces of the facade broke loose from one of the hotel towers and came crashing to the ground. In one storm, additional debris fell from the structure onto the Boardwalk.

Icahn owns the former Trump Plaza building, and has agreed to the demolition. Small said he is eager to discuss potential uses for the land with Icahn once the casino is gone, including some sort of family attraction.

“Not often does inner-city oceanfront land open up,” the mayor said. “We have one chance to get this right.”

The last casino implosion in Atlantic City was in Oct. 2007 when the former Sands casino was dynamited to make way for a new casino-hotel project that ultimately was never built.

Franklin Graham Says Trump ‘Will Go Down in History As One of the Great Presidents’

Newsweek

Franklin Graham Says Trump ‘Will Go Down in History As One of the Great Presidents’

Evangelical leader Pastor Franklin Graham has thanked God for Donald Trump’s four years in the White House, saying he will “go down in history as one of the great presidents.”

Graham posted a lengthy statement on Facebook on Monday, writing that he had been asked if he was disappointed about the election but was instead “grateful to God” for the past four years.

The pastor, a Trump supporter since 2016, said the president had “protected our religious liberties,” “stood up for the lives of the unborn” and “nominated conservative judges to the Supreme Court.”

His statement came after the 538 members of the Electoral College met to cast their ballots for president and vice president, formalizing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory.

Rev. Franklin Graham
Franklin Graham records an invocation to the Republican National Convention on August 27, 2020.DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

 

Trump has refused to concede and continues to make unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. Over the past few weeks his campaign and Republican allies have launched dozens of lawsuits in key battleground states, but nearly all of them have failed.

Graham, one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical Christian leaders, was seen as a key voice to maintain the president’s support among white evangelicals ahead of the election last month.

After the electoral college vote on Monday, he wrote on Facebook: “People have asked if I am disappointed about the election. When I think about my answer, I have to say honestly, that I am grateful—grateful to God that for the last four years.

“He gave us a president who protected our religious liberties; grateful for a president who defended the lives of the unborn, standing publicly against abortion and the bloody smear it has made on our nation; grateful for a president who nominated conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to our federal courts; grateful for a president who built the strongest economy in 70 years with the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years before the pandemic; grateful for a president who strengthened and supported our military; grateful for a president who stood against “the swamp” and the corruption in Washington; grateful for a president who supported law and order and defended our police.

Graham also wrote that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had recognized the importance of prayer and were not ashamed of the name Jesus Christ.

He said: “I’m thankful that the president stood against the secularists who wanted to take Christ out of Christmas and that he brought back the greeting ‘Merry Christmas!’ So as we come to the end of this election season, I look back with a grateful heart and thank God for all of these things.”

Trump has repeatedly railed against the phrase “Happy Holidays” for being politically correct, while seeking to perpetuate the idea that US citizens have been barred from using the more traditional greeting “Merry Christmas.”

The president insisted that he “led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase,” although his predecessor, Barack Obama often wished Americans a Merry Christmas during his presidency.

Graham finished his statement saying: “It is unfortunate that many people got confused and made the election about personalities rather than the policies of the candidates. President Trump will go down in history as one of the great presidents of our nation, bringing peace and prosperity to millions here in the U.S. and around the world. May God bless him, Melania, and their family, as God leads him to the next chapter in his life.”

trump graham franklin
Franklin Graham talks with President Donald Trump during a ceremony to honour his late father Billy Graham on February 28, 2018, in Washington, D.C.RON SACHS-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

 

White evangelical Christians have been one of Trump’s strongest bases of support since 2016. Exit polling by Pew Research Center showed about 8 in 10 evangelical Christians had voted for Trump four years ago. But a survey by the non-partisan think tank in June found that somewhat less—72 percent—of white evangelicals approved of the job Trump was doing as president.

Graham recently claimed in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network that Democrats were “opposed to faith,” although President-elect Biden is a devout Catholic.

In September, more than 10,000 Christians signed a petition calling for Graham to be removed as the head of the humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse following his prayer in support of President Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention.

Graham is not the only high-profile evangelical leader who supports Trump. Paula White, the president’s spiritual leader, held an impassioned live-streamed prayer the day after the election that sparked hundreds of internet memes.

U.S. sees biggest yearly jump in poverty rate in 60 years

U.S. sees biggest yearly jump in poverty rate in 60 years

Tim O’Donnell                         December 16, 2020

 

By historical standards, poverty levels in the United States remain low, but the country has seen the biggest jump in poverty in a single year since the government began tracking such information 60 years ago, The Washington Post reports.

New data released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame shows the poverty rate increased to 11.7 percent in November, up 2.4 percentage points since June, marking the fifth straight month of incline. In that time span, around 7.8 million Americans have fallen below the poverty line, or an income of $26,200 for a family of four.

Not only is the rise the largest in several decades, it is also nearly double the second-biggest increase, which occurred between 1979 and 1980 during the oil crisis, the Post reports.

Notre Dame and University of Chicago economists say the situation, unsurprisingly, stems from the coronavirus pandemic and the tough labor market it has created, as well as the fact that government aid is dwindling. A solution to either would help — when Congress passed the CARES Act in the spring and sent stimulus checks to Americans, poverty actually decreased — and it looks like a new relief bill is the more realistic goal. “Given the state of the virus, I wouldn’t bet on significant improvement in the labor market in the short run,” James Sullivan, a professor at Notre Dame, told the Post.

Mar-a-Lago neighbors to Trump: Spend your post-presidency elsewhere

Washington Post – Style

Mar-a-Lago neighbors to Trump: Spend your post-presidency elsewhere

By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Carol D. Loennig        December 15, 2020

 

President Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in April 2017.

Next-door neighbors of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla., that he has called his Winter White House, have a message for the outgoing commander in chief: We don’t want you to be our neighbor.

That message was formally delivered Tuesday morning in a demand letter delivered to the town of Palm Beach and also addressed to the U.S. Secret Service asserting that Trump lost his legal right to live at Mar-a-Lago because of an agreement he signed in the early 1990s when he converted the storied estate from his private residence to a private club. The legal maneuver could, at long last, force Palm Beach to publicly address whether Trump can make Mar-a-Lago his legal residence and home, as he has been expected to do, when he becomes an ex-president after the swearing-in of Joe Biden on Jan. 20.

The contretemps sets up a potentially awkward scenario, unique in recent history, in which a former Oval Office occupant would find himself having to officially defend his choice of a place to live during his post-presidency. It also could create a legal headache for Trump because he changed his official domicile to Mar-a-Lago, leaving behind Manhattan, where he lived before being elected president and came to fame as a brash, self-promoting developer. (Trump originally tried to register to vote in Florida using the White House in Washington as his address, which is not allowed under Florida law. He later changed the registration to the Mar-a-Lago address.)

In the demand letter, obtained by The Washington Post, an attorney for the Mar-a-Lago neighbors says the town should notify Trump that he cannot use Mar-a-Lago as his residence. Making that move would “avoid an embarrassing situation” if the outgoing president moves to the club and later has to be ordered to leave, according to the letter sent on behalf of the neighbors, the DeMoss family, which runs an international missionary foundation.

For years, various neighbors have raised concerns about disruptions, such as clogged traffic and blocked streets, caused by the president’s frequent trips to the club. Even before he was president, Trump created ill will in the town by refusing to comply with even basic local requirements, such as adhering to height limits for a massive flagpole he installed, and frequently attempting to get out of the promises he had made when he converted Mar-a-Lago into a private club.

“There’s absolutely no legal theory under which he can use that property as both a residence and a club,” said Glenn Zeitz, another nearby Palm Beach homeowner who has joined the fight against Trump and had previously tangled with him over Trump’s attempt to seize a private home to expand his Atlantic City casino. “Basically he’s playing a dead hand. He’s not going to intimidate or bluff people because we’re going to be there.”

A White House spokesperson and Palm Beach’s mayor did not respond to requests for comment. To date, Palm Beach has made no public attempt to prevent Trump from living at Mar-a-Lago or from using it as his legal residence.

“There is no document or agreement in place that prohibits President Trump from using Mar-a-Lago as his residence,” said a Trump business organization spokesman who was not authorized to speak publicly about a legal issue.

The Mar-a-Lago residence that Trump plans to call home after departing the White House.

The current residency controversy tracks back to a deal Trump cut in 1993 when his finances were foundering, and the cost of maintaining Mar-a-Lago was soaring into the multimillions each year. Under the agreement, club members are banned from spending more than 21 days a year in the club’s guest suites and cannot stay there for any longer than seven consecutive days. Before the arrangement was sealed, an attorney for Trump assured the town council in a public meeting that he would not live at Mar-a-Lago.

At the time, the town’s leaders were wary of Trump because he had sued them after they blocked his attempt to subdivide the historic Mar-a-Lago property into multiple housing lots. Placing the limitations on lengths of stays assured that Trump’s property would remain a private club, as he had promised, rather than a residential hotel.

Documents obtained by The Post via a public records request suggest there may be gaps in Palm Beach’s enforcement of key provisions of the agreement that could affect Trump’s ability to live at the club. Each year, the club is required to report whether at least 50 percent of Mar-a-Lago’s members live or work in Palm Beach; that the club has fewer than 500 members; and that no one is using the guest suites more than 21 days a year. However, the town says it has no records of the reports for four of the past 20 years.

Trump has repeatedly attempted to change parts of his agreement. In 2018 he asked the town to waive a provision banning him from building a dock at the club, initially saying the Secret Service and local law enforcement officials needed the structure for his protection. The reasoning was later changed to say the dock was for the private use of the president and first lady Melania Trump. Neighbors feared that the dock would be used for rowdy booze cruises. Trump withdrew the dock request early this year — three days after a Washington Post report that unearthed the details of his 1993 agreement with the town.

Trump has traveled to Mar-a-Lago at least 30 times during his presidency, and spent at least 130 days there, according to a Post tally. There has been no public indication that the town has raised objections about that practice. Trump also has appeared to openly flout the agreement, stating on Mar-a-Lago’s website that he maintains private quarters there.

During his presidency, Palm Beach has shown deference on security issues, allowing a helipad that was expressly prohibited in his 1993 agreement. Once Trump leaves office, he will no longer have use of the helipad.

The 1993 Palm Beach agreement isn’t the only document that raises questions about whether Trump can legally live at Mar-a-Lago. He also signed a document deeding development rights for Mar-a-Lago to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Washington-based, privately funded nonprofit organization that works to save historic sites around the country. As part of the National Trust deal, Trump agreed to “forever” relinquish his rights to develop Mar-a-Lago or to use it for “any purpose other than club use.”

The National Trust did not respond to requests for comment.

The controversy over Trump’s expected move to Mar-a-Lago could muddy matters for the Secret Service, which will continue to protect him after he leaves office. Government agencies take pains to comply with all federal and local laws in their activities, and a legal dispute over Trump’s right to set up residence at Mar-a-Lago could complicate the Secret Service’s ongoing work to prepare for staff to secure his home and safety there.

A Secret Service spokesperson declined to comment.

Since this year’s election, the Secret Service has been preparing for Trump’s life after the White House and the protections he is legally due as a former president. A much-reduced set of Secret Service agents will shadow him in his private life, and the agency will man and occupy a separate room at his property as a base of security operations.

The protective service would need to make living arrangements for its agents in advance of Trump leaving the White House — wherever he ends up living. If he is suddenly blocked from living at Mar-a-Lago, the Secret Service would most likely have to scramble to develop a new plan to protect him at a different location.

The Mar-a-Lago neighbors would be okay with Trump finding a new place to bunk. Their letter, written by West Palm Beach attorney Reginald Stambaugh, includes a zinger that harks to the vibe of the old money enclave on Florida’s east coast: “Palm Beach has many lovely estates for sale, and we are confident President Trump will find one which meets his needs.”

Philip Bump contributed to this report.

Manuel Roig-Franzia is a feature writer in The Washington Post’s Style section, where he profiles national figures in the worlds of politics, the law and the arts. He previously served as bureau chief in Miami for The Post’s National staff and in Mexico City for the Post’s Foreign staff. He is the author of a biography of Sen. Marco Rubio.
Carol Leonnig is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, where she has worked since 2000. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her work on security failures and misconduct inside the Secret Service.

The North Carolina hog industry’s answer to pollution: a $500m pipeline project

The Guardian

The North Carolina hog industry’s answer to pollution: a $500m pipeline project

Michael Sainato and Chelsea Skojec                 December 11, 2020
<span>Photograph: Gerry Broome/AP</span>
Photograph: Gerry Broome/AP

 

Elsie Herring of Duplin county, North Carolina, lives in the house her late mother grew up in, but for the past several decades her home has been subjected to pollution from nearby industrial hog farms.

“We have to deal with whether it’s safe to go outside. It’s a terrible thing to open the door and face that waste. It makes you want to throw up. It takes your breath away, it makes your eyes run,” said Herring.

She explained they also deal with constant trucks on the road, hauling pigs, dead and alive, in and out of the area, feed trucks, and the flies and mice that the farms attract.

Eastern North Carolina has about 4,000 pink hued pools of pig feces, urine and blood as a result of the hog industry, where 9m pigs produce over 10bn gallons of waste annually in the state. When the waste lagoons reach capacity, excess waste is sprayed on to nearby fields. In 2000, Smithfield Foods agreed with state officials in North Carolina to finance research to find and install alternatives to the waste lagoons and spraying systems, but none were deemed economically feasible.

But now – instead of implementing safer waste systems – Smithfield Foods is pushing to use the hog waste lagoons to collect, transport and sell the methane gas they produce. That terrifies many local people and environmental activists who see it as seeking to profit from an ecological problem rather than fix it.

“It only lines their pockets. They’re trying to sell it as renewable energy. It’s only renewable if pigs continue to poop, which is why I’m afraid they’re going to push the moratorium on new hog farms, because if you have that great of a demand, you have to supply to meet it,” added Herring.

“They’re not treating the waste, they’re converting it, so how is that hog waste ever clean?”

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is considering the first permit approval for an industrial-scale biogas project in North Carolina, which would cap waste lagoons from industrial pig farms in the state, capturing the methane and transporting it through pipelines to a processing plant.

The product, called biogas, is being proposed by a $500m joint venture between Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy, Align RNG, as a solution to the hog waste pollution problems plaguing North Carolina, but residents and environmental organizers are raising concerns that the project will worsen the problem.

Related: ‘Suffocating closeness’: US judge condemns ‘appalling conditions’ on industrial farms

“The biogas is a false solution,” said Naemma Muhammad, a community organizer and resident of Duplin county. “It doesn’t solve the problems we’ve been dealing with for three decades, which is to get rid of the lagoons and spraying systems so people can breathe and enjoy their property in the way they intended. We don’t need anything to encourage this industry to continue business as usual.”

The Grady Road Project includes trapping methane gas at 19 industrial hog waste sites in Duplin and Sampson counties in North Carolina, where over 30 miles of pipelines will be constructed to a central processing facility and distributed through existing natural gas pipelines. Duplin and Sampson counties are the top-hog producing counties in the US. The project is one of several biogas proposals being pushed by Smithfield and Dominion Energy.

Muhammad noted residents still don’t know where the 30 miles of pipeline will be laid or which waste lagoons will be used for the project, and the pipelines will pose greater risks of spills and leaks to the wetlands and groundwater in the region.

Jets of liquified hog waste shoot from spray guns and on to a field near Wallace, North Carolina.
Jets of liquified hog waste shoot from spray guns and on to a field near Wallace, North Carolina. Photograph: Allen G Breed/AP

 

The methane capturing also produces other pollutants, posing greater risks to nearby communities when waste is sprayed on fields and spills are common, especially during strong storms.

“The process creates excessive concentrations of ammonia by extracting the methane,” said Sherri White-Williamson, the environmental justice policy director of North Carolina Conservation Network. “This is another way for the industry to be able to keep the lagoon sprayfield system in place. This is not a good system and to continue to find ways to justify keeping that system in place makes no sense.”

The waste produced by the industry has a long documented impact on the health, living conditions and pollution of communities near these hog farms, recognized as environmental racism as Black people, Native Americans and Latinos are more likely to live there than white people, according to a 2014 study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Living in the vicinity of a hog industrial operation has been linked to chronic illnesses such as asthma, anemia, kidney disease, certain cancers and high blood pressure.

“Methane aside, hundreds of other air and water pollutants remain uncaptured and are emitted untreated by the lagoon and sprayfield system to the environment and the communities which surround these facilities,” said Ryke Longest, the co-director of the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Duke University.

Will Hendrick, the staff attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance, noted North Carolina’s senate bill 315 passed in 2020 removed environmental standard requirements to pave the way for proposals such as the biogas project, despite other existing and cleaner technologies to produce biogas.

Young hogs at Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, North Carolina. Waste from the industry has had a long documented impact on the health of nearby communities.
Young hogs at Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, North Carolina. Waste from the industry has had a long documented impact on the health of nearby communities. Photograph: Gerry Broome/AP

 

Those standards called for new or modified permits to address five environmental problems with hog waste, including the elimination of animal waste discharge to surface water and groundwater, and substantially eliminating ammonia, odor, disease transmitting vectors, and nutrient and heavy metal contamination.

“The biggest problem with their biogas proposal is it fails to address those five long known well-documented problems,” said Hendrick. “Now suddenly they have money to invest in waste management technologies, but are conveniently overlooking their commitment to the people of North Carolina.”

The hog industry tried to appeal nuisance lawsuits won by residents in North Carolina over the effects of waste and odors from hog industry farms, and North Carolina legislators passed laws in response to the lawsuits limiting the ability of residents to sue the industry. A federal court recently upheld the verdict, in which a federal judge noted there was ample evidence farming practices persisted despite known harmful effects to neighbors. Herring was a party to that suit.

According to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, a decision on the permit application will be decided within approximately 30 days after the hearing, which will be scheduled after 20 November.

“We care about their health and the health of our environment. That’s why we started this project in the first place, to improve the region’s air quality and protect the climate for future generations,” said a spokesperson for Dominion Energy. They claimed the project will reduce emissions in the area by more than 150,000 metric tons a year.

“We will continue reaching out to make sure everyone’s voice is heard and everyone has the facts. The community has our pledge we’re going to do this the right way.”

A fork in the road for responsible NC hog farming

A fork in the road for responsible NC hog farming

Derb Carter                      

Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that it was proper for a jury to award monetary damages to neighbors of a Smithfield Foods controlled hog operation in Bladen County. The neighbors complained that the putrid odor and other adverse impacts adversely affected their rights to use and enjoy their property. In affirming damages are proper, one judge concluded: “It is past time to acknowledge the full harms that the unreformed practices of hog farming are inflicting.”

Twenty years after Smithfield entered a formal agreement with the North Carolina Attorney General to convert its primitive lagoon and sprayfield waste management systems on all company-owned and contract farms to environmentally superior systems that are economically feasible, Smithfield has not converted any.

Smithfield industrial hog facilities continue to store vast amounts of raw hog waste in excavated lagoons and then spray it on to neighboring fields – polluting water and air. For many neighbors, the stench and filth outside their homes is unbearable.

Now, Smithfield is proposing to cover hog lagoons on many of its hog operations, capture methane or biogas, and construct miles of pipelines to convey the gas to a processing facility it proposes to construct in Duplin County in a joint venture with Dominion Energy. The processed gas would be injected into a natural gas pipeline and used as an energy source. While removing emissions of methane that would otherwise contribute to climate change and utilizing it for energy has merit, Smithfield’s approach is dependent on perpetuating the flawed, harmful lagoon and sprayfield waste system.

Flushing millions of gallons of raw hog waste from industrial-scale barns into lagoons and then spraying on nearby fields has had, and continues to have, substantial adverse impacts on the environment and many communities in eastern North Carolina.

Numerous studies have tied the lagoon and sprayfield system to increased nutrient levels that plague our coastal waters, leading to periodic algal blooms and fish kills. Capping lagoons to collect methane will actually increase the amount of nutrients generated from the hog waste, leading to more water quality problems.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In Missouri, Smithfield now touts its “next generation technology” to manage waste that it agreed to install on all of its hog operations there. This wholesale conversion to improved waste management was forced by lawsuits from neighbors and that state’s attorney general. It is operational and profitable on hundreds of Smithfield hog operations in Missouri.

Smithfield’s new waste management technology in Missouri appears to have been enabled by the revenue generated from marketing biogas. In addition to capturing and utilizing methane from the waste, Smithfield’s Missouri hog operations converted to mechanical barn scrapers instead of barn flushing. This reduced the amount of waste laden water and reduced odor from operations by 59 to 87 percent.

Smithfield has requested that North Carolina state agencies approve necessary permits authorizing the proposed biogas project. The pending decision places eastern North Carolina at a significant fork in the road. As Smithfield has requested, the state can allow Smithfield to simply cover lagoons, capture and profit from biogas, and perpetuate the flawed lagoon and sprayfield system.

Or the Attorney General can hold Smithfield to its commitment to use economically feasible and superior waste management systems that substantially eliminate impacts to neighbors and the environment.

Before allowing Smithfield to develop its proposed biogas venture, the Department of Environmental Quality should ensure the company at a minimum employs a complete waste management system that not only taps methane but substantially reduces or eliminates odors, nutrients, and pollution.

It is past time that Smithfield acts responsibly. If it can clean up its act in Missouri, it can do the same in North Carolina.

Derb Carter is director of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s North Carolina offices.