666 5th Avenue is the debt albatross hanging around the neck of the Kushner family and threatening to tumble them into bankruptcy next year. They co-own it with a big real estate trust, Vornado. They are apparently buying Vornado out. That means doubling down on the property that is drowning them. Where exactly are they getting the money to do this?
Just out from the Post and Courier …
A South Carolina Republican congressman is not backing down from critics after he pulled out his own personal — and loaded — .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun during a meeting with constituents Friday.
A ton happened in the Russia probe this week. Here’s our 500 word distillation of the critical developments in the past seven days. Give us three minutes and we guarantee you will be totally up to date.
I noted yesterday that high profile GOP consultant Benjamin Spark (worked for Romney, Ryan, Walker and many others) signed an agreement with his new fiance for her to be his “slave and property” and do various BDSM-like things around the house. But things broke down when he demanded she have sex with other men, bound and blindfolded, while he watched. She said no. He attacked her. And when the cops showed up, he fled the state, apparently absconding to Texas.
There’s a warrant for his arrest in Nevada. So I figured we’d hear some time yesterday or today that he’d been picked up in Texas. But so far nothing. No updates or news reports I can find. Has he been arrested yet? Have you seen him? Has he enrolled a new woman as his sex slave in Texas? In all seriousness, if you see any updates on Sparks’ whereabouts or arrest, please let me know.
On a visit to the CIA President Trump got irked that agents paused to wait for a targeted terrorist to leave his house before launching the attack so that his family wouldn’t be killed.
35 year old Benjamin Sparks, a prominent Republican political consultant who has worked for Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Scott Walker among others, was engaged to an unnamed woman. Sparks had his fiance sign a five page contract in which she agreed to be his “slave and property,” shortly after they started dating last November. This involved kneeling, looking at the ground while she spoke to him, being nude at all time, engaging in sex on demand at any time and wearing a collar. At the end of March he began to demand that she have sex with other men, while bound and blindfolded, while he watched. She refused. That led to a fight in which he allegedly attacked her. Sparks himself then called the police and then fled the scene. He apparently absconded to Texas where he is currently hiding out while there is a warrant for his arrest in Nevada.
We’ve rebranded our Sum Ups as ‘Weekly Primers’. In case you missed it yesterday, here’s our Weekly Primer on the Battle for Obamacare, every significant development on the health care policy front this week.
The audio is poor. But here’s President Trump with what I believe are his first public comments on the Stormy Daniels story. Key thing: he says he didn’t know anything about the payment and didn’t know where the money came from.
Audio is pretty poor. But here's Trump saying he didn't know anything about the $130k to Stormy Daniels. pic.twitter.com/QBBaugUTTO
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 5, 2018
Stormy Daniels’ lawyer makes the obvious point. This would seem to strengthen Daniels’ case since it makes it even harder to see how President Trump was a party to the agreement. More significantly, there’s a non-trivial chance that President Trump will eventually have to answer this question under oath.
InsideEPA, an EPA trade sheet, reports that Scott Pruitt’s downfall is the work of disgraced former White House aide Rob Porter, who leaked damaging information about Pruitt to retaliate against a former girlfriend who told White House officials about Porter’s history of domestic violence. Read More