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by 0_0 » Mon Feb 27, 2017 5:43 pm
by DrEvil » Tue Feb 28, 2017 12:06 am
seemslikeadream » Sun Feb 26, 2017 8:08 pm wrote:don't fucking link to that shit
by SonicG » Tue Feb 28, 2017 12:22 am
by seemslikeadream » Fri Sep 29, 2017 7:36 am
The cost of Tom Price's air travel tops $1 million
http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-pric ... ope-2017-9
Price took military jets to Europe, Asia for over $500K
Accompanied by his wife, the HHS secretary journeyed to Geneva, Berlin, Beijing, Tokyo and other cities for events.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/2 ... hhs-243276
If Trump Fires Tom Price, What Happens to the Rest of His Private Jet-Loving Cabinet?
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... price.html
by seemslikeadream » Fri Sep 29, 2017 4:38 pm
by Iamwhomiam » Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:31 pm
by norton ash » Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:59 pm
I swear, watching this interview assures me Pruitt's the illegitimate son of 41. I'm not kidding. Take a peek and maybe you'll see some genetic similarities, too!
by seemslikeadream » Fri Apr 06, 2018 6:31 am
At Least 23 Ethical Issues Are Dogging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt
It’s a lot deeper than his $50-a-night rental from industry lobbyists.
Alexander C. Kaufman
Scott Pruitt is facing mounting pressure to resign from the Environmental Protection Agency amid intensifying scrutiny of his alleged ethical lapses.
On Tuesday, two Republican House members joined Democrats and environmental groups in calling for Pruitt to step down. On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “the president thinks that he’s done a good job, particularly on the deregulation front,” but added that “we take this seriously and we’re looking into it.” On Thursday, Hogan Gidley, a deputy White House press secretary, said on Fox News that he “can’t speak to the future of Scott Pruitt.”
Pressure escalated Thursday afternoon as two new reports alleged that Pruitt tried to abuse his vehicle’s emergency sirens to cut through traffic, and that five EPA officials who challenged Pruitt’s “unusually large spending” were either reassigned, demoted or forced out.
If Pruitt exits, he will have served the shortest term of any EPA administrator in history, and will be the first forced out since Anne Gorsuch Burford, President Ronald Reagan’s first EPA administrator, resigned in disgrace in 1983. Burford was EPA’s first female administrator (not to mention the mother of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch), and stepped down after being cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over Superfund records.
Pruitt’s aggressive attempts to roll back environmental regulations, undermine critical work on climate change and disqualify huge swathes of scientific research in favor of industry-backed science have defined his 14 months at the agency. Yet his future in the Trump administration now hinges on an ongoing White House review of his spending, his use of loopholes to give political appointees unapproved raises, and links to lobbyists who gave him a great deal on a Capitol Hill rental.
To give a sense of just how many questions are now swirling about Pruitt, here’s a short list of issues that raise concerns over his leadership as the nation’s top environmental regulator:
1. His Washington housing arrangement.
At the center of Pruitt’s ballooning ethics crisis is his $50-a-night sweetheart deal to rent a room in a luxury Capitol Hill townhouse linked to a fossil fuel industry lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen. The EPA’s ethics lawyers scrambled to approve the arrangement, but struggled to defend the administrator after news broke that his adult daughter also stayed at the residence. But those EPA lawyers walked back the approval in a Wednesday memo, arguing that they did not have all the necessary information to consider the arrangement. During the time Pruitt stayed at the condominium, Williams & Jensen’s clients won approval from the EPA for a pipeline-extension project.
2. A shady real estate deal in Oklahoma.
In 2011, Pruitt and his wife, Margaret, bought a property in Tulsa, Oklahoma, days before a court ruled that it had been fraudulently transferred by a Las Vegas developer who was on the hook for a $3.6 million loan default, according to a report the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy published Thursday in Salon. Pruitt, then Oklahoma attorney general, flipped the property four months later, selling it to a shell company set up by a major campaign donor, Tulsa business magnate and Oklahoma Republican Party finance chair Kevin Hern.
3. Giving unapproved raises.
Pruitt used a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act to give two of his longtime aides raises of $56,765 and $28,130 after the White House rejected his request for the salary increases. The law includes a provision that allows the administrator to hire up to 30 people without White House or congressional approval for work related to the law. In a contentious Fox News interview on Wednesday, Pruitt insisted the action was taken without his knowledge, and said he didn’t know who made the decision. But the law dictates that the administrator must approve the hires, calling his exasperated statements on Trump’s favorite cable channel into question.
4. His first-class travel ― and his explanation.
Federal regulations dictate that government employees be “prudent” when “making official travel arrangements,” and book “the least expensive class of travel that meets their needs.” Yet Pruitt routinely spent between $1,400 and $4,000 on flights to Boston, New York and Corpus Christi, Texas, according to The Washington Post. He regularly stayed in luxury hotels. His international travel expenses soared into the six figures. In June, a trip to an environmental summit in Italy cost more than $120,000, while a December trip to Morocco to promote liquefied natural gas ― a bizarre responsibility for the nation’s environmental regulator to take on ― reportedly cost nearly $40,000 with staff. In February, Pruitt defended his first-class airfare, insisting angry members of the public heckled him in economy class.
5. His frequent trips back home to Oklahoma.
The EPA shelled out between $2,000 and $2,600 for Pruitt’s first-class flights to his home state of Oklahoma, where he spent 43 out of 92 days last spring. The trips cost a total of more than $12,000 in airfare, according to records released last year. His frequent travel triggered a probe from the EPA inspector general, and prompted speculation that the former Oklahoma attorney general was using the EPA’s budget to lay the groundwork for an eventual campaign for governor or Senate in the Sooner State.
6. About that Morocco trip...
The EPA inspector general recently expanded its inquiry into Pruitt’s travel costs to include expenses related to the December trip to Morocco to promote liquefied natural gas. The trip also attracted new scrutiny in light of Pruitt’s Washington housing arrangement. The EPA denied that Pruitt met with officials from Cheniere Energy Inc., a gas firm that paid Williams & Jensen $80,000 for lobbying, or the lobbying firm itself. But Democrats called the trip outrageous, and one insisted, “This is not an area within his portfolio. He’s not supposed to be globetrotting to promote the sale of LNG.”
7. A private jet?
The EPA considered spending roughly $100,000 a month to lease Pruitt a private jet, according to The Washington Post. Aides ultimately scuttled the idea before Tom Price resigned as secretary of health and human services in September after revelations that he routinely took costly chartered flights.
8. Around-the-clock security.
Pruitt isn’t just afraid of airplane hecklers. He’s uniquely paranoid about threats from protesters. Last year, the EPA approved Pruitt’s request for roughly 30 full-time, around-the-clock security guards, costing the agency at least $2 million per year, according to CNN. That doesn’t count the cost of flying the guards in first class, which the EPA confirmed last month. No Cabinet member in U.S. history has ever been assassinated.
9. Spending $120,000 to hire an opposition researcher for the media.
Pruitt cultivated a contentious relationship with reporters early on, granting interviews primarily to friendly outlets such as Fox News, Breitbart News and The Daily Caller, while declining to provide even basic information about his schedule or actions to mainstream news organizations. Last year, he signed off on a $120,000 no-bid contract with a firm whose president boasts being “a master of opposition research” and whose senior vice president, as Earther noted, took part in a campaign to shape negative opinions about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) through “scathing op-eds and online hot takes.” The EPA canceled the contract after Mother Jones exposed the deal.
10. Spending roughly $43,000 on a soundproof phone booth.
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Pruitt’s secretiveness comes at a high price. Last fall, he installed a soundproof phone booth in his office. Pruitt defended the expense, initially estimated at $25,000, in a congressional hearing, where he said, “It’s necessary for me to be able to do my job.” Last month, The Washington Post reported that the cost was nearly double the original price, at nearly $43,000.
11. He tried to use emergency sirens to cut through D.C. traffic.
Pruitt asked his security team to use his vehicle’s emergency lights and sirens to speed through traffic in Washington to get to an official appointment, CBS News reported on Thursday. The lead security agent told him not to, advising the Pruitt that the sirens were only to be used in emergencies. The agent was reassigned less than two weeks later.
12. Punishing EPA staffers who challenged his spending.
Pruitt reassigned, demoted or forced out five agency officials who challenged his “unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel,” The New York Times reported on Thursday afternoon.
13. Allowing an aide to moonlight as a media consultant.
The EPA ethics office in August gave John Konkus, a top Pruitt aide, approval to work as a media consultant outside the agency. But, after E&E News broke the story, the EPA refused to disclose the identities of Konkus’ clients.
14. His naked political ambitions.
Pruitt’s interest in becoming Oklahoma’s governor, or replacing Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) when his fifth term ends in 2020, has been widely discussed for months. But, more recently, the EPA administrator appeared to have even loftier ambitions. In January, Politico reported that he was eyeing the job of U.S. attorney general as Jeff Sessions’ relationship with the president frayed. A profile in The New York Times last month quoted sources saying Pruitt had been plotting to make a bid for president as early as 2024.
15. His past ties to natural gas companies.
Pruitt’s decision to live under the roof of a gas industry lobbyist is less surprising when you consider that Pruitt allowed Devon Energy Corp., an Oklahoma City-based gas giant, to write a complaint to the EPA under his letterhead as the state attorney general in 2011. He barely changed a word before signing and sending the complaint as his own, The New York Times reported in 2014. Emails released days after he was confirmed as EPA administrator showed a long history of chummy conversations between Pruitt’s office and gas companies in his state.
16. Meeting more with fossil fuel companies than with health advocates.
Pruitt spent more time meeting with oil, gas and coal industry officials than with environmental and public health advocates during his first few weeks in office, according to calendars reviewed by HuffPost. That trend continued. During his first 10 months in office, Pruitt gave more than 30 speeches to industry groups and companies regulated by the EPA, but did not speak once before an environmental or public health group during the same period, according to a report by ThinkProgress.
17. Withholding his appointment calendars.
The EPA has refused to release Pruitt’s calendars for months, breaking with a precedent set by the previous administration. During Pruitt’s first year in office, plaintiffs, including news outlets and environmental groups, filed 55 public records lawsuits against the EPA, making it the busiest year for litigation since 1992, according to Politico.
18. Refusing to recuse himself.
Of the 14 times Pruitt sued the EPA as Oklahoma attorney general, four lawsuits aimed to block the Clean Power Plan, the signature Obama administration regulation to cut emissions from the utility sector. Despite this, Pruitt refused to recuse himself from the EPA’s effort to repeal the rule once he took office.
19. His “red team-blue team” debate on climate science.
Pruitt proposed hosting a televised debate on climate science, pitting a “red team” against a “blue team,” and running a military-style exercise to offer the American people an “objective” perspective on global warming. The plan was widely panned by scientists and researchers, who said it gave undue weight to industry-backed climate deniers whose views are not backed up by overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is human-caused. White House chief of staff John Kelly killed the idea, which he considered ill-conceived and politically risky, according to The New York Times.
20. His embrace of the right-wing Heartland Institute.
Since Pruitt took office, the EPA has worked closely with the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank that transformed itself from a defender of Big Tobacco under the auspice of “smokers’ rights” to a leading proponent of climate change denial. The group receives funding from conservative donors, including Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the billionaires who bankrolled Trump’s presidential campaign. Last year, the group submitted a list of names to the EPA for Pruitt’s red team-blue team debate. It included a convicted child sex offender. Heartland has been a lightning rod for controversy. In January, HuffPost reported that the group protected a former executive charged with stalking and harassing a female colleague half his age.
21. Booting scientists off EPA advisory boards without telling them.
Pruitt announced plans late last year to bar scientists who receive EPA research funding from serving on the agency’s advisory boards, a move widely seen as an attempt to give industry-paid researchers more control over the regulatory process. In doing so, Pruitt named new scientists to head the Science Advisory Board, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the Board of Scientific Counselors. But the previous leaders of those boards told HuffPost the EPA never alerted them before they were booted.
22. Spending a lot of election money on luxury travel before joining the EPA.
From 2002 to 2016, Pruitt, then Oklahoma attorney general, received more than $300,000 in donations from the oil, gas and coal industries. Even more went to a political action committee and a super PAC set up to help him get re-elected and fund like-minded politicians. Yet only a fraction of the money went to campaigns, while the fundraising groups paid for Pruitt to take trips to places such as Hawaii and New Orleans, where he stayed in luxury hotels, according to filings HuffPost reviewed in January.
23. Naming a coal lobbyist as his No. 2 ― the man who could replace him.
If Pruitt is fired or resigns, his likely successor is a coal lobbyist he picked as his No. 2. Andrew Wheeler, who previously lobbied for the coal giant Murray Energy. Wheeler is a climate change denier and is considered an actor with the skills to execute the same deregulatory agenda Pruitt has pursued. Wheeler spent four years working at the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, earning him a reputation as someone who, unlike Pruitt, knows the agency he would be running.
This story has been updated with news of additional allegations against Scott Pruitt.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sc ... 0a1191647f
by seemslikeadream » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:28 pm
Chris Collins digs in against the Trump-haters
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/ ... ump-324483
Upstate New York Congressman Chris Collins arrested on federal insider trading charges
Rich Schapiro
Upstate New York Congressman Chris Collins arrested on federal insider trading charges
Rep. Chris Collins, R-NY., nominates Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for President during the second day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Tuesday, July 19, 2016. (J. Scott Applewhite / AP)
Insider trading was a family affair for upstate New York congressman Chris Collins, federal prosecutors charged Wednesday.
The Republican lawmaker, one of President Trump’s earliest supporters, was charged along with his son Cameron Collins and the father of Cameron’s fiancée, Stephen Zarsky, in a scheme that allowed them to avoid $768,000 in stock losses, prosecutors say.
The trio are accused of securities fraud related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotechnology company. The elder Collins sits on the firm’s board of directors and is one of its largest shareholders.
Manhattan federal prosecutors say the upstate New York congressman passed to his son confidential information that a new multiple sclerosis drug had failed a medical trial.
Armed with the insider tips, Cameron Collins was able to “make timely trades in Innate stock and tip others,” the indictment says.
Cameron Collins handed off the information to his fiancee’s father, who also made stock trades and passed on the tip to others, prosecutors say.
The public announcement of the failed drug trials caused the Innate stock price to plummet 92%.
“All of the trades preceded the public release of the negative drug trial results, and were timed to avoid losses that they would have suffered once the news became public,” the indictment says.
The defendants are expected to appear in Manhattan Federal Court Wednesday afternoon to face charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and other counts.
Collins’ attorneys released a statement defending the Republican lawmaker.
"We will answer the charges filed against Congressman Collins in court and will mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name,” said lawyers Jonathan Barr and Jonathan New. “It is notable that even the government does not allege that Congressman Collins traded a single share of Innate Therapeutics stock. We are confident he will be completely vindicated and exonerated.”
Collins found out about the drug trial failure in an email from Innate’s CEO on the night of June 22, 2017, the indictment says.
The congressman replied to the CEO 15 minutes later. “ Wow. Makes no sense,” he wrote. “How are these results even possible???”
Then Collins and his son traded six missed phone calls over the next four minutes. They finally connected a minute later in a call that resulted in Chris Collins sharing the news of the failed drug trial with his son, the indictment says.
The next morning, Cameron Collins sold 16,508 shares of Innate stock. He sold additional shares in the subsequent hours and days after conversations with his father, the indictment says.
In total, he sold nearly 1.4 million shares of Innate stock between June 23 and June 26. The dumping of his shares allowed him to avoid roughly $570,900 in losses, the indictment says.
Chris Collins did not trade any stocks himself and his holdings ultimately lost millions of dollars in value once the drug trial results were made public. Prosecutors say Collins was blocked from making his own trades because he was under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics and his shares were held in Australia where a halt was put on any Innate share buys or sells.
The congressman’s office later released a misleading statement to reporters that suggested his son had not sold any Innate shares prior to the public announcement of the drug trial, the indictment says.
Chris Collins himself made his opinions on the matter clear in an email about press coverage of Innate. “We want this to go away,” he wrote, according to the indictment.
Allegations of suspicious stock trades have dogged Chris Collins for more than 18 months. With Collins leading the charge, Congress passed legislation that could benefit experimental drug makers such as Innate Immunotherapeutics.
“Do you know how many millionaires I’ve made in Buffalo the past few months?” Collins was overheard saying into his cell phone off the House floor in early January 2017.
Chris Collins, whose district covers parts of western New York between Buffalo and Rochester, isn’t the only high-profile Republican who has made a mint selling shares of Innate stock.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price more than tripled his investment when he sold his shares in the company in Feb. 2017, raking in at least $225,000, according to public records.
A spokeswoman said Price, then a GOP congressman from Georgia, learned about the company from Collins.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-metr ... story.html
erica orden
SDNY complaint against Collins alleges he was at the White House, attending the Congressional picnic, when he conducted some of the activity that led to the insider trading charges:
by seemslikeadream » Thu Aug 09, 2018 9:31 am
New Details About Wilbur Ross’ Business Point To Pattern Of Grifting
A
multimillion-dollar lawsuit has been quietly making its way through the New York State court system over the last three years, pitting a private equity manager named David Storper against his former boss: Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. The pair worked side by side for more than a decade, eventually at the firm, WL Ross & Co.—where, Storper later alleged, Ross stole his interests in a private equity fund, transferred them to himself, then tried to cover it up with bogus paperwork. Two weeks ago, just before the start of a trial with $4 million on the line, Ross and Storper agreed to a confidential settlement, whose existence has never been reported and whose terms remain secret.
It is difficult to imagine the possibility that a man like Ross, who Forbes estimates is worth some $700 million, might steal a few million from one of his business partners. Unless you have heard enough stories about Ross. Two former WL Ross colleagues remember the commerce secretary taking handfuls of Sweet’N Low packets from a nearby restaurant, so he didn’t have to go out and buy some for himself. One says workers at his house in the Hamptons used to call the office, claiming Ross had not paid them for their work. Another two people said Ross once pledged $1 million to a charity, then never paid. A commerce official called the tales “petty nonsense,” and added that Ross does not put sweetener in his coffee.
There are bigger allegations. Over several months, in speaking with 21 people who know Ross, Forbes uncovered a pattern: Many of those who worked directly with him claim that Ross wrongly siphoned or outright stole a few million here and a few million there, huge amounts for most but not necessarily for the commerce secretary. At least if you consider them individually. But all told, these allegations—which sparked lawsuits, reimbursements and an SEC fine—come to more than $120 million. If even half of the accusations are legitimate, the current United States secretary of commerce could rank among the biggest grifters in American history.
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur RossAnthony Kwan / Bloomberg
Not that he sees himself that way. “The SEC has never initiated any enforcement action against me,” Ross said in a statement, failing to mention the $2.3 million fine it levied against his firm in 2016. The commerce secretary also noted that one lawsuit against him got dismissed, without saying it is currently going through the appeals process. Ross confirmed settling two other cases, including the recent one against Storper, but declined to offer additional details.
Those who’ve done business with Ross generally tell a consistent story, of a man obsessed with money and untethered to facts. “He’ll push the edge of truthfulness and use whatever power he has to grab assets,” says New York financier Asher Edelman. One of Ross’ former colleagues is more direct: “He’s a pathological liar.”
If even half of the accusations are legitimate, the current United States secretary of commerce could rank among the biggest grifters in American history.
W
ilbur Ross figured out at some point that money, or the aura of it, translates into power. Forbes has previously documented how Ross seemingly lied to us, over many years, launching himself onto, and then higher on, our billionaire rankings, at one point even lying about an apparent multibillion-dollar transfer to family members to explain why his financial disclosure report showed fewer assets than he claimed. “What I don’t want,” Ross said, “is for people to suddenly think that I’ve lost a lot of money when it’s not true.”
Such machinations now seem pathetic. But his billionaire status was not lost on another person obsessed with his net worth. Donald Trump termed Ross a “legendary Wall Street genius” and named him to his cabinet. “In these particular positions,” Trump explained to a crowd of supporters, “I just don’t want a poor person.”
Ross speaks before President Trump signed a memorandum in March.
Ross speaks before President Trump signed a memorandum in March.2018 Getty Images
From Ross’ vantage point, Trump offered the perfect exit. The future cabinet secretary’s private equity funds were underperforming—one on track to lose 26% of its initial value and another two dribbling out mediocre returns—and the accusations were starting to pile up. Roughly two months before the 2016 presidential election, the SEC announced WL Ross was paying a fine and refunding $11.9 million it allegedly skimmed from its investors, including interest. The scheme was complex. Like other private equity firms—including several that coughed up money to the SEC around the same time—WL Ross derived much of its revenue from management fees charged to its investors. With funds as large as $4.1 billion, management fees of 1.5% could alone bring in more than $60 million a year for Ross’ firm—serious money.
But WL Ross promised that it would give its investors something like a rebate. For example, when Ross and his colleagues got certain fees for working on deals, they were supposed to give at least 50% of that money back to investors. But, according to SEC investigators, the firm gave back less than it suggested it would and pocketed the difference, leading the feds to conclude Ross’ firm broke laws that prohibit defrauding and misleading clients. WL Ross paid the big settlement but never admitted guilt.
According to the feds, WL Ross charged some of those inappropriate fees in the years before the commerce secretary sold his firm to Invesco for $100 million up front and the possibility of another $275 million down the road. That meant that when Ross cashed out, he presumably did so at bigger valuation than he deserved. In a statement, Ross suggested that Invesco never clawed any of that money back. “The terms of the sale of my business in 2006 remain unchanged,” he said. Invesco declined to comment.
There is more to the story. According to five former WL Ross employees and investors, the firm was also charging its investors on money that it had lost. Here’s how it worked: If WL Ross made an investment of, say, $100 million that declined dramatically, in the final years of the fund the firm was supposed to charge management fees on the actual value of the investment, not the $100 million starting point. However, WL Ross allegedly continued collecting fees on the amount invested, taking more than it deserved. WL Ross was allegedly even charging fees on one investment that was essentially worthless. When approached about the discrepancy, Wilbur Ross initially insisted his firm was calculating the fees correctly, according to someone familiar with those discussions. “There are all sorts of fee issues,” says an investor, “but it was just the most egregious that I’ve seen.”
Nick DeSantis
Ross also allegedly skimmed money by serving on corporate boards of his firm’s portfolio companies. Again, the rule was that a portion of the fees that WL Ross employees got for serving on such boards was essentially supposed to be handed back to investors as rebates. Instead, Ross' firm did not give back enough, according to ex-colleagues. Ross "was like a kid in a candy store," says one of his former employees. "He pilfered it."
Ross is now attempting to distance himself from the management fee issues. “No regulatory agency has ever asserted such charges or any other charges against me and there is no basis for any such allegations,” he said in a statement.
Eight former employees and investors, however, said Ross presumably knew about the issues. And former WL Ross employees add that the costs were far greater than the $14.2 million announced by the Securities & Exchange Commission. A 2015 annual report for Invesco, WL Ross’ parent company, disclosed that the company had paid another $43 million over the last two years in reimbursements and regulatory expenses connected to its private equity business. Secretary Ross has largely avoided scrutiny around those payments because the report does not explicitly tie them to his former firm. Four former employees who worked there, however, told Forbes the $43 million was connected to WL Ross.
With the investors’ claims apparently behind him, Ross now faces a lineup of allegations from his former colleagues, who say he robbed them of money as well. Such accusations are nothing new for Ross. In 2005, former WL Ross vice chairman Peter Lusk sued the future commerce secretary for $20 million, ultimately alleging that he had tried to cut him out of his interests. The executives reached a settlement in 2007, which former WL Ross employees say cost roughly $10 million. Asked to comment on the suit, Ross responded, “The Lusk case ended with mutual confidentiality requirements.”
Three years ago, Storper launched what became a $4 million lawsuit against both his former employer, WL Ross, and former boss, the commerce secretary, alleging that Ross stole his interests. Attorneys for Ross admitted in court filings that one of his companies took Storper’s interest and reallocated part of it to the commerce secretary. But Ross’ lawyers also insisted all of that was allowed under internal agreements. “Simply put,” they wrote, “this lawsuit is a personal vendetta against Mr. Ross.” After a judge rejected attempts to prevent the case from going to trial, just days before the jury selections the two sides agreed to settle.
What makes it all more than a typical “he-said, she-said” dispute is the number of similar complaints against Ross. A third former WL Ross employee, Joseph Mullin, filed a $3.6 million lawsuit in December 2016, saying WL Ross funds “looted” his interests “for the personal benefit of Wilbur L. Ross, Jr.—and attempted to conceal their misconduct through opaque and misleading tax statements and disclosures.” A New York State court dismissed that case in February on technical grounds, saying Mullin, who left WL Ross in 2007, waited too long to file it. He is now appealing.
Storper and two other former high-ranking executives at WL Ross filed yet another lawsuit against the commerce secretary in November, alleging that he and his firm charged at least $48 million of improper fees, then pocketed the money. It was a slow siphoning rather than a one-time heist, according to the lawsuit. Private equity firms typically collect management fees—those 1.5% charges—only from their outside clients. But the lawsuit alleges that Ross and his firm seemingly charged current and former company executives as well. It would be like a restaurant owner telling his employees that they can eat for free—while taking the meal money out of their paychecks. In a statement to Forbes, Ross called the case “without merit.” He moved to dismiss it in February, but the suit remains active.
A look at old versions of WL Ross’ website reveal the magnitude of the turmoil. Of the top seven firm leaders listed on the 2006 website, none of them have the same roles today. Ross is now leading the commerce department, Wendy Teramoto serves as his chief of staff and Stephen Toy is the new co-head of WL Ross. Meanwhile, the majority—consisting of Storper, Mullin, David Wax and Pamela Wilson—are all actively waging legal battles against their former boss, Wilbur Ross.
In a presidential cabinet plagued by ethical problems, it can be easy to forget about Wilbur Ross. Most of the attention tends to center around obvious abuses, like Scott Pruitt getting a $43,000 sound-proof booth in his office or Tom Price wasting $341,000 on jet travel. But while Ross’ antics are more complicated, they involve far more money.
On November 1, 2017, Ross signed a sworn document, attesting that he had divested all the assets he promised he would. That was not true. The commerce secretary in fact still owned somewhere between $10 and $50 million worth of stock in WL Ross’ parent company, Invesco. Ross sold his shares a month later, banking at least $1.2 million more than he would have if he sold in May, when he initially promised to divest. By falsely claiming he gotten rid of the shares earlier, Ross also put himself in legal jeopardy, since it is a crime to lie to federal officials. Representatives for Ross, a sophisticated investor, claimed the commerce secretary did not lie but instead failed to realize he owned the shares.
But while Ross’ antics are more complicated, they involve far more money.
Ross also said he did not know he had a $73,000 stake in a company named Air Lease, which he finally sold in June—more than a year after he promised he would. And he admitted to shorting stock of Sun Bancorp, saying he hoped to cancel out an interest he mistakenly thought he owned but in fact did not. “For any head of any private equity firm that I know of, including like [Carlyle’s David] Rubenstein or [Blackstone’s Stephen] Schwarzman—these guys know what they own. It’s their whole business. It’s their whole life,” says an investor in WL Ross’ funds, terming the commerce secretary’s explanation “ridiculous.”
A top official in the federal Office of Government Ethics scolded Ross in a letter last month, saying that his failure to divest corroded public trust. According to the letter, another ethics official searched Ross’ calendars to see if the commerce secretary broke the law by taking actions to benefit his personal holdings, finding no evidence that he had. One day later, however, Forbes revealed that Ross had previously dined, in the White House, with the CEO of a business in which the commerce secretary secretly held an interest. After the report, Senator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, asked the inspector general of the Commerce Department to take a second look.
Thune is not the only senator making noise about Ross’ finances. In June, two senators and a congressman asked the Securities & Exchange Commission to launch an insider trading investigation of Ross, based on revelations that Ross shorted at least $100,000 in Putin-linked Navigator Holdings, soon after being told about a forthcoming exposé on his connection to the company. The minuscule scale—the trade seemingly bolstered Ross’ wallet by $3,000 to $10,000—makes the blunder that much more vexing.
Sen. John Thune asks a question during Wilbur Ross’ confirmation hearing.
Sen. John Thune asks a question during Wilbur Ross’ confirmation hearing. 2017 Getty Images
Fourteen Democratic Congressmen have also called on the inspector general to investigate Ross’ potential conflicts of interest. After assuring senators during his confirmation hearing that he would be overly cautious on ethical matters, Ross spent the majority of his first year in office as a business partner to the Chinese government, while he negotiated U.S.-China trade relations. He also waited to get rid of a stake in a Cypriot bank reportedly tied up in the Robert Mueller investigation. And he took months to divest an interest in a foreign car parts manufacturer whose industry he is now investigating.
The central matter in all of Ross’ legal issues is his own credibility. “Lying on an ethics disclosure form, to Congressional and Senate committees, and falsely reporting compliance with an ethics plan, is neither ‘commonplace’ nor part of the accepted rough-and-tumble world of politics,” David Storper, Ross’ former right-hand man, argued in a court filing. “They are just lies.” Adds another onetime colleague: “This is a public servant who can’t tell the truth.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexand ... -grifting/
The Shadow Rulers of the VA
How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.
by Isaac ArnsdorfAug. 7, 6:29 p.m. EDT
Then President-elect Donald Trump meets with Ike Perlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment, center, and Reince Priebus at Mar-a-Lago in December 2016. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Last February, shortly after Peter O’Rourke became chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs, he received an email from Bruce Moskowitz with his input on a new mental health initiative for the VA. “Received,” O’Rourke replied. “I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action.”
O’Rourke treated the email as an order, but Moskowitz is not his boss. In fact, he is not even a government official. Moskowitz is a Palm Beach doctor who helps wealthy people obtain high-service “concierge” medical care.
More to the point, he is one-third of an informal council that is exerting sweeping influence on the VA from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a longtime acquaintance of President Trump’s. The third member is a lawyer named Marc Sherman. None of them has ever served in the U.S. military or government.
Yet from a thousand miles away, they have leaned on VA officials and steered policies affecting millions of Americans. They have remained hidden except to a few VA insiders, who have come to call them “the Mar-a-Lago Crowd.”
Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman declined to be interviewed and fielded questions through a crisis-communications consultant. In a statement, they downplayed their influence, insisting that nobody is obligated to act on their counsel. “At all times, we offered our help and advice on a voluntary basis, seeking nothing at all in return,” they said. “While we were always willing to share our thoughts, we did not make or implement any type of policy, possess any authority over agency decisions, or direct government officials to take any actions… To the extent anyone thought our role was anything other than that, we don’t believe it was the result of anything we said or did.”
VA spokesman Curt Cashour did not answer specific questions but said a “broad range of input from individuals both inside and outside VA has helped us immensely over the last year and a half.” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters also did not answer specific questions and said Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz “have no direct influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs.”
But hundreds of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with former administration officials tell a different story — of a previously unknown triumvirate that hovered over public servants without any transparency, accountability or oversight. The Mar-a-Lago Crowd spoke with VA officials daily, the documents show, reviewing all manner of policy and personnel decisions. They prodded the VA to start new programs, and officials travelled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear their views. “Everyone has to go down and kiss the ring,” a former administration official said.
If the bureaucracy resists the trio’s wishes, Perlmutter has a powerful ally: The President of the United States. Trump and Perlmutter regularly talk on the phone and dine together when the president visits Mar-a-Lago. “On any veterans issue, the first person the president calls is Ike,” another former official said. Former administration officials say that VA leaders who were at odds with the Mar-A-Lago Crowd were pushed out or passed over. Included, those officials say, were the secretary (whose ethical lapses also played a role), deputy secretary, chief of staff, acting under secretary for health, deputy under secretary for health, chief information officer, and the director of electronic health records modernization.
At times, Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman have created headaches for VA officials because of their failure to follow government rules and processes. In other cases, they used their influence in ways that could benefit their private interests. They say they never sought or received any financial gain for their advice to the VA.
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The arrangement is without parallel in modern presidential history. The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 provides a mechanism for agencies to consult panels of outside advisers, but such committees are subject to cost controls, public disclosure and government oversight. Other presidents have relied on unofficial “kitchen cabinets,” but never before have outside advisers been so specifically assigned to one agency. During the transition, Trump handed out advisory roles to several rich associates, but they’ve all since faded away. The Mar-a-Lago Crowd, however, has deepened its involvement in the VA.
Perlmutter, 75, is painstakingly private — he reportedly wore a glasses-and-mustache disguise to the 2008 premiere of “Iron Man.” One of the few public photographs of him was snapped on Dec. 28, 2016, through a window at Mar-a-Lago. Trump glares warily at the camera. Behind him, Perlmutter smiles knowingly, wearing sunglasses at night.
When Trump asked him for help putting a government together, Perlmutter offered to be an outside adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. Having fought for his native Israel in the 1967 war before he moved to the U.S. and became a citizen, Perlmutter chose veterans as his focus.
Perlmutter enlisted the assistance of his friends Sherman and Moskowitz. Moskowitz, 70, specializes in knowing the world’s top medical expert for any ailment and arranging appointments for clients. He has connections at the country’s top medical centers. Sherman, 63, has houses in West Palm Beach and suburban Baltimore and an office in Washington with the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal. His legal work focuses on financial fraud, white collar investigations and damages disputes. His professional biography lists experience in eight industries, none of them related to health care or veterans.
Moskowitz and Sherman helped Perlmutter convene a council of health care executives on the day of the Trump-Perlmutter photograph, Dec. 28, 2016. Offering more private healthcare to vets was a signature promise of Trump’s campaign, but at that point he hadn’t decided who should lead an effort that would reverse the VA’s longstanding practices.
A new name surfaced in that meeting: David Shulkin, who’d led the VA’s health care division since 2015. Perlmutter then recommended Shulkin to Trump, according to a person familiar with his thinking. (Shulkin did not respond to requests for comment.)
Once nominated, Shulkin flew to Mar-a-Lago in early February 2017 to meet with Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz. In a follow-up email a few days later, Moskowitz elaborated on the terms of their relationship. “We do not need to meet in person monthly, but meet face to face only when necessary,” he wrote. “We will set up phone conference calls at a convenient time.”
Shulkin responded diplomatically. “I know how busy all of you are and having you be there in person, and so present, was truly a gift,” he wrote. “I found the time we spent, the focus that came out of our discussions, and the time we had with the President very meaningful.”
It wasn’t long before the Mar-a-Lago Crowd wore out their welcome with Shulkin. They advised him on how to do his job even though they sometimes seemed to lack a basic understanding of it. Just after their first meeting, Moskowitz emailed Shulkin again to say, “Congratulations i[t] was unanimous.” Shulkin corrected him: “Bruce- this was not the confirmation vote- it was a committee vote- we still need a floor vote.”
Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman acted like board members pounding a CEO to turn around a struggling company, a former administration official said. In email after email, officials sought approval from the trio: for an agenda Shulkin was about to present to Trump for a research effort on suicide prevention and for a plan to recruit experts from academic medical centers. “Everything needs to be run by them,” the first former official said, recalling the process. “They view themselves as making the decisions.”
The Mar-a-Lago Crowd bombarded VA officials with demands, many of them inapt or unhelpful. On phone calls with VA officials, Perlmutter would bark at them to move faster, having no patience for bureaucratic explanations about why something has to be done a certain way or take a certain amount of time, former officials said. He issued orders in a thick, Israeli-accented English that can be hard to understand.
In one instance, Perlmutter alerted Shulkin to what he called “another real-life example of the issues our great veterans are suffering with when trying to work with the VA.” The example came from Karen Donnelly, a real estate agent in Palm Beach who manages the tennis courts in the luxury community where Perlmutter lives. Donnelly’s son was having trouble accessing his military medical records. After a month of dead ends, Donnelly said she saw Perlmutter on the tennis court and, knowing his connection to Trump, asked him for help. Perlmutter told her to email him the story because he’s “trying to straighten things out” at the VA, she recalled. (Donnelly separately touched off a nasty legal dispute between Perlmutter and a neighbor, Canadian businessman Harold Peerenboom, who objected to her management of the tennis courts. In a lawsuit, Peerenboom accused Perlmutter of mounting a vicious hate mail campaign against him, which Perlmutter’s lawyer denied.)
Perlmutter forwarded Donnelly’s email to Shulkin, Moskowitz and Sherman. “I know we are making very good progress, but this is an excellent reminder that we are also still very far away from achieving our goals,” Perlmutter wrote.
Shulkin had to explain that they were looking in the wrong place: Since the problem was with military service records, it lay with the Defense Department, not the VA.
Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman defended their intervention, saying, “These were the types of stories of agency dysfunction and individual suffering that drove us to offer our volunteer experience in the first place — veterans who had been left behind by their government. These individual cases helped raise broader issues for government officials in a position to make changes, sometimes leading to assistance for one veteran, sometimes to broader reforms within the system.”
Right after meeting Shulkin, Moskowitz connected him with his friend Michael Zinner, director of the Miami Cancer Institute and a member of the American College of Surgeons’ board of regents. (Zinner declined to comment.) The conversation led to a plan for the American College of Surgeons to evaluate the surgery programs at several VA hospitals. The plan came very close to a formal announcement and contract, internal emails show, but stalled after Shulkin was fired, according to the organization’s director, David Hoyt.
Besides advocating for friends’ interests, some of the Mar-a-Lago Crowd’s interventions served their own purposes. Starting in February 2017, Perlmutter convened a series of conference calls with executives at Johnson & Johnson, leading to the development of a public awareness campaign about veteran suicide. They planned to promote the campaign by ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange around the time of Veterans Day.
The event also turned into a promotional opportunity for Perlmutter’s company. Executives from Marvel and its parent company, Disney, joined Johnson & Johnson as sponsors of the Veterans Day event at the stock exchange. Shulkin rang the closing bell standing near a preening and flexing Captain America, with Spider-Man waving from the trading pit, and Marvel swag was distributed to some of the attendees. “Generally the VA secretary or defense secretary don’t shill for companies,” the leader of a veterans advocacy group said.
The VA was aware of the ethical questions this event raised because of Shulkin’s relationship with Perlmutter. An aide to Shulkin sought ethics advice from the agency’s lawyers about the appearance. In an email, the aide noted, “the Secretary is friends with the President of Marvel Comics, Mr. Ike Perlmutter, but he will not be in attendance.” The VA redacted the lawyer’s answer, and the agency’s spokesman would not say whether the ethics official approved Shulkin’s participation in the event.
Perlmutter did not answer specific questions about this episode. His joint statement with Moskowitz and Sherman said, “None of us has gained any financial benefit from this volunteer effort, nor was that ever a consideration for us.”
Perlmutter also facilitated a series of conference calls with senior executives from Apple. VA officials were excited about working with the company, but it wasn’t immediately obvious what they had to collaborate on.
As it turned out, Moskowitz wanted Apple and the VA to develop an app for veterans to find nearby medical services. Who did he bring in to advise them on the project? His son, Aaron, who had built a similar app. The proposal made Apple and VA officials uncomfortable, according to two people familiar with the matter, but Moskowitz’s clout kept it alive for months. The VA finally killed the project because Moskowitz was the only one who supported it.
Moskowitz, in the joint statement, defended his son’s involvement, calling him a “technical expert” who participated in a single phone call alongside others. “Any development efforts, had they occurred, would not have involved Aaron or any of us. There was no product of Dr. Moskowitz’s or Aaron’s that was promoted or recommended in any way during the call,” the trio said. “Again, none of us, including Aaron, stood to receive any financial benefit from the matters discussed during the conversation — and any claims to the contrary are factually incorrect.”
Moskowitz had more success pushing a different pet cause. He has spent years trying to start a national registry for medical devices, allowing patients to be notified of product recalls. Moskowitz set up the Biomedical Research and Education Foundation to encourage medical institutions to keep track of devices for their patients to address what he views as a dangerous hole in oversight across the medical profession. At one point, the foundation built a registry to collect data from doctors and patients. Moskowitz chaired the board, and Perlmutter’s wife was also a member. Moskowitz’s son earned $60,000 a year as the executive director, according to tax disclosures.
Moskowitz pushed the VA to pick up where he left off. He joined officials on weekly 7:30 a.m. conference calls in which officials discussed organizing a summit of experts on device registries and making a public commitment to creating one at the VA. In an email to Shulkin, the VA official in charge of the project referred to it as the “Bruce Moskowitz efforts.”
When the summit arrived, on June 4, Moskowitz and his son did not attend. It’s not clear what role they will have in setting up the VA’s registry going forward — their foundation has shut down, according to its website, and Moskowitz’s son said he’s no longer involved. But in his opening remarks at the summit, Peter O’Rourke, then the acting secretary, offered a special thanks to “Dr. Bruce Moskowitz and Aaron Moskowitz of the Biomedical Research and Education Foundation” as “driving forces” behind it.
Over the course of 2017, there was growing tension within the Trump administration about how much the VA should rely on private medical care. During the campaign, Trump championed letting veterans see any doctor they choose, inside or outside the VA system. But Shulkin warned that such an approach was likely to result in poorer care at a higher cost. His preferred solution was integrating government-run VA care with a network of private providers.
In September 2017, the Mar-a-Lago Crowd weighed in on the side of expanding the use of the private sector. “We think that some of the VA hospitals are delivering some specialty healthcare when they shouldn’t and when referrals to private facilities or other VA centers would be a better option,” Perlmutter wrote in an email to Shulkin and other officials. “Our solution is to make use of academic medical centers and medical trade groups, both of whom have offered to send review teams to the VA hospitals to help this effort.”
In other words, they proposed inviting private health care executives to tell the VA which services they should outsource to private providers like themselves. It was precisely the kind of fox-in-the-henhouse scenario that the VA’s defenders had warned against for years. Shulkin delicately tried to hold off Perlmutter’s proposal, saying the VA was already developing an in-house method of comparing its services to the private sector.
Shulkin also clashed with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd over how to improve the VA’s electronic record-keeping software (the one episode involving the trio that has previously surfaced, in a report by Politico). The contract, with a company called Cerner, would cost more than $10 billion and take a decade to implement. But Moskowitz had used a different Cerner product and didn’t like it. He complained that the software didn’t offer voice recognition, even though newer versions of Cerner’s product do. For months, the Mar-a-Lago Crowd pressured Shulkin to put the contract through additional vetting.
On Feb. 27, 2018, Shulkin flew to Mar-a-Lago — not to see Trump, who was back in Washington, but to meet with Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman. The trip was supposed to close the deal on the Cerner contract, according to two people familiar with the meeting. By then, Shulkin’s stature had been badly diminished by an ethics scandal, and he expected he didn’t have much longer in the job, but he wanted to finish the Cerner deal first.
Shulkin brought O’Rourke, an ex-Trump campaign aide who stepped in as chief of staff after the ethics scandal led to the departure of Shulkin’s top aide. O’Rourke took the opportunity to ally himself with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd. “It was an honor to meet you all yesterday,” he wrote in a follow-up email. “I want to ensure that you have my VA and personal contact information.” He then provided his personal cell phone number and email address. (Using personal email to conduct government business can flout federal records laws, as President Trump and his allies relentlessly noted in their attacks on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.) “Thank you for your support of the President, the VA, and me,” O’Rourke wrote. (O’Rourke didn’t answer requests for comment.)
Perlmutter welcomed the overture. “I feel confident that you will be a terrific asset moving forward to get things accomplished,” he replied.
The Mar-a-Lago Crowd grew frustrated with Shulkin, feeling like he wasn’t listening to them, and Perlmutter came to regret recommending Shulkin to Trump in the first place, according to people familiar with his thinking. That aligned them with political appointees in the VA and the White House who started to view Shulkin as out of step with the president’s agenda.
One of these officials, senior adviser Camilo Sandoval, presented himself as Perlmutter’s eyes and ears within the agency, two former officials said. For instance, in an email obtained by ProPublica, Sandoval kept tabs on the Apple project and reported back to Moskowitz and Sherman. “I will update the tracker, and please do let me know if this helps answers [sic] questions around Apple’s efforts or if additional clarification is required,” he wrote. Sandoval, who didn’t answer requests for comment, knew Perlmutter because he worked on the campaign with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also close with Perlmutter.
In December, White House adviser Jake Leinenkugel sent Sandoval a memo outlining a plan to upend the department’s leadership. Leinenkugel would not say who asked him to write the memo. But it was clearly not intended for Sandoval alone, since it refers to him in the third person. Three people familiar with the situation said the memo was sent to Sandoval as a channel to Perlmutter. The spokeswoman for Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz said they didn’t know about the memo.
The memo recommended easing Shulkin out and relying on Perlmutter for help replacing him. “Put [Shulkin] on notice to exit after major legislation and key POTUS VA initiatives in place,” the memo said. “Utilize outside team (Ike).” Although several factors contributed to Shulkin’s downfall, including the ethics scandal and differences with the White House over legislation on buying private health care, three former officials said it was his friction with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd over the Cerner contract that ultimately did him in.
Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman dispute that contention. “Any decisions of the agency or the president,” they noted in their statement, “as well as the timing of any agency decisions, were independent of our contacts with the VA.”
But it wasn’t just Shulkin — all the officials that the Leinenkugel memo singled out for removal are now gone, replaced with allies of Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz. The memo suggested that Sandoval take charge of the Office of Information and Technology, overseeing the implementation of the Cerner contract; he got the job in April. The memo proposed removing Deputy Secretary Tom Bowman; he left in June, and the post hasn’t been filled. The memo floated Richard Stone for under secretary for health; he got the job on an acting basis in July. Leinenkugel himself took charge of a commission on mental health (the same topic Moskowitz had emailed O’Rourke about). O’Rourke, having hit it off with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd, became acting secretary in May.
Trump initially nominated White House doctor Ronny Jackson to replace Shulkin, with Pentagon official Robert Wilkie filling in on a temporary basis. On Wilkie’s first day at the VA, Sherman was waiting for him in his office, according to a calendar record.
Within a few weeks, Wilkie made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. He tacked it onto a trip to his native North Carolina, and O’Rourke caught up with him in Palm Beach. They visited a VA hospital and rehab facility, then headed to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman, according to agency records.
The Mar-a-Lago Crowd gave Wilkie and O’Rourke rave reviews. “I am sure that I speak for the group, that both you and Peter astounded all of us on how quickly and accurately you assessed the key problems and more importantly the solutions that will be needed to finally move the VA in the right direction,” Moskowitz told Wilkie in a follow-up email.
Perlmutter was similarly thrilled with the new regime. “For the first time in 1½ years we feel everyone is on the same page. Everybody ‘gets it,’” he said in an email. “Again, please know we are available and want to help any possible way 24/7.”
Wilkie replied that the honor was his. “Thank you again for taking time to see me,” he wrote.
Soon after, Jackson’s nomination imploded over allegations of misconduct as White House physician. (Jackson denied the allegations, and they’re still being investigated.) At that point, Perlmutter’s endorsement cleared the way for Trump to nominate Wilkie.
Wilkie, who was sworn in on July 30, now faces a choice between asserting his own authority over the VA or taking cues from the Mar-a-Lago Crowd. Wilkie reportedly wants to sideline O’Rourke and Sandoval and restock the agency leadership with his own people. But people familiar with the situation said the Mar-a-Lago Crowd’s allies are pushing back on Wilkie’s efforts to rein them in. As his predecessor learned the hard way, anyone who crosses the Mar-a-Lago Crowd does so at his own risk.
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