Convicted Ponzi schemer freed by Trump charged with "brazen and sophisticated" $35 million fraud
salon.com/2023/07/20/convicted-ponzi-schemer-...Posted Jul 20, 2023, 3:39 PM UTC
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salon.com
We need to enforce the Emoluments Clause.
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Eliyahu Weinstein, 48, was charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice on Wednesday along with four other men for defrauding at least 150 people out of $35 million, The New York Times reports.
The group is accused of leading people to believe they were making lucrative investments in limited COVID-19 supplies and baby formula as well as first-aid kits intended for Ukraine. "These were brazen and sophisticated crimes that involved multiple conspirators and drew right from Weinstein's playbook of fraud," New Jersey U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said at a press conference.
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Aid headed to Ukraine from a tRump supporter should have been their 1stbredbflag.
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So offered the opportunity to inflate the price of baby formula to basically “war profiteer”…
I don’t think there are any innocents in this story, but Elijahu needs to be locked up regardless.
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I kinda hope no one gets their money back in this
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“Only the best people”
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"I just thought it was a nice honest to goodness exploitation of children"
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The group is accused of leading people to believe they were making lucrative investments in limited COVID-19 supplies and baby formula as well as first-aid kits intended for Ukraine.
I mean how fucking god damn dumb do you have to be.
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Medical supplies should never be a private investment. I want names of every single shithead involved in this.
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Once a crook, always a crook.
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A presidential pardon should have guidelines. Most presidents used discretion but 45 was outright selling them.
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45 and that Florida dipshit are collaborating to pardon each other if the other is elected. I can predict that someone is not going to lift their end of the bargain. Actually I don't think either of them would do what they agreed on given both of their track records.
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There should be a mechanism to overturn them to keep a check on that power. Not exactly sure who should have that power, but it's needed.
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Presidential appointees require the "advice and consent of the Senate." Why not apply that mechanism to presidential pardons? Seems like a reasonable check on an otherwise unrestricted power.
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The word “reasonable” worries me. It’s also “reasonable” to confirm Supreme Court justices and key military officers, and we saw what the Republicans did with those.
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Five Republican SCOTUS justices lied under oath at their confirmation hearings. “Roe v Wade is settled law.”
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If not reasonable, what basis do you propose?
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I'm not sure you want that though, then pardons become a partisan football. And, while I agree that they are rife for abuse (Trump was the worst, but other President's have given them to personal friends or to family of folks who gave to their foundations) I'd hate to see someone who actually deserved one based on a miscarriage of justice get it shot down because one party doesn't want to be seen as allowing ANYTHING that an opposition President wants to go through.
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Yeah I mean Nixon got a pardon. That's your low bar unfortunately
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In that scenario, the worst case is that a criminal who was convicted in a Federal Court under due process, and who lost all appeals, would have to serve out their sentence.
Like every other convicted criminal.
Is it perfect? No. No human institution is or ever will be.
The question is, would it improve the unilateral power a president now has to undo the courts? As more thoughts are better than few thoughts, the answer would seem to be yes.
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Imagine a Democratic President with a blood-red MAGA Congress. Zero pardons granted.
In an actual functioning political system that could be a good idea, but we currently have a two-party system in which one of the parties would happily burn the country down to destroy the opposition.
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Presidential pardons just shouldn’t be a thing.
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Zero pardons just means that duly convicted criminals serve out their sentence - like all other criminals that don't get the president's attention.
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It should be a required Checks & Balances system. The Senate should be able to veto a Presidential Pardon with 2/3 majority vote, just like the President can veto a Senate bill. Veto should work in both directions.
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Interesting idea, although I doubt Republican senators would have been eager to oppose any Trump pardons. At least they'd have to give some embarrassing interviews explaining why not
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There should be no such thing as a presidential pardon. It’s bullshit and one more way for the wealthy to avoid justice.
If we’re gonna have pardons, they should have to be out in the open and there should be a non political jury of peers, just like in court, to decide on them. Not people that are already bought and paid for. Or something. I don’t know. It’s just more bullshit for a money grab.
Also, how does this fucking guy, a used car salesman, keep finding people to do this to? Fucking 3,500 hundred dollars would change my life. Where do you find people stupid enough to scam 35 million from.
Seriously. Asking for a friend.
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Pardons have always been available to executives in all manner of government institutions.
But I completely agree that a pardon should be limited in scope.
1-It should specify the reason for granting the pardon on the clemency document. 2-All pardon should be required to go thru the OPA.
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It used to be simple decorum, but DJT threw all that out the window. He proved how far someone could go if the didn’t give a damn and pushed that envelope
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that would require a Constitutional Amendment. lol Good luck with that.
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There should be a mechanism to overturn them to keep a check on that power. Not exactly sure who should have that power, but it's needed.
The presidential pardon is a check, not a power. It doesn’t grant nor confer anything.
It relieves/pardons federal conviction/prosecution.
Since it is itself a check (to limit the power of the judicial), there is no real check against it.
And the prevailing mentality with these sorts of things is that you only need a check/process in order to impose sanction, not relieve punishment.
The founding fathers would say that election was a check on Trump’s behavior, pardons included, and it worked.
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I believe with Trump the check is the people he provided them for. They seem to want back in based on their behaviours
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Can you name all presidents in number order?
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Of course, who can't
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Is a pretty good song by Jonathan Coulton called the presidents. It's a few years old but I thought it was pretty good
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Like having the ABA submit a request for a pardon of that person. Every single Trump judicial appointee did not have the endorsement of the ABA. Which is why you have snake oil judges presiding in Trump cases.
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Trump pardoned Only the best people.
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How many cocaine dealers did Obama let go?
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Did they steal your cocaine?
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$2 million each, according to Giuliani.
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Yup
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Then the heat R president will just pardon him.
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They'd have to win first, and every Republican candidate will be asked over and over if they intend to pardon Trump and his henchmen. To say that they would pardon them, would brand them as a traitor and hurt their ability to attract independents, which they need to win. To say they wouldn't pardon him would kill their Republican votes.
Besides, Trump would still have to stew for at least a few years in prison, and even a day in prison will be torture for him.
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45 is awful but the idea that all other presidents were responsible with pardons is fantasy. Take a look at the people that clinton pardoned
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"Stop picking on my Donnie!"
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$2 million a pop, split between him and Rudy.
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Rudy would got a finder’s fee, but the human dump truck would pocketed probably 90% of that $2 million.
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It’s a leftover from the age of kings.
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Maybe, and hear me out here, you shouldn’t have the result of the due process of law cancellable by a politician at all ?
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Or just make it so anyone pardoned who is convicted of the same crime they were pardoned of faces punishment for all crimes they were pardoned of as well.
Fraudster gets pardoned, commits fraud. If convicted of that fraud, sentencing includes all previous fraud convictions, pardoned or otherwise.
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Sounds fair.
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Anything to make a buck off of the position.
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Pardons should be removed. That's not how we should operate, that's like a monarch or dictator. Surprised it was ever allowed.
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Drumph is proposing turning our country into a monarchy when the red states install him as president in the next election sans the popular vote.
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Guess America's time to behead a king then right? /s
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Watch what you say on this sub moderators tend to look for key words regardless of context and drop the ban on ya.
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The Republican Party could also have principles and hold their own to high standards, but unfortunately reality isn't a fantasy.
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The Presidency should have laws surrounding it to not let shit like Donal Trump happen again.
It was a gentlemen's agreement that was found out.
Guideline are less than useless.
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Trump probably sold this one for 25% of the guys next scheme.
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He was the worst ever and yet…
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I wonder what Trump's cut of the scam was, probably was getting a percentage of any future scams as part of the pardon conditions...
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You always gotta kick up to the “Don”
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He’s the real “big guy”
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“And I’ll free him again if elected!”
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But this time I'll free him BIGLY!
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As scammer freed by another scammer. Great.
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Can I get a...... lock him up?
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1 2 3 4....
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“Birds of a feather……..”
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Pardons for sale.
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Any lawyers have a take on this? I assumed the pardon is for the criminal infraction but requires admission of guilt. What happened with regards to restitution on the civil side?
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This wasn’t a pardon, it was a commutation. The criminal remains guilty, just the sentence ends immediately.
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He’s freed and stupidly goes back to life of crime. He’s a smart one, no wonder he’s a Trump buddy.
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I mean, how else was he going to finish paying off the bribe?
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Look, the Presidental Pardon is a check on the Judicial System, where innocence proven after a conviction is not sufficient grounds for an appeal. Would you really want that check checked, despite its occasional abuse by an asshat?
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Miscarriage of justice yes but convicted felons open and shut cases that did his bidding I think not.
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Can't have it both ways, I'm afraid.
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color me shocked not!
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This pardon power seems like a relic from monachy.
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Well it is. But it’s mostly ok. Worth noting, of course, that this wasn’t a pardon case, it was a commutation.
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Trump was on some straight gangster shit. Dude was selling pardons. He was selling the names of our spies. It appears that he was selling military secrets. He was forcing the Secret Service to house in his hotels and over-billing the US for it, which is laundering money by any other name. He had his kids in the White House doing business deals with hostile foreign governments, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, probably North Korea.
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“Draining the swamp.”….
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Refilling it with diarrhea
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You don’t need a swamp when the monsters walk freely.
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Filled the secret service with sycophants who deleted Jan 6th messages for him and refused to work with investigators.
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I can't overstate how much I loathe Donald Trump but in what way is overcharging Secret Service personnel for stays at Trump properties money laundering?
It's unethical, it's profiteering, and probably fraud. But I can't see how it would be money laundering.
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Fair enough. Still falls under my "straight gangster shit" umbrella.
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Yall remember when the Tiger King and his team thought Trump was gonna free his crazy ass too? Dude had a limbo ready to pick him up and everything lmao
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As long as Trump keeps pointing fingers at D, it’s all right for the goons that believes he did anything good for the country. Are we surprised at all when his family profited as slum lords?
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You think he cheated any Trump supporters? If so how do they feel about Trump giving him the pardon in the first place.
I wish I could say I was confident this would change their minds, but I kind of doubt it