Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #302 Update on German Corporate Control over the American Media

Lis­ten: Side 1 | Side 2

This pro­gram sup­ple­ments an ongo­ing series, begin­ning in Decem­ber of 1998.

1. The pro­gram begins with a recap of an arti­cle that was high­light­ed in FTR #299. Because the impli­ca­tions of the arti­cle for Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions (and, con­se­quent­ly, this series) would be dif­fi­cult to exag­ger­ate, it is reviewed here. In a sweep­ing rul­ing, the FCC gave the go ahead to Deutsche Telekom (con­trolled by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment) to pur­chase Amer­i­can mobile tele­phone com­pa­nies. (The head of the FCC is Michael Pow­ell, Col­in Pow­ell’s son.) More impor­tant­ly, the rul­ing gives the go-ahead to the future pur­chase of Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies by com­pa­nies that are con­trolled by for­eign gov­ern­ments. The gov­ern­ing pro­to­col to deter­mine whether such pur­chas­es are accept­able will be the WTO’s stan­dard of being “in the pub­lic inter­est.” “. . . . Although extend­ed reg­u­la­to­ry debates can fre­quent­ly lead to doc­u­ments full of mealy-mouthed bureau­cratese, the 97-page order issued by the FCC is as sweep­ing and prece­dent-set­ting as Mr. Pow­ell had want­ed. It goes fur­ther than any pre­vi­ous rul­ing in the agen­cy’s 66-year his­to­ry to open up the U.S. telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions mar­ket to for­eign com­peti­tors. ‘This is the green light. This is the paved road. This is the auto­bahn,” said Rudy Baca, an ana­lyst of inter­na­tion­al tele­coms reg­u­la­tion with the Pre­cur­sor Group. ‘It’s more defin­i­tive than most peo­ple expect­ed.’ At the heart of the debate over the deal was a dis­creet sec­tion of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions act that con­tains seem­ing­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry guid­ance on how to deal with for­eign tele­coms owned by their gov­ern­ments. One part of the law states flat­ly that no U.S. phone licens­es can be held ‘by any for­eign gov­ern­ment or rep­re­sen­ta­tive there­of.’ But anoth­er sec­tion allows a com­pa­ny to buy the license if the FCC rules it in the pub­lic inter­est. The inter­pre­ta­tion of the lan­guage is cru­cial, since out­side the UK, most big over­seas com­pa­nies remain at least par­tial­ly in the hands of gov­ern­ments. After the Voic­eS­tream deal clos­es, for instance, Telekom will still be 45 per cent-owned by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment. The same is the case for impor­tant inter­na­tion­al play­ers such as France Tele­com and Japan’s NTT. In its Telekom-Voic­eS­tream rul­ing, the FCC found the word­ing call­ing for an out­right ban applies only if a for­eign gov­ern­ment itself tries to acquire a license — a high­ly unlike­ly sce­nario that, for all intents and pur­pos­es, makes the clause moot. Instead, all com­pa­nies where a gov­ern­ment owns a stake will be gov­erned by the pub­lic inter­est waiv­er. In addi­tion, the FCC went even fur­ther, say­ing that due trade com­mit­ments, any pur­chase by a com­pa­ny from a WTO coun­try will be assumed to be in the pub­lic inter­est, a clear sign that the agency has opened the flood gates. ‘The FCC has con­firmed that it will be apply­ing U.S. law to U.S. WTO com­mit­ments, said Scott Blake Har­ris, for­mer head of the FCC’s inter­na­tion­al bureau who worked for Voic­eS­tream in the deal. Ana­lysts pre­dict that the order could lead to a new save of for­eign invest­ment, which could tar­get even the largest U.S. car­ri­ers. The FCC’s sweep­ing rul­ing, how­ev­er, has incensed the deal’s oppo­nents, includ­ing Sen­a­tor Ernest Hollings, who came with­in a hair’s breadth of block­ing the merg­er through leg­is­la­tion last year. He has vowed to rein­tro­duce the bill this ses­sion and include a pro­vi­sion that would force the Ger­man gov­ern­ment to sell most of its stake in Telekom if it want­ed to retain Voic­eS­tream. ‘They basi­cal­ly rewrote the law,’ said one crit­ic. “They just changed 65 years of jurispru­dence.’ ” (“US Rul­ing on Telekom Could Lead to Wave of Invest­ment” by Peter Spiegel in Wash­ing­ton; Finan­cial Times; 5/2/2001; p. 8.)

2. As the sto­ry indi­cates, the FCC rul­ing estab­lish­es WTO mem­ber­ship and “the pub­lic inter­est” as the pri­ma­ry cri­te­ria for eval­u­at­ing pur­chas­es of Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions firms by com­pa­nies con­trolled by for­eign gov­ern­ments. Much of the first half of the pro­gram reviews infor­ma­tion about Robert Zoel­lick, one of the prin­ci­pal archi­tects of the WTO. (The arti­cles are excerpt­ed from FTR 273. Zoel­lick was appoint­ed as U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive by George Bush.)

As not­ed else­where, WTO mid­wife Zoel­lick is a fel­low and board mem­ber of the Ger­man Mar­shall Fund of the Unit­ed States. (“Robert Bruce Zoel­lick” by Joseph Kahn; New York Times; 1/12/2001; p. A15.) This orga­ni­za­tion, in turn, is inex­tri­ca­bly linked with the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion.

3. The eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal com­po­nent of a Third Reich gone under­ground, the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion con­trols cor­po­rate Ger­many and much of the rest of the world. It was cre­at­ed and run by Mar­tin Bor­mann, the orga­ni­za­tion­al genius who was the “the pow­er behind the throne” in Nazi Ger­many.

4. Paul Man­ning describes this orga­ni­za­tion in some detail in his book Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile. “By the 1970s, the West Ger­mans had con­clud­ed that influ­enc­ing U.S. pub­lic opin­ion is bet­ter accom­plished with a skilled touch than with a meat cleaver, which had char­ac­ter­ized their efforts dur­ing the two world wars. An exam­ple of such skill was the staged news event of June 5, 1972, when Willy Brandt announced at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty that the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many would donate 150 mil­lion marks ($47 mil­lion) to estab­lish a foun­da­tion in hon­or of the Mar­shall Plan — a states­man­like approach to the recov­ery of for­mer ene­mies, and to the recov­ery gen­er­al­ly of West­ern Europe. Brandt stat­ed that the mon­ey would arrive in equal install­ments for the next fif­teen years, for the estab­lish­ment and oper­a­tion in the Unit­ed States of an inde­pen­dent Amer­i­can-run edu­ca­tion­al foun­da­tion spe­cial­iz­ing in solu­tions to Euro­pean prob­lems, to be known as the ‘Ger­man Mar­shall Fund of the Unit­ed States — A Memo­r­i­al to the Mar­shall Plan.’

5. “The over­rid­ing func­tion of this Ger­man George C. Mar­shall Research Foun­da­tion is pub­lic rela­tions, to cos­me­tize the Ger­man indus­tri­al­ists and bankers whose cor­po­ra­tions whose cor­po­ra­tions had worked so suc­cess­ful­ly for the Third Reich. In Octo­ber 1978, the Mar­shall Foun­da­tion was uti­lized as a plat­form for Dr. Her­mann J. Abs, now hon­orary pres­i­dent of Deutsche Bank A.G., as he addressed a meet­ing of busi­ness­men and bankers and mem­bers of the For­eign Pol­i­cy Asso­ci­a­tion in New York City on the ‘Prob­lems and Prospects of Amer­i­can-Ger­man Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion.’ This lun­cheon meet­ing was chaired by his old friend, John J. McCloy, Wall Street banker and lawyer, who had worked close­ly with Dr. Abs when McCloy served as U.S. High Com­mis­sion­er for Ger­many dur­ing those post­war recon­struc­tion years. At that time, Her­mann Abs, as chief exec­u­tive of Deutsche Bank, was also direct­ing the spend­ing of Amer­i­ca’s Mar­shall Plan mon­ey in West Ger­many as the chair­man of the Recon­struc­tion Loan Cor­po­ra­tion of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many. With them on the dais were Hen­ry H. Fowler, Wall Street invest­ment banker and for­mer U.S. Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury; Hen­ry Cabot Lodge, for­mer U.S. ambas­sador to the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many; George C. McGhee, anoth­er for­mer Amer­i­can ambas­sador to West Ger­many, also a trustee of the Mar­shall Foun­da­tion and a mem­ber of var­i­ous pri­vate and gov­ern­ment advi­so­ry groups. These, along with the oth­ers on the dais and in the audi­ence, rep­re­sent firms and banks that are among the most pres­ti­gious in the Unit­ed States and through­out the world; all ben­e­fit­ed from the rebirth and rebound­ing pros­per­i­ty of the new Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many. Know­ing­ly or no, these fig­ures and their cor­po­ra­tions are indebt­ed to the man who was not there, the finan­cial and admin­is­tra­tive genius who set the foun­da­tion for the post­war recov­ery of West Ger­many, Mar­tin Bor­mann.” (Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Man­ning; Copy­right 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stu­art Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 261–262.)

6. Man­ning goes on to describe the func­tion of the Ger­man Mar­shall Fund, an inter­est­ing fac­tor to con­tem­plate in con­nec­tion with Zoel­lick, his piv­otal role in the cre­ation of the WTO and, in turn, the WTO’s impor­tant role as the yard­stick by which pur­chas­es of Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions firms will be mea­sured by the FCC. “The Stroking of Amer­i­can pub­lic opin­ion by Ger­man inter­ests, as by those of Japan, is cal­cu­lat­ed to open fur­ther the Amer­i­can mar­ket. The Unit­ed States remains the rich­est and the most prof­itable mar­ket on the face of the earth, and these busi­ness­men and bankers know that they either buy their way in or nego­ti­ate their way in. They know that if they are going to suc­ceed as world com­pa­nies they must have a gen­er­ous slice of the U.S. mar­ket, and today this can be accom­plished only through ties, treaties, and agree­ments, no longer entire­ly through retained earn­ings and bank lines of cred­it.” (Ibid.; p. 262.)

7. Zoel­lick­’s even­tu­al ascent to a posi­tion of pow­er in this insti­tu­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing to note in the con­text of some of his oth­er actions, pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions and beliefs. A mem­ber of the Bush State Depart­ment, Zoel­lick was a strong, effec­tive advo­cate with­in James Bak­er’s for­eign pol­i­cy estab­lish­ment for speedy Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion, and he played a piv­otal role in bring­ing it about. “Mr. Zoel­lick, the oth­er lead­ing can­di­date for the trade job, was a for­eign pol­i­cy wun­derkind under Mr. Bak­er. He helped design and car­ry out Unit­ed States pol­i­cy on Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion a decade ago. He also helped start NAFTA nego­ti­a­tions from his post in the State Depart­ment.” (“Bush Seek­ing to Over­haul Pol­i­cy Mak­ing” by Joseph Kahn and Frank Bruni; New York Times; 1/6/2001; p. B14.)

8. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Zoel­lick mid­wifed a diplo­mat­ic com­pro­mise to cre­ate the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion. (“Robert Bruce Zoel­lick” by Joseph Kahn; New York Times; 1/12/2001; p. A15.)

9. With regard to Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion, Zoel­lick con­vinced the Bush admin­is­tra­tion to embrace Ger­man uni­ty. “A con­fi­dant of for­mer Sec­re­tary of State James A. Bak­er III, he ral­lied west­ern allies to back a speedy Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion and fina­gled a com­pro­mise that led to the cre­ation of the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion. . . .But he is most wide­ly remem­bered in for­eign pol­i­cy cir­cles for being the Unites States’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the mul­ti­par­ty nego­ti­a­tion of the future of divid­ed Ger­many. He per­suad­ed the Bush admin­is­tra­tion to embrace Ger­man uni­ty despite the qualms of allies and alarm in the for­mer Sovi­et Union.” (Ibid.; p. A15.)

10. Anoth­er cred­it on Zoel­lick­’s cur­ricu­lum vitae, is his par­tic­i­pa­tion with James Bak­er, his appar­ent men­tor, in the “Flori­da Recount,” that gave Bush his “vic­to­ry.” “Zoel­lick also served as coun­selor to the Trea­sury sec­re­tary dur­ing the Ronald Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion, in addi­tion to oth­er posts. He is a pro­tégé of James A. Bak­er III, the long­time Repub­li­can offi­cial. Both trav­eled to Flori­da to help George W. Bush dur­ing the recent bal­lot recount con­tro­ver­sy.” (“Bush’s Trade Chief Rat­ed as Smart, Smooth Nego­tia­tor” by Jonathan Peter­son; Los Ange­les Times; 1/12/2001; p. A15.)

11. With the types of con­nec­tions exem­pli­fied above, Zoel­lick is viewed with favor in Europe. “The appoint­ment will be greet­ed favor­ably in Europe, where Mr. Zoel­lick has strong con­tacts in both gov­ern­ment and busi­ness. He was one of a hand­full of Bush advis­ers that a senior EU del­e­ga­tion sought out last month when they vis­it­ed Wash­ing­ton.” By Edward Alden, Richard Wolffe and Stephen Fidler; Finan­cial Times; 1/12/2001; p. 4.)

12. Zoel­lick­’s par­ti­san role on behalf of Ger­many dur­ing the clos­ing phase of the Cold War, his piv­otal role in the cre­ation of the WTO, and his sig­nif­i­cance in the Bush/Baker milieu would seem to augur well for con­di­tions in Amer­i­ca for Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions. Giv­en FCC Chair­man Michael Pow­ell’s recent actions on acqui­si­tions of Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies, Zoel­lick­’s actions have helped to open up the Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions land­scape to Ger­man cor­po­rate preda­tors. (“US Rul­ing on Telekom Could Lead to Wave of Invest­ment” by Peter Spiegel; Finan­cial Times; 5/2/2001.)

13. This, in turn, is to be eval­u­at­ed in terms of the sce­nario pre­sent­ed in the Nazi tract Ser­pen­t’s Walk. Mr. Emory believes that, like The Turn­er Diaries (also pub­lished by Nation­al Van­guard Books), the book is actu­al­ly a blue­print for what is going to take place. It is a nov­el about a Nazi takeover of the Unit­ed States in the mid­dle of the 21st cen­tu­ry. The book describes the Third Reich going under­ground, buy­ing into the Amer­i­can media, and tak­ing over the coun­try. “It assumes that Hitler’s war­rior elite — the SS — did­n’t give up their strug­gle for a White world when they lost the Sec­ond World War. Instead their sur­vivors went under­ground and adopt­ed some of their tac­tics of their ene­mies: they began build­ing their eco­nom­ic mus­cle and buy­ing into the opin­ion-form­ing media. A cen­tu­ry after the war they are ready to chal­lenge the democ­rats and Jews for the hearts and minds of White Amer­i­cans, who have begun to have their fill of gov­ern­ment-enforced mul­ti-cul­tur­al­ism and ‘equal­i­ty.’ ” (From the back cov­er of Ser­pen­t’s Walk by “Ran­dolph D. Calver­hall;” Copy­right 1991 [SC]; Nation­al Van­guard Books; 0–937944-05‑X.)

14. This process is described in more detail in a pas­sage of text, con­sist­ing of a dis­cus­sion between Wrench (a mem­ber of this Under­ground Reich) and a mer­ce­nary named Less­ing. “The SS . . . what was left of it . . . had busi­ness objec­tives before and dur­ing World War II. When the war was lost they just kept on, but from oth­er places: Bogo­ta, Asun­cion, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Mex­i­co City, Colom­bo, Dam­as­cus, Dac­ca . . . you name it. They real­ized that the world is head­ing towards a ‘cor­po­racra­cy;’ five or ten inter­na­tion­al super-com­pa­nies that will run every­thing worth run­ning by the year 2100. Those super-cor­po­ra­tions exist now, and they’re already divid­ing up the pro­duc­tion and mar­ket­ing of food, trans­port, steel and heavy indus­try, oil, the media, and oth­er com­modi­ties. They’re most­ly con­glom­er­ates, with fin­gers in more than one pie . . . . We, the SS, have the say in four or five. We’ve been com­pet­ing for the past six­ty years or so, and we’re slow­ly gain­ing . . . . About ten years ago, we swung a merg­er, a takeover, and got vot­ing con­trol of a super­corp that runs a small but sig­nif­i­cant chunk of the Amer­i­can media. Not open­ly, not with bands and trum­pets or swastikas fly­ing, but qui­et­ly: one huge cor­po­ra­tion cud­dling up to anoth­er one and gen­tly munch­ing it up, like a great, gub­bing amoe­ba. Since then we’ve been replac­ing exec­u­tives, push­ing some­body out here, bring­ing some­body else in there. We’ve swing pro­gram con­tent around, too. Not much, but a lit­tle, so it won’t show. We’ve cut down on ‘nasty-Nazi’ movies . . . good guys in white hats and bad guys in black SS hats . . . lov­able Jews ver­sus fiendish Ger­mans . . . and we have media psy­chol­o­gists, ad agen­cies, and behav­ior mod­i­fi­ca­tion spe­cial­ists work­ing on image changes.” (Ibid.; pp. 42–43.)

15. Before turn­ing direct­ly to the sub­ject of music, the broad­cast address­es the grad­ual remak­ing of the image of the Third Reich that is rep­re­sent­ed in Ser­pen­t’s Walk. In the dis­cus­sion excerpt­ed above, this process is fur­ther described. “Hell, if you can con granny into buy­ing Sug­ar Turds instead of Bran Farts, then why can’t you swing pub­lic opin­ion over to a cause as vital and impor­tant as ours?’ . . . In any case, we’re slow­ly replac­ing those neg­a­tive images with oth­ers: the ‘Good Bad Guy’ rou­tine’ . . . ‘What do you think of Jesse James? John Dillinger? Julius Cae­sar? Genghis Khan?’ . . . The real­i­ty may have been rough, but there’s a sort of glit­ter about most of those dudes: mean hon­chos but respectable. It’s all how you pack­age it. Opin­ion is a godamned com­mod­i­ty!’ . . . It works with any­body . . . Give it time. Aside from the media, we’ve been buy­ing up pri­vate schools . . . and help­ing some pub­lic ones through phil­an­thropic foun­da­tions . . . and work­ing on the church­es and the Born Agains.” (Ibid.; pp. 42–44.)

16. Next, the pro­gram con­sid­ers an odd law­suit, which embraces evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning in the direc­tion of the remark­able and dead­ly Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion, as well as the issue of cul­ture and his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism. The heirs to Hitler’s per­son­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er are suing to obtain paint­ings done by Hitler. (“Court Con­sid­ers Own­er­ship of Seized Hitler Paint­ings” by William H. Honan; New York Times; 5/8/2001; pp. B1-B6.)

17. Some experts view the return of the paint­ings by the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment to be con­ducive to a restora­tion of Hitler’s image and a reha­bil­i­ta­tion of his pol­i­tics. (Idem.)

18. The rights to pho­tog­ra­ph­er Hein­rich Hoff­man’s pic­tures of Hitler were held exclu­sive­ly by Mar­tin Bor­mann, sug­gest­ing at least the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the con­sid­er­able sum from the law­suit would be des­tined for the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion. (Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile; by Paul Man­ning; Lyle Stu­art Inc.; 1991; p. 44.)

19. Just as the Hitler water­col­ors were seen by some as pre­sent­ing the threat of mar­ket­ing “a kinder, gen­tler Hitler,” so too were a series of forged sketch­es attrib­uted to Hitler while he was serv­ing in the Ger­man army dur­ing World War I. Those draw­ings received the enthu­si­as­tic endorse­ment of Dirk Baven­damm, the offi­cial house his­to­ri­an for the Ber­tels­mann firm. (“Ber­tels­man­n’s Revi­sion­ist” The Nation; 11/8/99.) This “cul­tur­al revi­sion­ism” would fit in well with the sce­nario pre­sent­ed in Ser­pen­t’s Walk.

20. The broad­cast con­cludes with sup­ple­men­tal dis­cus­sion of per­son­al­i­ties in the Hitler water­col­ors case whose Nazi careers over­lapped Bor­man­n’s sphere of influ­ence. (Quest by Frank Bran­den­burg and Ib Mel­chior; Copy­right 1990 [SC]; Pre­sidio Press; p. 109.)

Discussion

One comment for “FTR #302 Update on German Corporate Control over the American Media”

  1. With the fil­ing of the Mueller report, one of the biggest ques­tions fac­ing the Trump pres­i­den­cy at this point is which of the numer­ous oth­er scan­dals will the press and pub­lic focus on now? It’s a big ques­tion in part because there’s just such a big selec­tion of scan­dals to choose from.

    Of all the remain­ing Trump scan­dals to choose from, per­haps the most tempt­ing is the bla­tant and wide­spread vio­la­tions of the emol­u­ments clause of the US Con­sti­tu­tion. And that’s part of what makes the scan­dal involv­ing T‑Mobile’s con­spic­u­ous patron­age of Trump’s prop­er­ties a poten­tial­ly very inter­est­ing scan­dal. Arti­cle I, Sec­tion 9, Clause 8 of the US Con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibits pres­i­dents from accept­ing gifts from for­eign gov­ern­ments. And yet numer­ous for­eign gov­ern­ments have dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased their stays at Trump prop­er­ties over the last few years. So there’s already bla­tant open vio­la­tions of the emol­u­ments clause going on there involv­ing for­eign gov­ern­ments.

    Here’s what makes T‑Mobile’s case kind of inter­est­ing: T‑Mobile has been try­ing to get approval to merge with Sprint which requires the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s bless­ing. T‑Mobile has also dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased its stays at Trump’s prop­er­ties, start­ing the day after they announced the pro­posed merg­er with Sprint. So there’s some bla­tant cor­po­rate pan­der­ing going on. But unlike the ban there’s noth­ing in the con­sti­tu­tion stop­ping the Pres­i­dent from doing busi­ness with domes­tic com­pa­nies and this is what makes the T‑Mobile case extra inter­est­ing. His­tor­i­cal­ly, US pres­i­dents have always been will­ing to put their per­son­al assets in blind trusts to avoid con­flicts of inter­est or the appear­ance of con­flicts of inter­est. Trump took a decid­ed­ly dif­fer­ent approach and decid­ed to hand con­trol of his assets to his chil­dren, which is basi­cal­ly the oppo­site of a blind trust. Then Trump famous­ly declared that the pres­i­dent sim­ply can’t have con­flicts of inter­est so there’s noth­ing to wor­ry about.

    So we have a sit­u­a­tion where both for­eign gov­ern­ments and domes­tic cor­po­ra­tions are cur­ry­ing favor with the US pres­i­dent by con­spic­u­ous using Trump’s prop­er­ties. And in T‑Mobile’s case, we have a domes­tic cor­po­ra­tion that’s owned by Deutsche Telekom which is about 31% owned by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment. The rest of Deutsche Telekom is owned by pub­lic investors so that means the Ger­man gov­ern­ment basi­cal­ly has a con­trol­ling share of the com­pa­ny even if it does­n’t own a major­i­ty stake.

    So T‑Mobile is kind of both a domes­tic US cor­po­ra­tion and the asset of a for­eign gov­ern­ment and it’s clear­ly try­ing to bribe the Trump admin­is­tra­tion into approv­ing its merg­er with Sprint. And that’s all what makes the T‑Mobile proxy-bribes of Trump such an inter­est­ing scan­dal. It’s bla­tant­ly scan­dalous, but whether or not it’s a scan­dal involv­ing a domes­tic cor­po­ra­tion or a for­eign gov­ern­ment is kind of ambigu­ous:

    Reuters

    T‑Mobile spent $195,000 at Trump Hotel in D.C. since merg­er announce­ment

    David Shep­ard­son
    March 5, 2019 / 10:29 AM

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) — T‑Mobile Us Inc’s chief exec­u­tive, John Leg­ere, and oth­er com­pa­ny lead­ers have spent $195,000 on hotel stays and oth­er expens­es at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Hotel in Wash­ing­ton since the com­pa­ny sought approval for a $26 bil­lion merg­er with Sprint last April, doc­u­ments released on Tues­day show.

    The com­pa­ny dis­closed the expens­es in a let­ter after Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal, both Democ­rats, sent let­ters to lead­ers of the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion and T‑Mobile last month after reports that T‑Mobile exec­u­tives start­ed reg­u­lar­ly using the Trump hotel. Pho­tos of Leg­ere, who reg­u­lar­ly stays at the hotel, began appear­ing on social media sites, with him wear­ing his cus­tom­ary pink T‑Mo­bile-themed attire.

    After ques­tions were raised about the Trump hotel stays, Leg­ere post­ed a pho­to of him­self from anoth­er promi­nent Wash­ing­ton hotel.

    The com­pa­ny said in a Feb. 21 let­ter the $195,000 includ­ed costs for “meet­ing space, cater­ing, busi­ness cen­ter ser­vices, audio/visual equip­ment rental, lodg­ing, meals, tax­es and oth­er inci­den­tal expens­es.”

    The Democ­rats said the hotel stays “raise ques­tions about whether T‑Mobile is attempt­ing to cur­ry favor with the Pres­i­dent, who has not ful­ly divest­ed from his finan­cial inter­ests, via their numer­ous and expen­sive stays in the Trump Hotel.”

    The Wash­ing­ton Post report­ed that T‑Mobile exec­u­tives had reserved at least 52 nights at the hotel since the merg­er announce­ment, dra­mat­i­cal­ly boost­ing the company’s use of the hotel.

    The com­pa­ny said the Trump hotel expens­es were just 14 per­cent of its total spent at Wash­ing­ton area hotels dur­ing that peri­od.

    ...

    The Jus­tice Depart­ment and the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion are still review­ing the pro­posed deal to com­bined the third- and fourth-largest wire­less car­ri­ers.

    Trump and Leg­ere feud­ed pub­licly in 2015. Leg­ere com­plained about a street drum­mer out­side a Trump hotel, which prompt­ed Trump to call T Mobile’s ser­vice “ter­ri­ble” in a tweet.

    Leg­ere said in his let­ter to the Democ­rats that he has stayed at Trump prop­er­ties in Chica­go, New York and Wash­ing­ton and said the Wash­ing­ton hotel “is locat­ed close by my com­pa­ny office ... and the Depart­ment of Jus­tice.”

    Last month, nine sen­a­tors, includ­ing War­ren, urged reg­u­la­tors to reject the merg­er.

    ———-

    “T‑Mobile spent $195,000 at Trump Hotel in D.C. since merg­er announce­ment” by David Shep­ard­son; Reuters; 03/05/2019

    “The Wash­ing­ton Post report­ed that T‑Mobile exec­u­tives had reserved at least 52 nights at the hotel since the merg­er announce­ment, dra­mat­i­cal­ly boost­ing the company’s use of the hotel.

    Yep, ever since the T‑Mobil/Sprint merg­er announce­ment, all of a sud­den there was a dra­mat­ic surg­ing in T‑Mobil’s use of Trump’s hotels. The CEO of T‑Mobile, John Leg­ere, appar­ent­ly reg­u­lar­ly stays there while wear­ing his sig­na­ture T‑Mobile attire. It’s not exact­ly sub­tle:

    ...
    The com­pa­ny dis­closed the expens­es in a let­ter after Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal, both Democ­rats, sent let­ters to lead­ers of the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion and T‑Mobile last month after reports that T‑Mobile exec­u­tives start­ed reg­u­lar­ly using the Trump hotel. Pho­tos of Leg­ere, who reg­u­lar­ly stays at the hotel, began appear­ing on social media sites, with him wear­ing his cus­tom­ary pink T‑Mo­bile-themed attire.

    ...

    Trump and Leg­ere feud­ed pub­licly in 2015. Leg­ere com­plained about a street drum­mer out­side a Trump hotel, which prompt­ed Trump to call T Mobile’s ser­vice “ter­ri­ble” in a tweet.
    ...

    And this is all hap­pen­ing when the Jus­tice Depart­ment and FEC are still review­ing the pro­posed merg­er. That’s not super shady or any­thing. Nope:

    ...
    The Jus­tice Depart­ment and the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion are still review­ing the pro­posed deal to com­bined the third- and fourth-largest wire­less car­ri­ers.

    ...

    Leg­ere said in his let­ter to the Democ­rats that he has stayed at Trump prop­er­ties in Chica­go, New York and Wash­ing­ton and said the Wash­ing­ton hotel “is locat­ed close by my com­pa­ny office ... and the Depart­ment of Jus­tice.”

    Last month, nine sen­a­tors, includ­ing War­ren, urged reg­u­la­tors to reject the merg­er.
    ...

    And now here’s a piece in Vox that puts this scan­dal in the con­text of the larg­er scan­dal of Trump’s bla­tant dis­re­gard for the emol­u­ments clause and the fact that for­eign gov­ern­ments, espe­cial­ly Sau­di Ara­bia, have been unam­bigu­ous­ly increas­ing their stays at Trump’s prop­er­ties. And as the arti­cle notes, while the con­sti­tu­tion does ban pres­i­dents from accept­ing gifts from for­eign gov­ern­ments, there’s no such ban on pres­i­dents doing busi­ness with domes­tic cor­po­ra­tions. In the past, US pres­i­dents decid­ed to go with blind trusts in order to avoid even the appear­ance of a con­flict of inter­est but Trump decid­ed that hav­ing Trump Jr. and Eric run the com­pa­ny was good enough:

    Vox

    Report: T‑Mobile spent lots of mon­ey at Trump’s hotel while await­ing approval for lucra­tive merg­er
    The chain of events high­lights Trump’s unprece­dent­ed con­flicts of inter­est.

    By Aaron Rupar
    Updat­ed Jan 16, 2019, 4:25pm EST

    An explo­sive report high­lights major prob­lems result­ing from a pres­i­dent who refus­es to divest from or pub­licly dis­close his pri­vate busi­ness inter­ests, per­haps best exem­pli­fied by an upscale hotel locat­ed just block from the White House.

    Accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Jonathan O’Connell and David Fahren­thold, a day after T‑Mobile announced its $26 bil­lion merg­er with rival Sprint in April 2018, T‑Mobile CEO John Leg­ere was one of nine com­pa­ny exec­u­tives among a group of “VIP Arrivals” at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Hotel in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

    Pres­i­dent Trump still owns and direct­ly prof­its from the Trump Inter­na­tion­al, and the T‑Mobile/Sprint merg­er requires approval from his admin­is­tra­tion. While the deal hasn’t received final approval, it recent­ly received the bless­ing of Team Tele­com, which con­sists of the US Com­mit­tee on For­eign Invest­ment and the depart­ments of Jus­tice, Home­land Secu­ri­ty, and Defense.

    Since last April, Leg­ere and oth­er T‑Mobile exec­u­tives have repeat­ed­ly patron­ized the Trump Inter­na­tion­al, with one par­tic­u­lar exec­u­tive mak­ing at least 10 vis­its. Rooms in the hotel reg­u­lar­ly cost more than $300 a night. From the Post:

    Last week, a Post reporter spot­ted Leg­ere in the Trump hotel’s lob­by. In an impromp­tu inter­view, the T‑Mobile chief exec­u­tive said he was not seek­ing spe­cial treat­ment. He chose the Trump hotel, he said, for its fine ser­vice and good secu­ri­ty.

    “It’s become a place I feel very com­fort­able,” Leg­ere said. He also praised the hotel’s loca­tion, next to one of the depart­ments that must approve the company’s merg­er.

    “At the moment I am in town for some meet­ings at the Depart­ment of Jus­tice,” Leg­ere said. “And it’s very con­ve­nient for that.”

    Zach Ever­son, a reporter who focus­es on the Trump Inter­na­tion­al, has doc­u­ment­ed some of Legere’s vis­its to the hotel on Twit­ter, and even post­ed pho­tos of his April 2018 vis­it.

    The day after his com­pa­ny announced a merg­er with Sprint that fed­er­al reg­u­la­tors are sure to review, T‑Mobile’s CEO John Leg­ere was at the Trump Hotel DC. https://t.co/dyfGLgkklt pic.twitter.com/FJtbH4ZU7Y
    — Zach Ever­son (@Z_Everson) May 1, 2018

    With a merg­er pend­ing that’ll need gov­ern­ment approval, T‑Mobile’s CEO John Leg­ere is back at the Trump Hotel DC. Also Corey Lewandows­ki is here. And Lewandows­ki just went over to Legere’s table and they chat­ted. (Ver­i­fied with my own eyes .)
    — Zach Ever­son (@Z_Everson) June 27, 2018

    On Wednes­day after­noon, Leg­ere respond­ed to the con­tro­ver­sy sparked by the Post’s report, tweet­ing, “I trust reg­u­la­tors will make their deci­sion based on the ben­e­fits it [the poten­tial T‑Mobile/Sprint merg­er] will bring to the US, not based on hotel choic­es.”

    Wow — A lot of atten­tion on where I choose to stay in DC. I’ve said many times that I respect this process and am work­ing to get our merg­er done the right way. I trust reg­u­la­tors will make their deci­sion based on the ben­e­fits it will bring to the US, not based on hotel choic­es.
    — John Leg­ere (@JohnLegere) Jan­u­ary 16, 2019

    But ethics watch­dogs don’t buy Legere’s expla­na­tion that his deci­sion to repeat­ed­ly spend mon­ey at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al has noth­ing to do with a lucra­tive merg­er that requires approval from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion.

    “It’s cur­ry­ing favor with the pres­i­dent. It’s dis­turb­ing, because it’s anoth­er secret avenue for cur­ry­ing favor with the gov­ern­ment,” Sheila Krumholz, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Respon­sive Pol­i­tics, told the Post.

    For­eign gov­ern­ments are spend­ing mon­ey at Trump’s hotels too

    The prob­lem of com­pa­nies cur­ry­ing favor with the pres­i­dent by lin­ing his pock­ets through his busi­ness is relat­ed to the emol­u­ments issue Vox’s Matt Ygle­sias detailed on Tues­day.

    Arti­cle I, Sec­tion 9, Clause 8 of the US Con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibits the pres­i­dent from accept­ing gifts from for­eign gov­ern­ments. Yet for­eign gov­ern­ments, includ­ing Kuwait and Sau­di Ara­bia, have spent mon­ey at Trump’s hotels.

    In August, the Wash­ing­ton Post report­ed, “After two years of decline, rev­enue from room rentals [at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Hotel in Man­hat­tan] went up 13 per­cent in the first three months of 2018.” The increase was large­ly due to Sau­di Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s patron­age of the hotel dur­ing a vis­it to New York City, dur­ing which he and his entourage didn’t even end up stay­ing there.

    The DC and Mary­land gov­ern­ments have sued the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, alleg­ing that Trump is vio­lat­ing the emol­u­ments clause, and have won stand­ing. The law­suit is on hold dur­ing the ongo­ing gov­ern­ment shut­down.

    There is no clause of the Con­sti­tu­tion pre­vent­ing pres­i­dents from doing busi­ness with domes­tic com­pa­nies like T‑Mobile. But before Trump, as a mat­ter of course, pres­i­dents would divest from their pri­vate busi­ness inter­ests before they took office.

    Trump broke from prece­dent by refus­ing to divest — or dis­close

    Trump has bro­ken a lot of prece­dents, but one of the biggest has been refus­ing to release his per­son­al tax returns — some­thing pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates have long done to show trans­paren­cy — and refus­ing to divest from his assets or put them in a blind trust.

    The most fre­quent­ly men­tioned exam­ple of a pres­i­dent divest­ing from his busi­ness inter­ests before tak­ing office is Jim­my Carter, who famous­ly put his fam­i­ly peanut farm in a blind trust before he was inau­gu­rat­ed in 1977.

    “Well, it was a hard deci­sion for me to make and this is some­thing that I’ve had to face. I’ve lit­er­al­ly giv­en up my own method of mak­ing a liv­ing here in Plains,” Carter said at the time. “But I don’t want any deci­sion that I make as pres­i­dent to have any effect on my own income. The trustee will try to do the best they can and take care of my remain­ing fam­i­ly here, my moth­er and Bil­ly, not to dis­rupt their lives too much.”

    Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy also made moves to dis­tance them­selves from assets they owned and man­aged before tak­ing office. For­mer George W. Bush ethics advis­er Richard Painter told For­tune that before Trump, “every oth­er Pres­i­dent in mod­ern times has tried as best they could to act as if the law did apply to them.”

    Trump has, notably, declined to either divest or dis­clo­sure. Cor­rup­tion, or the appear­ance there­of, doesn’t seem to both­er him in the slight­est.

    “It should come as no sur­prise that a CEO of a major cor­po­ra­tion would want to stay with us”

    Short­ly before he took office, Trump held a news con­fer­ence in which he unveiled a plan to dis­tance him­self from his busi­ness inter­ests that amount­ed to a “sham,” as Vox’s Lib­by Nel­son put it back then.

    He announced that he would put his busi­ness­es into a trust man­aged by his sons Eric and Don­ald Jr. — both of whom have since emerged as key spokes­peo­ple for their dad. Though the trust isn’t blind and Trump still prof­its from his busi­ness, he tout­ed at the news con­fer­ence that he was doing more than nec­es­sary to avoid con­flicts of inter­est.

    “I could actu­al­ly run my busi­ness and run gov­ern­ment at the same time. I don’t like the way that looks,” Trump said. “But I would be able to do that if I want­ed to.”

    Lat­er, he added: “I have a no-con­flict sit­u­a­tion because I’m pres­i­dent … it’s a nice thing to have.”

    While the sit­u­a­tion may be nice for him, it rais­es ques­tions about whether the exec­u­tive branch is mak­ing pol­i­cy in the pub­lic inter­est, or in the Trump family’s finan­cial inter­est.

    When the Post asked about T‑Mobile’s Leg­ere stay­ing at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al, Eric Trump sug­gest­ed it has noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics.

    ...

    ———-

    “Report: T‑Mobile spent lots of mon­ey at Trump’s hotel while await­ing approval for lucra­tive merg­er” by Aaron Rupar; Vox; 01/16/2019

    “Accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Jonathan O’Connell and David Fahren­thold, a day after T‑Mobile announced its $26 bil­lion merg­er with rival Sprint in April 2018, T‑Mobile CEO John Leg­ere was one of nine com­pa­ny exec­u­tives among a group of “VIP Arrivals” at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Hotel in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

    Lit­er­al­ly a day after T‑Mobile announced its merg­er plans, John Leg­ere was one of nine com­pa­ny exec­u­tives among a group of “VIP Arrivals” at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Hotel. Again, they weren’t try­ing to be sub­tle. And yet it’s not entire­ly clear if this behav­ior was tech­ni­cal­ly ille­gal. Arti­cle I, Sec­tion 9, Clause 8 of the US Con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibits the pres­i­dent from accept­ing gifts from for­eign gov­ern­ments and such stays at Trump’s prop­er­ties could eas­i­ly be seen as gifts. But there’s no clause in the Con­sti­tu­tion pre­vent­ing pres­i­dents from doing busi­ness with domes­tic com­pa­nies like T‑Mobile. Only the his­tor­i­cal prece­dent that Trump already ignored:

    ...
    Arti­cle I, Sec­tion 9, Clause 8 of the US Con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibits the pres­i­dent from accept­ing gifts from for­eign gov­ern­ments. Yet for­eign gov­ern­ments, includ­ing Kuwait and Sau­di Ara­bia, have spent mon­ey at Trump’s hotels.

    In August, the Wash­ing­ton Post report­ed, “After two years of decline, rev­enue from room rentals [at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Hotel in Man­hat­tan] went up 13 per­cent in the first three months of 2018.” The increase was large­ly due to Sau­di Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s patron­age of the hotel dur­ing a vis­it to New York City, dur­ing which he and his entourage didn’t even end up stay­ing there.

    The DC and Mary­land gov­ern­ments have sued the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, alleg­ing that Trump is vio­lat­ing the emol­u­ments clause, and have won stand­ing. The law­suit is on hold dur­ing the ongo­ing gov­ern­ment shut­down.

    There is no clause of the Con­sti­tu­tion pre­vent­ing pres­i­dents from doing busi­ness with domes­tic com­pa­nies like T‑Mobile. But before Trump, as a mat­ter of course, pres­i­dents would divest from their pri­vate busi­ness inter­ests before they took office.

    Trump broke from prece­dent by refus­ing to divest — or dis­close

    Trump has bro­ken a lot of prece­dents, but one of the biggest has been refus­ing to release his per­son­al tax returns — some­thing pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates have long done to show trans­paren­cy — and refus­ing to divest from his assets or put them in a blind trust.
    ...

    “After two years of decline, rev­enue from room rentals [at the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Hotel in Man­hat­tan] went up 13 per­cent in the first three months of 2018.” The increase was large­ly due to Sau­di Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s patron­age of the hotel dur­ing a vis­it to New York City, dur­ing which he and his entourage didn’t even end up stay­ing there.

    Yep, Sau­di Ara­bia alone was large­ly respon­si­ble for the 13 per­cent increase in room rental rev­enues in the first three months fo 2018 at the same hotel that T‑Mobile has been stay­ing at. So if T‑Mobile thought that spend­ing almost $200k stay­ing at Trump’s hotel would earn them bet­ter treat­ment from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion you have to won­der what Sau­di Ara­bia was assum­ing it was buy­ing. That’s the kind of sit­u­a­tion we have as a result of Trump’s refusal to put his assets into a blind trust. Instead, Trump laugh­ably announced that his kids can run the com­pa­ny instead while declar­ing that the pres­i­dent can’t have a con­flict of inter­est:

    ...
    Short­ly before he took office, Trump held a news con­fer­ence in which he unveiled a plan to dis­tance him­self from his busi­ness inter­ests that amount­ed to a “sham,” as Vox’s Lib­by Nel­son put it back then.

    He announced that he would put his busi­ness­es into a trust man­aged by his sons Eric and Don­ald Jr. — both of whom have since emerged as key spokes­peo­ple for their dad. Though the trust isn’t blind and Trump still prof­its from his busi­ness, he tout­ed at the news con­fer­ence that he was doing more than nec­es­sary to avoid con­flicts of inter­est.

    “I could actu­al­ly run my busi­ness and run gov­ern­ment at the same time. I don’t like the way that looks,” Trump said. “But I would be able to do that if I want­ed to.”

    Lat­er, he added: “I have a no-con­flict sit­u­a­tion because I’m pres­i­dent … it’s a nice thing to have.”
    ...

    So before he’s even sworn in as pres­i­dent, Trump declares “I have a no-con­flict sit­u­a­tion because I’m pres­i­dent … it’s a nice thing to have.” And now, two years lat­er, we’ve seen a parade of for­eign gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions clear­ly try­ing to demon­strate some sort of feal­ty to Trump by con­spic­u­ous­ly stay­ing at his prop­er­ties over and over.

    In the case of T‑Mobile, we have a domes­tic cor­po­ra­tion that’s owned by a Ger­man cor­po­ra­tion that’s 31% owned by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment. Also note that Deutsche Telekom pre­vi­ous­ly sig­naled that it want­ed to have con­trol over the com­bined enti­ty and in the recent reports on the pro­pos­al merg­er the largest share of the own­er­ship would go to Deutsche Telekom at 42%, with Sprint-own­er Soft­Bank get­ting just 27 per­cent, and the rest held by the pub­lic. So Deutsche Telekom, which, again, is 31% owned by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment, would indeed be the enti­ty run­ning this new T‑Mobile/Sprint merged com­pa­ny. So does that make the T‑Mobile bribery scan­dal a domes­tic cor­po­rate bribery scan­dal or a for­eign gov­ern­ment bribery scan­dal? As we’ve seen, it kind of does­n’t mat­ter because both domes­tic cor­po­ra­tions and for­eign gov­ern­ments are open­ly ‘gift­ing’ to the Trump with these hotel stays.

    And that’s what makes the T‑Mobile cor­rup­tion sto­ry such an inter­est­ing Trump scan­dal. It high­lights the scan­dalous pay­offs to the pres­i­dent by for­eign gov­ern­ments and domes­tic cor­po­ra­tions because it’s kind of an exam­ple of both prob­lems.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | March 26, 2019, 11:05 am

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