MEMORANDUM
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: David Brock, Founder of Correct The Record
RE: Donald Trump’s “Major Speech”
DATE: June 22, 2016
Trump’s Slow Motion Meltdown
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is melting down.
It started on May 19th, when CNN reported that, in 2006, Trump had said he hoped that the housing market would fail “because then people like me would go in and buy.” The story marked the beginning of a series of self-inflicted wounds and devastating revelations about Trump’s past that paralyzed his campaign. A week later, Trump attacked New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, the most prominent Republican Latina politician in the country and the leader of the Republican Governors Association, for her poor performance as governor. The New York Times called the comments “a rocky start” to the general election and Republican leaders like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker strongly defended Martinez from Trump’s attacks.
The next week, U.S. Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the presiding judge in the Trump University lawsuit, released court documents showing that former Trump U employees called the business a predatory “fraudulent scheme” and a “lie.” Under fire for allegedly defrauding hundreds of former students, Trump responded with a series of racist and incendiary attacks against Judge Curiel. Trump insisted that Curiel’s “Mexican heritage” (he was born in Indiana) made him biased, called the judge a “hater” and ominously suggested that “they ought to look into Judge Curiel.”
The comments have fueled a crisis in the Republican Party. In early June, Republican Senator Mark Kirk (IL) announced he would no longer support Trump. The party’s top two elected officials denounced the comments. House Speaker Paul Ryan called Trump’s remarks “racist.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even suggested he may withdraw his support from the presumptive Republican nominee. And a number of Senators continue to refuse to endorse him, including up-and-coming Republicans like Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse and Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. There is now even open discussion about a “delegate revolt” against Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
The loss of support among Republican elected officials comes at the worst possible time for the Trump campaign. Recent reporting has revealed the campaign remains a top-down, one-man show, that promotes Trump products and financially benefits the candidate and his companies to the tune of at least $6.2 million. As of the end of May, the campaign has less cash on hand than the top 50 House campaigns and remains skeletal, lacking even the most basic infrastructure needed to run a general election. There is no real data team or field operation and few or no staff in many key battleground states. RNC staff members charged with leading outreach to black and Hispanic voters have both resigned in the past few months. Trump himself admitted the campaign would be unable to meet his fundraising goals. On top of all of that, the epic power struggle between Trump senior advisor Paul Manafort and campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, in part, led to Trump’s firing of Lewandowski on Monday.
Even the campaign’s attempt to “pivot” on June 9th was an unmitigated disaster. As his family painfully watched at his side, Trump used a teleprompter to give the worst speech of his campaign. As former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm memorably described it, Trump was “low energy.” It was a bad night for Donald Trump—but somewhere Jeb Bush must have been smiling.
Today’s Speech
Here is what we know about this morning: Trump will be depending on widely-discredited sources like right-wing books Clinton Cash, which was panned by many for a lack of evidence and many errors, and Crisis of Character, which has been denounced by Secret Service veterans because the author was too low-ranking to have seen any of what he claims. Trump will also lie about Hillary Clinton today as he has lied about her before. There have been at least a dozen fact checks calling out Trump for lying about Clinton—on the issues, on the polls and on Benghazi. You name it; he’s lied about it.
Trump asserted that Hillary Clinton “started” the birther movement, resulting in Four Pinocchios from The Washington Post, a “False” from PolitiFact, and being called “false” by FactCheck.org. He claimed Clinton “doesn’t do very well with women,” earning a Pants on Fire from PolitiFact. He earned another pair of Pants on Fire for saying Clinton wants to “release the violent criminals from jail” and that “she wants them all released.” FactCheck.org said Trump “distorts the facts” when he claimed Clinton wanted “to abolish the Second Amendment.” Trump has repeatedly lied about Clinton’s leadership during the Benghazi tragedy, claiming that she decided to “go home and sleep” during the attacks and ignored hundreds of calls for help from U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. The comments have earned Trump Pinocchios and a “no evidence” rating. (For more Trump Lies, visit trumplies.com)
Trump is also a practiced conspiracy theorist who recently reached a new low. He was a leading voice in the birther movement and, earlier this year, peddled tales about Ted Cruz’s father’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Incredibly, following the Orlando attack that killed 49 Americans last week, Trump insinuated President Obama sympathizes with terrorists. In interviews the day after the shooting, Trump suggested about Obama: “maybe he doesn’t want to know about it…there are many people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it.” He also warned “there’s something going on” with Obama because he refused to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.”
The corrupt, unscrupulous Donald Trump is in no position to question the ethics of others. Allegations about Trump U by his own staff continue to dog Trump’s campaign. Newspaper editorial boards called for investigatio
Here are just a few examples:
- Donald Trump sought to do business with notorious Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. “Overlooking terrorism that killed Americans, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Donald Trump sought investment partnerships with Muammar al-Qaddafi and the Libyan regime. He rented his Westchester estate to the dictator, tried to set up a face-to-face meeting, and took the Libyan ambassador golfing.”
- Donald Trump did business in Azerbaijan with the son of a notoriously corrupt official suspected of laundering money for Iran. “Six months before he entered the presidential race, Donald Trump announced a new real estate project in Baku, Azerbaijan. His partner was the son of a government minister suspected by U.S. diplomats of laundering money for Iran’s military and described as ‘notoriously corrupt.’”
- Donald Trump’s top aide and his lobbying firm have represented dictators, guerilla groups, and despots with no regard for human rights. Top Trump aide Paul Manafort and his lobbying firm have represented “dictators, guerilla groups, and despots with no regard for human rights—including one man responsible for mass amputations, and another who oversaw state-sanctioned rape.” According to the Daily Beast, “Manafort and the partners at his firm made a fortune repping some of the most despicable dictators of the 20th century.”
- Donald Trump was “eager” to meet with Vladimir Putin, and he and his family have traveled to Russia to pursue numerous business opportunities in the country since the 1980s. “Trump was especially eager for the presence of another honored guest: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump tweeted Putin a personal invitation to attend the pageant, and a one-on-one meeting between the New York businessman and the Russian leader was scheduled for the day before the show. Putin canceled at the last minute, but he sent a decorative lacquered box, a traditional Russian gift, and a warm note, according to Aras Agalarov, a Moscow billionaire who served as a liaison between Trump and the Russian leader. […] Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.”
- Donald Trump has been involved in development deals with convicted criminals at least twice. “At least twice, Trump has been involved in development deals with convicted criminals. In 2001, Trump announced he was partnering with developer Leib Waldman to build a massive condo and hotel tower in Toronto. Two months later, Canadian newspapers revealed that Waldman had fled the United States after pleading guilty to bankruptcy fraud in the mid-1990s. His extradition sent the project into a tailspin. […] In the early years of the last decade, Trump also struck an alliance with Bayrock Group LLC, an upstart property development firm that had recently moved into the Trump Tower. As a partner, Bayrock didn’t have much of a track record. The firm was created in July 2001. Its two top officials were Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet hospitality minister whose previous development experience had been in Turkey, and Felix Satter. Digging into the background of Satter wouldn’t have turned up much because Satter did not actually exist. But a man with a similarly spelled name, Felix Sater, had been sentenced to prison for stabbing a man in the face with a broken margarita glass and barred for life from selling securities.”
- Donald Trump’s purported mentor was a lawyer for the mafia. New York lawyer Roy Cohn had “a long, formidable list [of clients] that included the executives of media empires, the Archbishop of New York and mafia kingpin Fat Tony Salerno, and there, too, near the top, was budding, grasping Donald John Trump. ‘He considered Cohn a mentor,’ Mike Gentile, the lead prosecutor who got Cohn disbarred for fraud and deceit not long before he died, said in a recent interview.”
- Donald Trump hired an indicted drug trafficker to fly high rollers around Atlantic City. “Trump’s casinos retained [Joseph] Weichselbaum’s firm to fly high rollers to Atlantic City. Weichselbaum was indicted in Ohio on charges of trafficking in marijuana and cocaine. The head of one of Trump’s casinos was notified of the indictment in October 1985, but Trump continued using Weichselbaum—conduct that again could have cost Trump his casino license had state regulators pressed the matter, because casino owners were required to distance themselves from any hint of crime.”
- Donald Trump retained a senior advisor though it was known the man was linked to a major mafia-linked stock fraud scheme. “Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his real-estate empire even after the man’s past involvement in a major mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records.”
If there is anyone who is corrupt, it is Donald Trump. This is the man who rented his land to the infamous, terror-supporting dictator Mummar al-Qaddafi and wanted a meeting with this dictator to discuss other business opportunities. Throughout his career, he has had friends and business associates who were suspected money launderers, associated with the mafia and indicted on charges of drug trafficking.
Trump’s campaign is in a tailspin, and he’s lied about Clinton so many times it is hard to keep track. He is trying to distract from the mess in his own backyard. This man is a fraud who stops at nothing—not even trying to do business with a terrorist-supporting dictator—to enrich himself. Nothing he says today, tomorrow, or in the months to come can change that fact.