Lot goin’ on. So let me just briefly flag this.
Remember the grifter war between Trumpers Ric Grenell and Alina Mildon (nee Habba) over whether money back-channelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo made its way to the Kennedy Center, then named after Donald Trump? Soon after the initial story hit another story revealed that Mildon had got a cool $50 million to work for (read: secure a pardon for) a Venezuelan billioniare. (He got the pardon.) All of these actions emerge out of the general divvying up of the spoils of Venezuela which Mildon, her new husband/nepo-oligarch Turhan Mildon and Grenell were involved in. (There’s no proving it but I basically guarantee you that Grenell knew about the $50 million and got it leaked to the Times as retaliation.)
Now, I frequently joke about how in Term Two MAGA it’s fine to be corrupt. But you’ve got to kick some of the sweetness up to the boss, just like Jimmy Conway had to kick some money up to Paulie after the Lufthansa heist in Goodfellas. I frequently struggle to understand, keep up with just how true these things are. Yesterday, the Times returned to this story and well … here’s what they say happened.
From the Times (emphasis added)…
President Trump erupted last week after he learned that one of his former lawyers, Alina Habba Mildon, secured a contract worth more than $50 million to work for a billionaire Venezuelan family.
Angered at the size of Mrs. Mildon’s deal, Mr. Trump has told aides and allies that she should donate a portion of that money to his future presidential library or another Trump-related entity, according to multiple people briefed on the conversations.
It’s important to note that with other presidents a donation to their presidential library might be symbolically to the president but really just to a library in their honor. But Trump has structured the future Trump library to be a personal piggybank for him and his family. So he really is Paulie here getting his cut, or at least demanding it.
