Trump pal Carl Icahn dumped $30 million of stock in a steel-dependent company right before tariff announcement

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/02/trump-pal-carl-icahn-dumped-3.html

3 Likes

This administration leaks like a rusted out sieve.

And the Obama & Bush administrations were illuminati-level secretive, waging unprecedented war on whistleblowers.

Is it too much to ask for some kind of middle way?

10 Likes

Nothing to see here, move along.

5 Likes

This is going to leave a blemish on his otherwise spotless career.

35 Likes

The weird thing is, he seems to be the only person Trump told. There were no prepared remarks and even his advisors were surprised; the State Department, the Treasury Department or the Defense Department weren’t informed, much less asked to weigh in; legal was only beginning to look at the issue; there weren’t even plans on how to inform congress, trading partners or the public. The whole thing seems to have been spurred by a surprise meeting with aluminum and steel executives (it was unscheduled and White House staff and secret service didn’t even have time to clear the visitors - Kelly didn’t even know who was coming).
Then Trump, amazingly, got pissed when the stock market fell at the news.

Honestly, we’re all just constantly underestimating just how unhinged and dangerous Trump really is in his current position.

26 Likes

This is illegal right? It’s getting so hard to keep track.

34 Likes

Motherfucker.

13 Likes

it’s definitely dodgy. Bush II the revenge tried effectively the same thing. WTO ruled against it. And nearly every trade partner we have threatened sanctions in retaliation. Forcing Bush II Bush Harder to back off in less than 30 days.

Interesting thing there is that the EU retaliation was very narrowly focused on products from swing states. So the response wasn’t so much "trade war! " as it was “play by the rules your well very specifically trash your chances in the next election”.

16 Likes

Welcome to the kleptocracy. Lots of Donnie’s pals are going to be collecting their piece of the action before 2020.

15 Likes

Does any one else get the feeling that some time soon we are going to wake up in the morning to the news of Donny being 25th Amendment-ed out of office? Sad! Shameful! /s

5 Likes

Speak for yourself. I’m still waiting for the nuclear blasts.

9 Likes

I’m never sure why anyone is shocked at Trump & Friends profiteering from his presidency, considering he once openly predicted, “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”

16 Likes

Yeah, there’s that, too - trade and military actions are the two things that Trump can unilaterally do, and they’re both, in their ways, to radically different degrees, dangerous. But I think, despite that being in the back of most people’s heads, we’ve become lulled into a false sense of security a bit by the fact that so many Trump policies have been stymied by others. Finally we’re seeing what happens when the president, in a rage, starts exerting his power in an area where no one can stop him. Too many people were expecting the “adults” in his administration to rein him in on basic stuff like this, but they couldn’t. This time he was angry and ignorant, but he can get a lot more “unglued,” and, indeed, we can’t expect anyone to do any better job of keeping him in check on military actions than they did here. Especially if the remaining “adults” in his administration get pushed out, which seems to be on the horizon.

It started happening even before he was sworn into office. We’ll never know the half of it, because we don’t know who he’s talking to about what, and how his “friends” are guiding his decisions.

Yeah, the cognitive dissonance on the part of the MAGAts is second only to Trump’s own re-writing of reality. Yet they did, indeed, insist that he’d work for the public good, not his own, despite the fact that he openly said otherwise. /shrug

10 Likes

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Hamptons, Martha Stewart bakes a bitter-looking galette…

8 Likes

I think vodalus was talking about the whole insider trading thing.

2 Likes

Whoops! Your corruption is showing!

2 Likes

Just remember the GOP has enabled all this, for their sake of remaining a relevant party. I’m not sure if in the history of the country a group has sold out the US for their own self interest so blatently since the South seceded. We may be happy to survive and get through this for now, but eventually we are going to have to deal with them.

12 Likes

Before next January if they’re smart.

3 Likes

1.Oligarchs are Russian. 2. No Russians there - it’s OK.

I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

1 Like