Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by seemslikeadream » Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:12 pm
by seemslikeadream » Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:12 am
THE SCOOP
HOW DONALD TRUMP'S COMPANY VIOLATED THE UNITED STATES EMBARGO AGAINST CUBA
BY KURT EICHENWALD ON 9/29/16 AT 5:42 AM
A company controlled by Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, secretly conducted business in communist Cuba during Fidel Castro’s presidency despite strict American trade bans that made such undertakings illegal, according to interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings.
Documents show that the Trump company spent a minimum of $68,000 for its 1998 foray into Cuba at a time when the corporate expenditure of even a penny in the Caribbean country was prohibited without U.S. government approval. But the company did not spend the money directly. Instead, with Trump’s knowledge, executives funneled the cash for the Cuba trip through an American consulting firm called Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corporation. Once the business consultants traveled to the island and incurred the expenses for the venture, Seven Arrows instructed senior officers with Trump’s company—then called Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts—how to make it appear legal by linking it after-the-fact to a charitable effort.
The payment by Trump Hotels came just before the New York business mogul launched his first bid for the White House, seeking the nomination of the Reform Party. On his first day of the campaign, he traveled to Miami where he spoke to a group of Cuban-Americans, a critical voting bloc in the swing state. Trump vowed to maintain the embargo and never spend his or his companies’ money in Cuba until Fidel Castro was removed from power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjEqTrHisFY
He did not disclose that, seven months earlier, Trump Hotels already had reimbursed its consultants for the money they spent on their secret business trip to Havana.
At the time, Americans traveling to Cuba had to receive specific U.S. government permission, which was only granted for an extremely limited number of purposes, such as humanitarian efforts. Neither an American nor a company based in the United States could spend any cash in Cuba; instead a foreign charity or similar sponsoring entity needed to pay all expenses, including travel. Without obtaining a license from the federal Office of Foreign Asset Control before the consultants went to Cuba, the undertaking by Trump Hotels would have been in violation of federal law, trade experts say.
Officials with the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization did not respond to emails seeking comment on the Cuba trip, further documentation about the endeavor or an interview with Trump. Richard Fields, who was then the principal in charge of Seven Arrows, did not return calls seeking comment.
But a former Trump executive who spoke on condition of anonymity said the company did not obtain a government license prior to the trip. Internal documents show that executives involved in the Cuba project were still discussing the need for federal approval after the trip had taken place.
OFAC officials say there is no record that the agency granted any such license to the companies or individuals involved, although they cautioned that some documents from that time have been destroyed. Yet one OFAC official, who agreed to discuss approval procedures if granted anonymity, said the probability that the office would grant a license for work on behalf of an American casino was “essentially zero.”
‘He’s a Murderer’
Prior to the Cuban trip, several European companies reached out to Trump about potentially investing together on the island through Trump Hotels, according to the former Trump executive. At the time, a bipartisan group of senators, three former Secretaries of State and other former officials were urging then-President Bill Clinton to review America’s Cuba policy, in hopes of eventually ending the decades-long embargo.
The goal of the Cuba trip, the former Trump executive said, was to give Trump’s company a foothold should Washington loosen or lift the trade restrictions. While in Cuba, the Trump representatives met with government officials, bankers and other business leaders to explore possible opportunities for the casino company. The former executive said Trump had participated in discussions about the Cuba trip and knew it had taken place.
The fact that Seven Arrows spent the money and then received reimbursement from Trump Hotels does not mitigate any potential corporate liability for violating the Cuban embargo. “The money that the Trump company paid to the consultant is money that a Cuban national has an interest in and was spent on an understanding it would be reimbursed,’’ Richard Matheny, chair of Goodwin’s national security and foreign trade regulation group said, based on a description of the events by Newsweek. “That would be illegal. If OFAC discovered this and found there was evidence of willful misconduct, they could have made a referral to the Department of Justice.”
Shortly after Trump Hotels reimbursed Seven Arrows, the two companies parted ways. Within months, Trump formed a presidential exploratory committee. He soon decided to seek the nomination of the Reform Party, which was founded by billionaire Ross Perot after his unsuccessful 1992 bid for the White House.
DonaldTrumpExploratory19992
Donald Trump at a taping of "Larry King Live" on CNN in New York on October 14, 1999. Trump said that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee.
REUTERS
Trump launched his presidential campaign in Miami in November 1999. There, at a luncheon hosted by the Cuban American National Foundation, an organization of Cuban exiles, he proclaimed he wanted to maintain the American embargo and would not spend any money in Cuba so long as Fidel Castro remained in power. At the time, disclosing that his company had just spent money on the Cuba trip, or even acknowledging an interest in loosening the embargo, would have ruined Trump’s chances in Florida, a critical electoral state where large numbers of Cuban-Americans remain virulently opposed to the regime.
“As you know—and the people in this room know better than anyone—putting money and investing money in Cuba right now doesn’t go to the people of Cuba,’’ Trump told the crowd. “It goes to Fidel Castro. He’s a murderer, he’s a killer, he’s a bad guy in every respect, and, frankly, the embargo must stand if for no other reason than, if it does stand, he will come down.”
‘Its Stock Price Had Collapsed’
By the time Trump gave that speech, 36 years had passed since the Treasury Department in the Kennedy administration imposed the embargo. The rules prohibited any American person or company—even those with operations in other foreign countries—from engaging in financial transactions with any person or entity in Cuba. The lone exceptions: humanitarian efforts and telecommunications exports.
The impact of the embargo intensified in 1991, when the collapse of the Soviet Union ended its oil subsidies to the island and triggered a broad economic collapse. By 1993, Cuba faced extreme shortages and Castro was forced to start printing money solely to cover government deficits. Three years later, the U.S. Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which codified the embargo into law and worsened Cuba’s economic decline. With many financial options closed off, Cuba attempted to find overseas investment to modernize its tourism industry and other businesses.
CubaCastro1998
Fidel Castro speaks with his brother Raul Castro (right) during the morning session of the Cuban National Assembly on December 21, 1998.
REUTERS
The first signs that American policy might be shifting came in March 1998, when President Bill Clinton announced several major changes. Among them: resuming charter flights between the United States and Cuba for authorized Americans, streamlining procedures for exporting medical equipment and allowing Cubans in the U.S. to send small amounts of cash to their relatives on the island. However, Americans and American companies still could not legally spend their own money in Cuba.
That fall, as critics pressured Clinton to further loosen the embargo, Trump Hotels saw an opportunity. Like the communist regime, the company was struggling, having piled up losses for years. In 1998 alone, Trump Hotels lost $39.7 million, according to the company’s financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Its stock price had collapsed, falling almost 80 percent from a high that year of $12 a share to a low of just $2.75. (After multiple bankruptcies, Trump severed his ties with the company; it is now called Trump Entertainment Resorts and is a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises, run by renowned financier Carl Icahn).
The company was desperate to find partners for new business which offered the chance to increase profits, according to another former Trump executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. The hotel and casino company assigned Seven Arrows, which had been working with Trump for several years, to develop such opportunities, including the one in Cuba.
On February 8, 1999, months after the consultants traveled to the island, Seven Arrows submitted a bill to Trump Hotels for the $68,551.88 it had “incurred prior to and including a trip to Cuba on behalf of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc.”
The 1999 document also makes clear that executives were still discussing the legal requirements for such a trip after the consultants had already returned from Cuba. The government does not provide after-the-fact licenses.
“Under current law trips of the sort Mr. Fields took to Cuba must be sanctioned not only by the White House but are technically on behalf of a charity,’’ the bill submitted to Trump Hotels says. “The one most commonly used is Carinas Cuba.”
The instructions contain two errors. First, while OFAC is part of the executive branch, the White House itself does not provide licenses for business dealings in Cuba. Second, the correct name of the charity is Caritas Cuba, a group formed in 1991 by the Catholic Church, which provides services for the elderly, children and other vulnerable populations in the Caribbean nation. Caritas Cuba did not respond to emails about contacts it may have had with Trump Hotels, Seven Arrows or any individuals associated with them.
The invoice from Seven Arrows was submitted to John Burke, who was then the corporate treasurer of Trump Hotels. In a lawsuit on a different legal issue, Burke testified that Trump Hotels paid the bill in full, although he denied recognizing the document.
‘Totally False’
DonaldTrumpExploratory19991
Donald Trump at a taping of "Larry King Live" on CNN in New York on October 14, 1999. Trump said that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee.
REUTERS
The Cuba venture was one of two assignments given to Seven Arrows at that time, and the second has already emerged as an issue in the GOP nominee’s bid for the presidency. Trump Hotels also paid the consulting firm to help develop a deal with the Seminole tribe of Florida to partner in a casino there. Knowing that the Florida governor and legislature opposed casino gambling in the state, Trump authorized developing a strategy to win over politicians to get the laws changed in an effort named “Gambling Project.” The law firm of Greenberg Traurig was retained to assemble the strategy. A copy of the plan prepared by the lawyers showed the strategy involved hiring multiple consultants, lobbyists and media relations firms to persuade the governor and the legislature to allow casino gambling in the state. The key to possible success? Campaign contributions.
The plan states “the executive and legislative branches of Florida government are driven by many influences, the most meaningful of which lies in campaign giving.” For the legislature, it recommends giving to “leadership accounts” maintained by state political parties, rather than to individual lawmakers, because “this is where the big bucks go and the real influence is negotiated.” Records show that Seven Arrows also incurred $38,996.32 on its work on the Gaming Project, far less than it spent for the Cuba endeavor.
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Aside from deceiving Cuban-Americans, records of the 1998 initiatives show that Trump lied to voters about his efforts in Florida during that period. At the second Republican presidential debate in September, one of Trump’s rivals, Jeb Bush, said the billionaire had tried to buy him off with favors and contributions when he was Florida’s governor in an effort to legalize casino gaming in the state. “Totally false,’’ Trump responded. “I would have gotten it.”
The documents obtained by Newsweek give no indication why the $39,000 spent on Seven Arrows’ primary assignment—arranging for a casino deal with the Seminole tribe—was so much less than the $68,000 expended on the Cuba effort. The former Trump executive could not offer any explanation for the disparity.
Though it has long been illegal for corporations to spend money in Cuba without proper authorization, there is no chance that Trump, the company or any of its executives will be prosecuted for wrongdoing. The statute of limitations ran out long ago, and legal analysts say OFAC’s enforcement division is understaffed, so the chances for an investigation were slim even at the time.
And perhaps that was the calculation behind the company’s decision to flout the law: the low risk of getting caught versus the high reward of lining up Cuban allies if the U.S. loosened or dropped the embargo. The only catch: What would happen if Trump's Cuban-American supporters ever found out?
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-cu ... ida-504059
by seemslikeadream » Thu Sep 29, 2016 9:23 pm
DONALD TRUMP
SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 9:43 AM
Trump broke Cuban embargo, report says, roiling Miami politics
Donald Trump blasted Fidel Castro and said the U.S. needed to keep the trade embargo against Cuba while visiting the Bay of Pigs Association in Little Havana in November 1999.
Donald Trump spoke to the Cuban American National Foundation in 1999, casting himself as a pro-embargo hardliner who refused to do potentially lucrative business in Cuba until Fidel Castro was gone. C-SPAN
BY PATRICIA MAZZEI
pmazzei@miamiherald.com
Revelations that Donald Trump’s hotel and casino company secretly spent money trying to do business in Cuba in violation of the U.S. trade embargo roiled Miami politics Thursday, forcing top Cuban-American Republicans to express concern about Trump’s dealings while maintaining that the allegation isn’t reason enough to disavow the presidential nominee yet.
Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts paid at least $68,000 to a consulting firm in late 1998 in an attempt to give Trump’s business a head start in Cuba if the U.S. loosened or lifted trade sanctions, according to a front-page Newsweek report titled “The Castro Connection.” The consulting firm, Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corp., later instructed the casino company to make the spending appear legal by saying it was for charity.
Trump’s most prominent local Cuban-American supporter, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, called the report “troubling.”
“The article makes some very serious and troubling allegations,” he said in a campaign statement. “I will reserve judgment until we know all the facts and Donald has been given the opportunity to respond.”
U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami, who has espoused a strong pro-embargo position throughout his political career, struck a similar tone, saying for now that he gives Trump the benefit of the doubt.
“What we have so far are unnamed sources,” he cautioned reporters, calling the Newsweek report “preliminary.” “It’s important to see what the facts are.”
Trump rejected Newsweek’s reporting in an interview broadcast Thursday night.
“I never did business in Cuba. There’s this guy who has a very bad reputation as a reporter. You see what his record is, he wrote something about me in Cuba,” Trump told New Hampshire’s NH1 station, according to Politico. “No, I never did anything in Cuba. I never did a deal in Cuba.”
Hillary Clinton pounced on the story, saying it exposed a “pattern” of obfuscation by Trump on his business dealings. Clinton is scheduled to visit Coral Springs on Friday, with polls showing her and Trump essentially tied in Florida, the nation’s largest swing state.
“We already know about his tax returns that he refuses to release, but today we learned about his efforts to do business in Cuba, which appear to violate U.S. law — certainly flout American foreign policy,” Clinton told reporters.
“He has consistently misled people in responding to questions about whether he was attempting to do business in Cuba. So this adds to the long list of actions and statements that raise doubts about his temperament and qualification to be president and commander in chief, and also really continue to stonewall the American voters who deserve to know this information before they cast their votes.”
Clinton gave a speech at Florida International University last year advocating that the U.S. lift the embargo, a stance that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago coming from a major party nominee campaigning in the nation’s largest swing state.
Trump, on the other hand, has hardened his Cuba position recently, proclaiming at a Miami rally that he would reverse President Barack Obama’s re-engagement policy toward the island’s communist regime. A hand-picked group of largely Cuban-American Hispanics met Trump in Little Havana on Tuesday with gushing praise.
Last year, Trump had sounded far less vexed by Obama’s Cuba proposal — even though in a November 1999 speech to the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami he cast himself as a pro-embargo hardliner who refused to do potentially lucrative business on the island until Fidel Castro was gone.
“If the embargo is not continued, then the Bay of Pigs and all the people who died or were injured and those who are living monuments of it will be hurt by this government a second time,” Trump said then. The crowd regaled him with cries of “Viva Trump!”
At the time, Trump was flirting with running as a Reform Party presidential candidate. President Bill Clinton was loosening U.S. sanctions against Cuba.
“CANF did not have, and until this day does not have, any knowledge concerning the alleged plans by the Trump organization to circumvent the restrictions of the US Embargo,” the foundation said in a statement Thursday.
Trump’s 1999 speech took place less than a year after Trump’s company hired the Seven Arrows consultancy to explore business opportunities in Cuba, according to Newsweek. Trump had turned to the same firm to try to develop a Florida casino with the Seminole Tribe.
Neither Trump nor Richard Fields, the head of Seven Arrows consulting, responded to Newsweek’s requests for comment. Trump later sued Fields, and former Trump adviser Roger Stone suggested to Politico Florida late Wednesday that Fields might have acted on his own, without Trump’s approval, in looking into a possible Cuba venture. Newsweek, however, cited an anonymous former Trump executive who claimed “Trump had participated in discussions about the Cuba trip and knew it had taken place.”
When Seven Arrows billed Trump’s company to reimburse its Cuba work, according to Newsweek, it suggested using “Carinas Cuba” as charitable cover to get an after-the-fact Cuba license from the U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control. OFAC doesn’t issue licenses after companies have already gone to Cuba, and the Catholic charity is actually named Caritas Cuba.
Newsweek wasn’t the first news outlet to question Trump’s commitment to staying away from Cuba. Bloomberg Businessweek reported in July that Trump Organization executives traveled to Havana in late 2012 or early 2013 to scout potential golf-course sites — again under a White House that favored closer Cuba ties. Politico Florida reported Thursday that John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said someone from the Trump organization approached him in the mid- to late-1990s about doing business in Cuba.
Unlike other Hispanics, Cuban Americans lean heavily for the GOP: They make up about 72 percent of registered Republicans in Miami-Dade County. However, a recent Florida International University poll showed potential political trouble for Trump: Miami-Dade Cubans only narrowly backed him over Clinton. The same poll showed a majority of local Cuban Americans for the first time clearly favor lifting the embargo.
Engage Cuba, which lobbies for lifting the embargo and other U.S. sanctions, suggested Thursday that Trump should return to viewing Cuba as he did in 1998.
“Clearly Mr. Trump, a businessman, has long recognized the economic benefits of engaging with Cuba,” communications director Madeleine Russak said in a statement. “No business in the world, including a Trump company, would continue to pursue a strategy that has failed for 55 years, and I would imagine that Mr. Trump would expect nothing less from the U.S. government.
“It’s unfortunate that the presidential nominee has changed his tune in regards to Cuba, seemingly to pander to an outdated perception of Cuban-American sentiment in South Florida.”
The Newsweek report reverberated in Florida beyond the presidential race. Gov. Rick Scott said he hasn’t read the story and declined to opine on it, calling it a distraction fueled by Clinton supporters.
“I’ve not talked to Trump about it,” he told reporters in Orlando. “I assume this is more of what Hillary Clinton keeps doing.”
Rubio’s Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Jupiter, accused the incumbent of failing to stand up for his principles.
“Marco Rubio can’t even stand up to Donald Trump when he violates a Cuba policy that Rubio has made a focal point of his political career,” Murphy communications director Joshua Karp said in a statement. “Marco Rubio should disavow Trump or admit that there really isn’t an issue that matters to him more than his own personal political ambition.”
Reporters swarmed Diaz-Balart early Thursday afternoon at Miami International Airport, where he and two other lawmakers held a news conference to tout newly approved congressional funds to fight the Zika virus. Diaz-Balart, who has said he plans to vote for “the Republican nominee,” urged Trump to answer the questions raised by Newsweek, but said he needs more evidence to conclude Trump violated the embargo.
“Doing business in Cuba is illegal, absolutely,” Diaz-Balart conceded. But he also credited Trump with blasting Castro and promoting the embargo in 1999. The timing of that Miami speech, so soon after the Trump’s Cuba foray as reported by Newsweek, didn’t strike Diaz-Balart as political double-speak but rather as an indication that Trump decided to steer clear of Cuba despite facing business pressure to do otherwise.
Two other Miami Republicans in Congress, Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, have refused to back Trump. Curbelo told the Miami Herald on Thursday that Trump “should explain what happened in 1998.”
“No one is above the law,” he said., though Newsweek reported that the statute of limitations against any action against Trump has expired.
Ros-Lehtinen was unavailable for comment because she was en route to Israel for the late President Shimon Peres’ funeral.
In Washington, Mauricio Claver-Carone, who heads the staunchly pro-embargo U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, argued Trump “never transacted business with the Castro regime” because Trump’s money went to the consulting firm. Claver-Carone cited a June 25, 1999, Trump op-ed in the Miami Herald as proof that Trump had reconsidered trying find a way to enter the Cuba market.
“Several large European investment groups have asked me to take the ‘Trump Magic’ to Cuba,” Trump wrote. “They have ‘begged’ me to form partnerships to build casino-hotels in Havana. With the influx of foreign tourists, we would make a fortune, they promise, and they are no doubt right. They are also right to say that this type of arrangement would allow me to skirt the U.S.-imposed embargo.
“But rushing to join those who would do business in Cuba would do more than that,” Trump continued. “It would place me directly at odds with the longstanding U.S. policy of isolating Fidel Castro. I had a choice to make: huge profits or human rights. For me, it was a no-brainer.”
“Perhaps he deserves some kudos for this,” Claver-Carone posited.
On Miami’s popular Spanish-language radio stations, listeners apparently backing Trump also found contorted ways to try to justify Trump’s actions.
“Everybody’s done business in Cuba,” one WAQI-AM 710 Radio Mambí listener said, sounding defensive.
“Yes,” host Bernadette Pardo replied, “but here it’s illegal.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politic ... rylink=cpy
Report on Trump company's Cuba dealings could affect crucial Florida vote
By MARC CAPUTO 09/29/16 06:58 AM EDT
In a development that could cost Donald Trump crucial Cuban-American votes, his casino company once violated the U.S. embargo of Cuba by secretly funding a business foray on the communist island, Newsweek reported this morning.
Trump’s casino company "funneled" at least $68,000 in late 1998 to a consulting firm that traveled to the island in search of business opportunities on Trump's behalf, Newsweek reported in its cover story called “The Castro Connection.” The article alleges the consultant then billed Trump’s company and instructed his employees on how to make it look as if the trip had been connected to a Catholic charity.
Story Continued Below
If the consulting company secretly spent U.S. money in Cuba during a visit that was not licensed by the U.S. government or fully hosted by a non-U.S. entity or charity, the expenses would have violated the Cuban embargo, which is designed to starve the Castro regime of American currency.
Newsweek did not specify the exact nature of the trip or its precise date. Even if a crime occurred, the statute of limitations expired, Newsweek reported.
Hillary Clinton's pounced on the Newsweek report.
“Trump’s business with Cuba appears to have broken the law, flouted U.S. foreign policy, and is in complete contradiction to Trump’s own repeated, public statements that he had been offered opportunities to invest in Cuba but passed them up," Clinton campaign senior adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. "This latest report shows once again that Trump will always put his own business interest ahead of the national interest — and has no trouble lying about it."
Trump’s campaign has not commented since Wednesday night, when the allegations first surfaced. But his former presidential rival and current political ally, Sen. Marco Rubio, expressed misgivings about the claims.
“The article makes some very serious and troubling allegations,” Rubio, a pro-embargo anti-Castro hardliner, told POLITICO Florida in a written statement. “I will reserve judgment until we know all the facts and Donald has been given the opportunity to respond.”
U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council President John Kavulich, agreed with Rubio that the allegations are problematic. Speaking by phone from Havana, Kavulich told POLITICO Florida that an emissary from Trump’s organization in the mid- to late-1990s approached him in his New York office to discuss business opportunities in Cuba.
“We were approached by a Trump Organization senior executive who visited my office, and we have the correspondence in our file, where the organization was interested in exploring potential opportunities in Cuba,” Kavulich said.
Bloomberg in July reported that Trump Organization officials in 2012 and 2013 visited the island exploring golf-course developments in Cuba.
Now that Trump is again espousing a hard line on Cuba publicly, the revelations of the multiple times an emissary quietly inquired about profiting from the Castro government – and apparently violated the trade embargo that he supports – come at a difficult time for the GOP presidential nominee.
Trump recently began making a big push to curry the support of Cuban-Americans who live in Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county with the most Republicans, 366,000. About 72 percent of them are Hispanic, nearly all Cuban-American. They’re one of the only blocs of voters in the United States who still favor keeping the embargo and who oppose President Obama’s rapprochement with the Castro government.
Trump bashed Obama’s Cuba policy at a Miami event earlier this month after appearing to strike a softer tone the year before. Trump returned Monday to Miami for a rally before an enthusiastic Cuban-American crowd. Without major Cuban-American support, Trump risks losing swing-state Florida, where polls show he’s essentially tied with Hillary Clinton.
The Miami-area’s four Republican members of Congress — Rubio and House members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo — all favor the embargo and were unable or unwilling to immediately comment Wednesday and early Thursday on the Newsweek allegations.
“We’ll have to see what facts are presented, but nothing about this campaign season surprises me anymore,” Curbelo, an early critic of Trump, told POLITICO Florida.
He and Ros-Lehtinen are among the numerous Republican leaders in Miami-Dade who say they can’t support Trump, in part because of his inflammatory rhetoric about immigration reform.
Diaz-Balart — who said he wants to endorse his party’s nominee if he would only make his foreign-policy positions clearer — told POLITICO that “Trump in the past and now has made some very strong and clear statements about Cuba … and any allegations that would contradict his very clear position I have not yet seen.”
Diaz-Balart’s brother, former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, helped pressure then-President Bill Clinton in 1996 to strengthen the embargo by signing what’s known as the Helms-Burton Act into law. Hillary Clinton last year said the embargo her husband approved should be canceled. It's an increasingly popular position, according to recent polls.
Two years after President Clinton signed Helms-Burton, Trump was trying to strike a casino deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida along with a business associate, Richard T. Fields – who controlled the Seven Arrows consulting firm at the center of Newsweek’s cover story. To win state approval for the venture, Trump hired lobbyists and even steered $50,000 to help Jeb Bush in his successful race for governor in 1998.
Trump failed in his Florida gambling efforts, which Bush pointed out during a GOP presidential debate a year ago.
“The one guy that had some special interests that I know of that tried to get me to change my views on something—that was generous and gave me money—was Donald Trump,” Bush said. “He wanted casino gambling in Florida.”
Trump cut him off—and then failed to tell the truth by denying Bush’s claim.
“I didn't,” Trump said. “I promise if I wanted it, I would have gotten it.”
Unknown until now, Trump and Fields in 1998 were simultaneously talking to Castro’s government, according to Newsweek. Trump years later sued Fields, accusing his former partner of swindling him by striking a separate arrangement to build the Seminole Hard Rock & Casino near Fort Lauderdale. The lawsuit sputtered out over the years, but it left behind a rich trove of documents about Trump’s business dealings.
Another consultant of Trump’s at the time, Roger Stone, told POLITICO Florida on Wednesday night that he knew Fields had tried to pitch a Cuba deal to Trump “but the CEO of Trump Hotel & Casino Resorts nixed the idea. I assume Fields went there [to Cuba] on his own … Richard was always coming up with harebrained schemes and then trying to get Trump to pay for them.”
Newsweek named Fields as the only one of the "representatives" who traveled to Cuba. Months after the trip, Seven Arrows submitted a Feb. 8, 1999 bill, to Trump's firm for the $68,551.88 it had “incurred prior to and including a trip to Cuba on behalf of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc.," Newsweek reported. It noted that the document showed "executives were still discussing the legal requirements for such a trip after the consultants had already returned from Cuba. The government does not provide after-the-fact licenses."
"Under current law trips of the sort Mr. Fields took to Cuba must be sanctioned not only by the White House but are technically on behalf of a charity,’’ the bill, unearthed in an unnamed lawsuit, said, according to Newsweek. “The one most commonly used is Carinas Cuba.”
Newsweek noted that the name of the charity was actually "Caritas Cuba," a Catholic Church group that helps the needy in Cuba. Also, the U.S. federal agency in charge of licensing, is the Office of Foreign Asset Control and not the White House. OFAC does not grant after-the-fact licenses for trips to Cuba.
For Kavulich, Fields’ decision to potentially use Caritas Cuba is “unfortunate and damaging” because the organization does good work. Kavulich said that, in the period of time Fields was reportedly in Cuba on Trump’s behalf, numerous businesses – from the music industry to hoteliers -- traveled to Cuba to drum up business. Many were fully hosted by non-profit groups or non-U.S. business organizations or entities who fully paid the way of the U.S.-based business.
Just months after Trump’s organization paid Fields for his trip to Cuba, Trump toyed with running for president and gave a hardline speech in favor of the embargo. He said he opposed doing business with Cuba because it enriched the Castros. Stone helped write the speech.
By then, President Clinton’s administration had begun easing up on the embargo by licensing some businesses and more travel with the island, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, a conservative-leaning pro-embargo activist who’s the executive director of Cuba Democracy Advocates in Washington.
Claver-Carone said he believes that Fields was more responsible for potentially violating the embargo than Trump. Claver-Carone said he wasn’t particularly bothered that Trump wanted to explore business opportunities because he ultimately never appeared to do business with the Castro government.
He said it’s possible that Trump learned from his consultants about the dangers of doing business in Cuba in 1998, leading him to publicly espouse his hardline position a year later.
But it’s also possible that Trump violated the embargo.
“From a legal perspective, if the consulting firm Trump hired or any others broke the law, they should be investigated and fined,” Claver-Carone said in an email to POLITICO Florida. “But it will be fascinating to watch how those currently working and advocating to hand the Castro regime BILLIONS of dollars — beginning with the Obama Administration and Clinton campaign — will now attack Trump for this $68,000 expenditure. Perhaps everyone should step back, take a deep breath and have a moral gut-check.”
UPDATED at 2:15 p.m. to include statement from Hillary Clinton campaign.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/states/florida/ ... z4LhLuXcoF
by seemslikeadream » Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:22 pm
Newsweek Retweeted
Kurt Eichenwald @kurteichenwald 4h4 hours ago
Trump now says his company never paid a consultant 2 go to Cuba and never discussed how to make the biz trip look humanitarian. He's a liar.
by seemslikeadream » Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:43 pm
Newsweek Website Attacked After Report On Trump, Cuban Embargo
David Goldman
ByKRISTIN SALAKY
PublishedSEPTEMBER 30, 2016, 12:29 PM EDT
The editor-in-chief of Newsweek confirmed Friday that the magazine's website was on the receiving end of a denial-of-service attack Thursday night, following the publication of a story accusing one of Donald Trump's companies of violating the Cuban trade embargo.
Editor-In-Chief Jim Impoco noted that the attack came as the story earned national attention.
"Last night we were on the receiving end of what our IT chief called a 'massive' DoS (denial of service) attack," Impoco wrote in an email to TPM. "The site was down most of last evening, at a time when Kurt Eichenwald's story detailing how Donald Trump's company broke the law by violating the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba was being covered extensively by prominent cable news programs. Our IT team is still investigating the hack."
Later Friday afternoon, Impoco emailed TPM that in an initial investigation, the "main" IP addresses linked to the attack were found to be Russian. It should be noted that it is possible to fake an IP address.
"As with any DDoS attack, there are lots of IP addresses, but the main ones are Russian, though that in itself does not prove anything," he wrote. "We are still investigating."
A DoS attack makes sites completely unavailable to their intended users. Many noted that Newsweek's website was down last night, initially assuming that it was due to high traffic on the Cuba piece. But Eichenwald tweeted Friday morning that the actual issue was an attack on the magazine's website:
Denial-of-service attacks may be considered a federal crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/d ... argo-story
by SonicG » Sun Jun 18, 2017 11:43 am
MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian Foreign Ministry has criticized President Donald Trump's decision to freeze a detente with Cuba and his verbal attack on the Caribbean island's leaders.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday that Trump is "returning us to the forgotten rhetoric of the Cold War."
The statement says that "It's clear the anti-Cuba discourse is still widely needed. This can only induce regret."
Despite Trump's campaign pledge to improve relations with Moscow, there has been no significant improvement in foreign policy cooperation between the two countries. Last week, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to back new sanctions on Russia.
Moscow maintains close ties with Havana, and in March signed a deal to ship oil to Cuba for the first time in over a decade.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-says- ... 50251.html
by MinM » Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:24 am
@watchingeye Sep 21
Damning evidence Cuba's launched a sci-fi sonic weapon at America: How 21 US diplomats were hit by hearing and...
@zerohedge Sep 22
Damning Evidence Cuba Launched A Sci-Fi Weapon At US Diplomats
@lydrummet Sep 26
Fascinating what sound can do: How could the 'sonic attack' on US diplomats in Cuba have been carried out?
@JasonLeopold Sep 28
US Diplomats Oppose Withdrawal Of Staff From Cuba https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnhudson/us- ... uo5dgmWjAd … via @John_Hudson
@kenvogel Oct 6
There's not much evidence to back up the theory that US diplomats in Cuba were injured by some kind of sonic attack.
@WIRED 5 hours ago
Here's the issue with the "sonic weapon" hypothesis: physicists and acousticians don't know that it's even possible http://wrd.cm/2xlrtpy
Global Research @CRG_CRM Oct 7
Cuba Has Never Perpetrated, Nor Will It Ever Perpetrate Attacks of Any Sort Against Diplomatic Officials or ... http://ow.ly/lJuV30fI9qY
Hugh Manatee Wins » Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:01 pm wrote:Code Unknown wrote:.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/magaz ... gee-t.html
OMG. That CIA-NYTimes link is bizarre.
I've never seen Philip Agee's name printed as a massive feminine curly "Philip" and underneath it a tiny tiny tiny "Agee."
Spooks have their fun with their enemies.
Philip Agee was a moral icon and very brave, too.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/C ... _Agee.htmlPP [psychological and paramilitary] programmes are to be found in almost every CIA station and emphasis on the kinds of PP operations will depend very much on local conditions. Psychological warfare includes propaganda (also known simply as 'media'), work in youth and student organizations, work in labour organizations (trade unions, etc.), work in professional and cultural groups and in political parties.
.....
The vehicles for grey and black propaganda may be unaware of their CIA or US government sponsorship. This is partly so that it can be more effective and partly to keep down the number of people who know what is going on and thus to reduce the danger of exposing true sponsorship. Thus editorialists, politicians, businessmen and others may produce propaganda, even for money, without necessarily knowing who their masters in the case are. Some among them obviously will and so, in agency terminology, there is a distinction between 'witting' and 'unwitting' agents.
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