Firestarter wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 8:06 pmBondi was a registered lobbyist for the lobbying firm of Trump fund-raiser
Brian Ballard, that has also employed Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
I already knew that there were connection between Wiles, Bondi and Florida governor DeSantis, there are a lot more interesting links to Ballard…
There are so many potential Ballard Partners scandals that I can’t really figure out which one is the worst.
Let’s start with:
Firestarter wrote: ↑Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:25 pmFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis also received part of the $1 million that Parnas and Fruman received from Muraviev in campaign donations.
See (from left) Parnas, Trump lawyers Pam Bondi and Giuliani and DeSantis.

.
Lev Parnas with shipping magnate Mübariz Mansimov (now in prison) worked to set up lucrative contracts for Brian Ballard with Turkey, including lobbying for Reza Zarrab and the money laundering Turkish state bank Halkbank from August 2017 until October 2019.
Firestarter wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2017 5:35 pmHalkBank, a Turkish state bank, recently hired former Congressman Bob Wexler and
Ballard Partners for $375,000 per quarter. Mehmet Hakan Atilla, Halkbank’s deputy general manager, has been charged by the Justice Department for conspiring to evade sanctions on Iran
.
See (from left) Moldovan businessman Emmanuil Grinshpun, Mübariz Mansimov, Alexander Mashkevich (Chabad-Lubavitch) and Lev Parnas at Trump’s (first) inauguration.
There are also other ties between Erdogan, Ballard, Mercury and the Trump gang:
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/ ... bying-deal
(
https://archive.is/GbN7v)
Rudy Giuliani was also involved in the lobbying efforts for HalkBank.
Parnas was present when Rudy Giuliani tried to arrange a “soft landing” in the US for Venezuela’s long-time ruler, Nicolás Maduro.
Giuliani also represented the Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, who was investigated by the US Justice Department for money laundering of the embezzled $1.2 billion from Venezuela’s state-run oil giant, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.:
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/ ... n-magaland
---------------------------------
.
Firestarter wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 8:06 pmThe House ethics committee released their report on former congressman
Matt Gaetz with “substantial evidence” that he was engaged in sex trafficking and even paid for sex with a 17-year-old, while taking illegal drugs (ecstasy and cocaine).
It looks like once again a sex scandal is being promoted to hide some corruption scandals.
In October 2019, Brian Beute was falsely accused of raping a male student in a series of 9 letters sent by then Seminole County’s tax collector, Joel Greenberg. The investigation that followed led to the charges against Greenberg and his friend Matt Gaetz.
The reason for this campaign against Beute was that he had helped form the citizen’s group Save Rural Seminole, to oppose a housing project dubbed River Cross, on land set aside for farms and nature preserves. The River Cross project was heavily endorsed by Ballard Partners lobbyist Chris Dorworth, Gaetz’s roommate when he was a Florida state representative, whom Gaetz has described as his legislative “mentor”.
See Chris Dorworth, US Rep. Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg, outside the White House in 2019.
Joel Greenberg as tax collector also approved a $75,000-a-year lobbying deal with Ballard Partners, even though according to the auditor there was “no reason, during normal operations” for an outside lobbyist:
https://archive.is/5Budj
Chris Dorworth’s and his allies tactics to get the River Cross project built includes a lawsuit against Seminole County that was supported by then-Tax Collector Joel Greenberg in a letter written by Dorworth:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240704050 ... velopment/
Ron DeSantis installed a new majority on the board of Orlando International Airport.
None other than Matt Gaetz advised DeSantis on his Orlando airport board appointments.
Chris Dorworth lobbied the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority for his client Generational Capital Partners LLC that was set up by a senior executive from the construction contractor Walbridge Co., which sued the agency over a baggage-handling project.
.
Firestarter wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2019 4:43 pmMitt Romney's national security adviser in his 2012 campaign — Joseph Cofer Black — since 2017 sits on the board of directors of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that formerly paid Hunter Biden $50K a month.
Cofer Black left the CIA in 2006 to join the Blackwater of Erik Prince, the brother of Trump´s education secretary, Betsy DeVos
Walbridge is run by John Rakolta Jr. who is a major Republican donor and together with Brian Ballard raised money for President Donald Trump and former Presidential nominee, the mormon Mitt Romney.
Rakolta is also a Mormon, and was National Finance chair for Romney's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. His wife, Terry Rakolta, is the sister of Mitt Romney's former sister-in-law.
In 2019, President Donald made Rakolta Jr. the ambassador to the UAE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20241226092 ... 0e4892880f
Soon after taking office, Gaetz proposed legislation that legalised medical marijuana; his father, then the Senate president, supported the bill, “
Matt was a big-time proponent of marijuana, and a big-time user”.
Ballard Partners was given investment interests in at least 3 companies that won marijuana licenses, and is earning $160,000 a year in lobbying fees from a fourth:
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-p ... cored-big/
At Florida State University, Gaetz took a class in state government with none other than Brian Ballard, who described Gaetz as “
smart as a whip, and he did the work”.
Gaetz helped run DeSantis’ governor transition: (terribly overlong)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024 ... tz-profile
Can you imagine how easy it was for Chris Dorworth to put the sex scandal back in the news (as a diversion from the Ballard corruption scandals)?!?
Apparently the Gaetz-Greenberg sex-drugs parties also took place at Dorworth’s home, who also had sex with the 17-year-old prostitute.
So now to put this story back in the news, Dorworth sued Greenberg, Greenberg’s wife, and the previously mentioned 17-year-old prostitute “AB” for defamation and racketeering:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-lobby ... ourt-docs/
Then after Dorworth withdrew the frivolous lawsuit, he sued to put this story back in the news again, this time to keep the testimony of “AB” secret (so he does NOT want to keep this hushed up evidently!):
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... 235165571/
---------------------------------
Also interesting is the list of the rich and corrupt that financed the 2024 RNC legal fund to deny American Democrats the right to vote, which includes the previously mentioned Brian Ballard and John Rakolta.
Also funding this effort were: Miriam Adelson, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Charles Kushner, Jared Kushner, and Linda McMahon.
The megadonors funding the Democratic counterpart legal fund are almost as interesting:
https://issueone.org/articles/billionai ... ion-rules/
Henry Ross Perot Jr. was also financing the 2024 RNC legal fund.
Firestarter wrote: ↑Mon Jan 01, 2024 8:07 pmWhat a surprise, the UAE is also associated (funding…) the little known EastWest Institute, connected to George H.W. Bush, Michael Chertoff, and Belfer’s Joseph Nye.
Chairman of the EastWest Institute is the well-connected Ross Perot Jr. (son of the Perot that ran “independent” for US president in 1992, who is part of several elite think tanks)
.
Also Paul Singer was funding the 2024 RNC legal fund, who is one of the main “vultures” described by Greg Palast, which makes the Ku Klux Clan distraction story of his potential “bombshell” documentary on right wing “vigilantes” denying Americans of colour the right to vote ever more strange:
Firestarter wrote:The following video contains the most interesting section of “
Vigilantes Inc.”, and an interview with Palast.
The part were Palast confronts the Canadian Georgia Trump supporter Pamala Reardan that challenged 40,000 voters, and understandably throws him out of her house after he accuses her of doing the work of the Ku Klux Clan, is great amusement.
https://youtu.be/fDXbHkMDzCw
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2993