Trump loyalists place Priebus next on chopping block
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The purge of Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
engineered by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, formally the head of
the Republican National Committee in Washington, is the “Pearl Harbor” for
Trump loyalists – a devastating attack that determines for Trump
supporters that Priebus, an elite GOP Washington insider, must go.
The concern among Trump loyalists is that now that Priebus has
succeeded in getting rid of Flynn, his next targets will be Trump top advisors
Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway – all of whom D.C. insiders
are planning must go if Priebus is to succeed in sabotaging Trump’s
revolutionary agenda.
Infowars has established that Priebus is the Chief Leaker in the
White House, responsible for feeding the Trump-hating mainstream media that
daily dominate the White House news room with “red meat,” including the demeaning leak to the
Washington Post that
Trump is “isolated,” a “clueless child,” wandering about in a bathrobe (that
Trump does not own), who’s presiding over a “White House in disarray.”
Priebus, after ensconcing himself in the seat of power as White
House Chief of Staff by promising Trump that he alone could manage renegade GOP
leaders in Congress – including House Speaker Ryan and Senate Majority Leader
McConnell – must be made to bear the full responsibility for mismanaging the
failed rollout of Trump’s temporary immigration ban and for not containing the
controversy over Flynn and the Russians.
But for Trump loyalists, who are sick of Priebus packing the White
House with GOP establishment toadies and appointing as “acting head” agency
chiefs still loyal to President Obama and Hillary Clinton, Flynn’s resignation
was the last straw.
Determined to sweep house in a Priebus-created White House
virtually devoid of Trump supporters, Trump loyalists have declared war and are
demanding Priebus’ scalp.
Priebus has planted his own downfall, ignoring a commitment
President-elect Trump made to former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson that
Tillerson would have the final say in reviewing the finalists for the top ten
ambassador nominations.
Yet, two weeks ago, Priebus violated that agreement by taking to
Trump directly a list of 15 names of top GOP donors who coveted the top
ambassador appointments as prizes for their contributions to Priebus and the
GOP.
Priebus’ downfall may well be his ill-advised attempt to advance
the name of Duke Buchan on the list of losers Priebus has pushed Trump to
nominate as ambassadors without so much as consulting with Secretary of State
Tillerson.
According to the White House insiders, Tillerson was furious when
he learned that Trump had approved Priebus’ recommendations, not aware Priebus
had bypassed Tillerson in the nomination process. Even worse, without
Tillerson’s approval, Priebus has switched on the final vetting process for the
top GOP donors on his ambassador list – going so far as to assure Buchan he has
Priebus’ personal assurance that Buchan will be nominated as U.S. ambassador
to Spain.
Once again, Priebus is setting Trump up for a fall. Just
wait until Trump’s numerous mainstream media enemies – who are still dominating
the White House press room – and congressional Democrats realize Buchan is
a failed hedge fund manager and serial tax evader who owned a company that was
part of a lending syndicate Trump sued.
Consider the facts of Duke Buchan’s checkered business history.
Buchan’s $1 billion Hunter Global hedge fund was a high-flyer
until the 2008 financial crisis, when Buchan took unrecoverable losses, forcing him to announce
unceremoniously in
December 2011 that he was shuttering his firm Hunter Global Investors LP.
Since then Buchan has spent a lot of time trying to evade taxes
and not pay bills, claiming he intended to convert Hunter Global into a fund
for family investments. Since the collapse of Hunter Global in 2011,
Buchan has spent a lot of time trying to evade past debts.
Records that surfaced subsequently show that Hunter Global
Investors Offshore Fund Ltd. registered in the Cayman Islands, famous as a
destination for tax cheats, was put into “voluntary
liquidation” on Dec.
4, 2012, given until Jan. 16, 2013 to resolve all debts before the company was
thrown into default. Effectively declaring bankruptcy. Buchan’s active
lawsuit against the Cayman Islands company could complicate this situation, if
selected as ambassador.
On Jan. 15, 2017, Politico reported Buchan was mentioned in a 2006
Senate report on tax
haven abuses that details a federal lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange
Commission against billionaire brothers Sam Wyly and Charles Wyly for allegedly
hiding $550 million in trading profits by using an “elaborate sham system” of
offshore entities. As Politico noted, Buchan was named in the Senate report as
a member of the board of directors of a company, Scottish Annuity & Life
Holdings Ltd. that was allegedly used by the Wyly brothers in the scheme.
Perhaps the most shocking fact is that Priebus is asking Trump to
back a guy who was an owner of a company called Newcastle Investment Corp that
was one of the construction lenders Trump sued in 2008 in a controversy over the
financing of a
Riverfront Tower that Trump was building in Chicago.
Kevin Madden, a key strategist in Mitt Romney’s losing 2012
presidential campaign and a spokesperson for Buchan, has defended Buchan’s
history as an investment manager.
“It’s important to understand that Mr. Buchan does not own
companies,” Madden has argued. “His firm invests in publicly traded companies
along with thousands of other individual and institutional investors.” Yet, an
SEC filing in 2005 listed Buchan as a principal in the formation of Newcastle
Investment Corp.
A ProPublica.org analysis of Buchan’s charity, The George and
Sarah Buchan Foundation, found the foundation has
claimed assets consistently
averaging approximately $2 million in each year, with charitable disbursements
reaching a high at only $46,269.00 in 2012, making questionable how much
charity the foundation is accomplishing.
A 2015 prospectus filed with
the SEC by Century Communities, Inc., a corporation engaged in the
development, design, construction, and marketing of single-family homes in
metropolitan areas in Colorado, Texas, Nevada, and
Georgia, documents that Duke Buchan personally, the Buchan Family
Trust, and Hunter Global Investors each owned common shares in the
company.
The prospectus further shows that Buchan voted the common shares
owned by himself and by Hunter Global Investors, with John Flournoy, Buchan’s
father-in-law, voting shares held by the Buchan Family Trust – an arrangement
suggesting Buchan co-mingled investments between the three Buchan-controlled
investors, each with very different federal and state tax requirements.
As if using Cayman Island Tax Shelters and bogus foundations to
evade taxes weren’t enough, court records show Buchan has sued a working class
town in Dutchess County 12 times to contest his tax bill on a property he owns,
even though he has three property tax exemptions that reduce his property’s
assessment by over $1 million.
And to top it off, Buchan has tax warrants in the State of New
York against his company, Hunter Global Investments, and a tax warrant in
Albany County, New York against he and his wife.
Likewise, Priebus has a serial history of having undercut Trump throughout
the 2016 presidential election campaign.
In October 2016, as the presidential campaign was entering its
final weeks, Priebus, in reaction to the controversy over Trump’s lewd comments
about women recorded in 2005, redirected RNC funds from
Trump’s campaign, spending instead on down-ticket GOP candidates
Priebus at that time thought were more likely than Trump to win.
