Tag: Trump Tower

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s company is scrapping plans for two new hotel chains announced two years ago, casting blame in part on a hostile political environment. The Trump Organization said Thursday that it will no longer try to open hotels under its Scion and American Idea brands catering to budget and mid-priced travelers, a departure from its focus on luxury hotels. The announcement comes as the company has posted losses at a few of its golf properties and brand experts say it has lost some of its appeal. “We live in a climate where everything will be used against us, whether by the fake news or by Democrats who are only interested in presidential harassment and wasting everyone’s time, barraging us with nonsense letters,” the president’s son, Eric Trump, said in an emailed statement. “We already have the greatest properties in the world and if we have to slow down our growth for the time being, we are happy to do it.” The rollout began with promises of fast success. The company said in March 2017 that nearly two dozen developers had already signed letters of intent to open mid-priced Scion hotels, and was enthusiastic about the future prospects. “It’s full steam ahead,” said Eric Danziger, who oversees the hotel business for the family. The only developer willing to strike a deal was Chawla Hotels of Mississippi. The Trump Organization owns or has licensed its name to 17 golf clubs and more than two dozen hotels and residential buildings around the world. More recently, it is facing blowback from Democrats in Congress for firing long-time workers at several of its U.S. golf clubs for being in the country illegally, raising doubts about its hiring practices amid the president’s vow to crack down on such workers and build a wall to keep more from coming in.

Don Jr.'s mysterious phone calls ahead of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting were not to the president; reaction from Fox News contributor Trey Gowdy. #TheStory #MarthaMacCallum #FoxNews FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering…

Living Elizabeth Pipko, a 23-year-old model who has appeared in Maxim, has kept a secret from her industry colleagues out of fear it could derail her career: She was a Donald Trump supporter and worked full-time on his 2016 presidential campaign. Once, after working a 10-hour-day on the Trump campaign, I went to meet with my manager (who was not affiliated with a modeling agency). My manager kept saying how evil the people who work for him must be and that he would never work with anyone who supported him. So I lied and told people I was coaching ice skating — I was a competitive figure skater for seven years — whenever I was really hard at work in Trump Tower. Once, when I was at Trump Tower, I ran into a big-time male model I knew from Wilhelmina, the agency that first signed me when I was 17. He was volunteering for the campaign, but he asked me not to tell anyone that I had seen him there — and I said the same. Not only am I proud of my work for Trump, but I also met amazing people — including my now husband, Darren Centinello, who is still part of the President’s campaign team. I think Trump is great for women. I care about what President Trump has done and will do for my country. And this time, I’m not going to hide it.

A pair of unnamed sources allege President Trump directed his then-attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow tower project, but no other news outlets have been able to confirm the story. #Outnumbered #FoxNews FOX News Channel (FNC)…

Mr. Cohen, who has been sentenced to three years in prison, has accused Mr. Trump of directing him to make illegal hush payments during the campaign. “The president should make no statement or take any action to obstruct Congress’s independent oversight and investigative efforts, including by seeking to discourage any witness from testifying in response to a duly authorized request from Congress.” The message seemed to imply that if Democrats in the House were to ever try to build an impeachment case against Mr. Trump, attempts to interfere with their work could be used as evidence. In August, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to tax fraud, making false statements to a bank and a campaign finance violation. As Mr. Trump’s attacks on him have intensified, Mr. Cohen has told friends that he is worried for his safety, though no public evidence of any such threats has emerged. Mr. Trump’s comments about Mr. Cohen on Saturday, made during a friendly interview with Jeanine Pirro of Fox News, were his first extended remarks on the matter since Mr. Cohen’s congressional testimony was announced. Asked by Ms. Pirro if he was “worried” about the testimony, Mr. Trump called Mr. Cohen “weak” and asserted — in contradiction to filings by federal prosecutors in Manhattan — that Mr. Cohen had “no information” on him. There has been no public indication that prosecutors are pursuing Mr. Shusterman. After Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to his crimes, the president said Mr. Cohen had done so only to save his wife and his father-in-law. Mr. Nadler has said he will wait for Mr. Mueller to complete his work before seriously considering impeachment, but he told The New York Times last month that the campaign finance fraud laid out by prosecutors in New York was likely to meet the criteria for an impeachable offense and warranted congressional investigation. In 1974, the Judiciary Committee included obstruction of congressional investigations and proceedings among a litany of offenses for which it voted to impeach President Richard M. Nixon.

Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform Committee Elijah Cummings issues statement thanking Michael Cohen for agreeing to testify; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge and chief White House correspondent John Roberts report. #FoxNews FOX News Channel (FNC) is a…

Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in 2016 and became part of the special counsel probe, is charged by New York prosecutors for obstructing justice in a civil money-laundering investigation. Read more…

Special counsel submits documents about Flynn's January 2017 interview with FBI; Sen. Lindsey Graham weighs in on the latest in the Mueller probe. #YourWorld #FoxNews FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news…

New York (CNN)Federal prosecutors said for the first time Friday that Michael Cohen acted at the direction of Donald Trump when the former fixer committed two election-related crimes during the 2016 presidential campaign, as special counsel Robert Mueller outlined a previously undisclosed set of overtures and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian nationals. Those revelations came in a set of court filings in which federal prosecutors in New York said Cohen should receive a "substantial" prison sentence of roughly four years for tax fraud and campaign-finance crimes, and as Mueller's office accused the President's former attorney of lying about his contacts with Russia. Mueller's disclosures also exposed deeper entanglements than previously known between Trump, his campaign apparatus and the Russian government, including that a Russian national who claimed to be well-connected in Moscow spoke with Cohen in 2015 and offered "political synergy" with the Trump campaign. In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes after being charged by Manhattan federal prosecutors. In one instance, Cohen spoke in November 2015 to a Russian national who offered "synergy on a government level" to the Trump presidential campaign and "repeatedly proposed" a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to court papers. Mueller's sentencing memo also provided the first explanation of the Trump Tower Moscow project's relevance to Russia's interference during the 2016 campaign. According to the special counsel, Cohen's false statements to investigators about the Trump Tower Moscow project "obscured the fact that the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government." That Cohen continued to work on the Trump Tower Moscow project -- and discuss it with Trump -- was material to both the ongoing congressional and special counsel investigations, prosecutors said, noting in particular that "it occurred at a time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. presidential election." "The defendant amplified his false statements by releasing and repeating his lies to the public, including to other potential witnesses," prosecutors wrote. In the New York federal prosecutors' case, the sentencing guidelines call for a term of 51 to 63 months in prison, and prosecutors on Friday asked the court to "impose a substantial term of imprisonment, one that reflects a modest downward variance from the applicable guidelines range."

CNN's Anderson Cooper calls out President Trump for his past statements about having no business deals or interests in Russia. #CNN #News