Former Trump Employees Claim 30 Years Of Covert Taping – Once Even Used In Lawsuit

Three former employees of Donald Trump claim to have personally witnessed him recording phone calls at Trump Tower in New York, and a fourth person said a recording of him was entered into evidence in a lawsuit – the Wall St. Journal reports.

Mr. Trump sometimes taped phone conversations with associates and others from his Trump Tower office in New York, according to three people who say they have direct knowledge of the recordings.

Mr. Trump had one or more recording devices that he used to tape his phone calls from his office, the three people said. All are former high-level employees who worked for Mr. Trump over a span of three decades. They said they saw devices in use recording phone calls.

One employee claims Trump recorded ‘virtually everything’

“He recorded virtually everything in the office,” one former high-level Trump Organization employee said. “I know many of my conversations when I called him were recorded before and after I was working there.

The new claims come on the heels of a Friday Tweet from the President suggesting former FBI Director James Comey better check himself before he further wrecks himself.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Hours later, Comey announced he wouldn’t be testifying before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“It is our hope in the not-too-distant future that we can find a time for [Comey] to come in and talk to our Committee” -Vice Chairman Mark Werner (D-VA)

Thursday evening, the President made waves in an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt when he said that Comey requested a dinner in which he asked to keep his job as FBI Director, and allegedly told the President that he wasn’t under investigation:

It is unclear whether Trump’s tweet the next day about ‘tapes’ was in reference to the dinner with Comey or other conversations with the former FBI director.

Trump’s attorney responds

According to the WSJ, Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen said he wasn’t aware of any such recording devices;

“In the decade that I worked for Mr. Trump, I have never seen a recording device attached to his phone, nor am I aware of any occasion where he taped a conversation.”

During a Friday briefing with the press, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer did not comment on whether or not the President had made recordings featuring the former FBI Director, or whether the President records conversations at the White House.

If true, is it legal?

Recording a conversation in New York or Washington isn’t illegal as long as at least one party knows it’s happening. Florida, where Trump spends a lot of time at his mar-a-lago resort, requires all parties to consent to being taped unless it’s in public.

Democrats flip out over tweet, Wikileaks makes a friendly offer

In response to Trump’s Friday morning tweet, congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) shot off a harshly worded letter to Trump’s attorney seeking answers about the suspected recording.

Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL, where else) shoots off harshly worded letter demanding answers. pic.twitter.com/HgxmI6WKzc

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) May 14, 2017

@realDonaldTrump If there are–you know where to send them: https://t.co/cLRcuIiQXz

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 12, 2017

Trump’s past recordings

During a 1989 lawsuit against Trump’s Atlantic City casino, the owners of the Sands, Pratt Hotel Corp, sued the Trump organization for interfering with their attempts to buy a construction project near Trump Plaza Casino. In court, Trump’s legal team presented a recording Trump had made of a conversation between himself and the president of Pratt, William Weidner – in order to show that Weidner had lied on the stand.

In another incident during the 2016 presidential campaign a reporter for the WSJ sat down with Mr. Trump for an interview, informing him that he planned to tape – to which Trump replied he would be taping as well. Trump then slid a newspaper across his desk with a smartphone underneath, presumably recording.

Indeed, it appears that former FBI Director James Comey should watch what he says – perhaps explaining his refusal to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week.

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Reports are rolling in that the Indian IT industry is undergoing one of the largest cuts ever experienced, with the number of layoffs in 2017 expected to double that of 2016. Automation, inadequate growth, rising costs, and US President Trump’s ‘America 1st’ nationalist agenda are cited as reasons for the mass layoffs of more than 56,000 engineers.

As a result of Trump’s new policies, many IT companies are in the process of hiring US citizens and asking Indian H-1B Visa holders to return back to India. According to Livemint, Infosys has announced plans to hire 10,000 US citizens over the next two years and Wipro has already hired over 2,800 US citizens in the past 18 months. –India Today

Heavy cuts are expected at seven of the largest IT firms opreating in India, including Cognizant ($CTSH), Mahindra, Snapdeal, and Infosys, as well as DXC Techonlogy, Aircel, and Wipro.

AI and Automation

After experiencing rapid growth throughout the 2000’s, Indian IT companies have come under pressure in recent years. Cost cutting measures have included automation – as AI has been increasingly supplanting human beings for menial tasks. In a study by HfS Research, large-scale automation of non-customer facing positions (back office / IT / processing) will threaten around 640,000 low skilled jobs in India by 2021.

No Outlook

For the first time in 25 years, Indian IT industry public policy makers Nasscom declined to issue a growth projection for 2017-18, citing economic and regulatory uncertainty in the US and around the world.

“We have nothing new at this point to add but given the huge set of uncertainties, whether in terms of macro economic outlook or some of the currency fluctuations or political volatility with the new government in the US, discretionary spending by BFSI clients have also not gone up,” -R Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom.

Nasscom has sought to allay fears over this decision by stating the Indian IT industry is simply undergoing a ‘realignment,’ and claims that the industry is a ‘net hirer.’

I’m not buying it.

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President Trump fired off a tweet in the wee hours of Friday morning suggesting fired FBI Director James Comey better watch his mouth before ‘leaking to the press.’

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

The MSM immediately got to work construing Trump’s Nixonian tweet as a threat, which White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer dispelled during an afternoon briefing, adding “The President has nothing further to say on that.”

Some have suggested that Trump’s firing of Comey compares to Watergate, in which President Richard Nixon removed the special prosecutor investigating the scandal, and it was revealed that Nixon taped private conversations in the White House.

Reeeeeee!

In response to Trump’s Tweet, congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) shot off a harshly worded letter to Trump’s attorney seeking answers about the suspected recording.

@realDonaldTrump Reeeee! Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL, where else) shoots off harshly worded letter demanding answers. https://t.co/ujWARjibkS pic.twitter.com/UgpEmC2KmN

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) May 12, 2017

 

Wikileaks has offered to help with a tongue-in-cheek offer:

@realDonaldTrump If there are–you know where to send them: https://t.co/cLRcuIiQXz

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 12, 2017

If tapes of Comey and Trump do exist, Trump needs to leak them pronto. Not only would they quash what remains of the Russia investigation, Ratings would be YUGE!

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The South Korean government has ordered Hyundai and it’s subsidiary Kia to recall 240,000 affected cars after a 25 year veteran employee came forth and told authorities about dangerous issues with vacuum pipes, fuel hoses, parking brake light issues, and other faulty parts on 12 different models, including the i30 hatchback, Sonata, Genesis, Mohave, and Carnival minivan.

After initially refusing to act voluntarily – citing no safety risks, Hyundai is complying with the mandated recall. Still, they were quick to note that there had been no “reported injuries or accidents from the cited issues.”

Safety is always Hyundai-Kia’s number one priority and we make decisions on recalls or any other customer protection steps in compliance with regulators around the world and stringent internal procedures -Hyundai

The recall adds to the 1.5 million cars Hyundai-Kia recalled last month for possible engine stalling.

The Whistleblower

The man responsible for the recall is Kim Gwang-ho, who told the BBC that he couldn’t, in good faith, allow passengers to travel in vehicles he knew to be faulty.

Kim, 55, had worked at Hyundai for more than 25 years, and it was obvious to me that he cared deeply for the firm and was very proud of the work that he’d been involved in.

But he also pointed out that his decision to speak out was calculated. He was nearing retirement, and didn’t have as much to lose as his younger colleagues. –BBC

For his honesty, Hyundai fired Kim and launched a lawsuit against him – however after the story behind the recall went public, Hyundai dropped the suit, reinstated his old job, and reimbursed him for years of unemployment.

I love a happy ending!

 

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Apparently cutting up delicious Avocados is fraught with danger as people around the world keep slicing their hands while trying to gain access to the increasingly expensive green gift from God.

UK surgeons are reporting a growing numbers of avocado-related hand injuries at emergency rooms, calling the stab and slash wounds from failed attempts to prepare food “avocado hand,” which can include serious nerve and tendon injuries.

In fact, the British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons is calling for safety labels to warn people of the hidden dangers of avocado cutting.

“People do not anticipate that the avocados they buy can be very ripe and there is minimal understanding of how to handle them. We don’t want to put people off the fruit but I think warning labels are an effective way of dealing with this. It needs to be recognisable. Perhaps we could have a cartoon picture of an avocado with a knife, and a big red cross going through it?” –Simon Eccles, Royal Society of Medicine, UK

Eccles notes that at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, he treats about four patients a week with avocado hand, and staff at St Thomas’ Hospital, in London report a “post-brunch surge” on Saturdays.

And it’s not just morons in the UK! Retards around the world are apparently cutting themselves in droves. Actress Meryl Streep was photographed with a bandaged hand in 2012 after self-harming in pursuit of the elusive avocado meat, and according to The Times, over 300 people in New Zealand have sued for compensation from avocado injuries in the last five years.

 

Per The Times:

David Shewring, vice-president of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand, told The Times: “Recently the health benefits of avocado have been advocated, with an increase in their popularity — and a consequent increase in related injuries.”

He outlined the “correct” technique for de-stoning: “Wrap the avocado in a towel leaving the pip exposed. Carefully use the edge of a heavy sharp knife to chop into the summit of the soft pip, so that it is slightly buried. Holding the knife, so that the pip is stabilised, use a towel to twist the pip out.”

Or just cut it carefully without slicing into your hand and quit trying to be a samurai when you bury your knife into the pit to remove it.

Stay safe out there…

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Jeff Sessions is going ham on drug traffickers – instructing US Attorney Generals to pursue the most ‘readily provable offenses’ with mandatory minimum sentences.

In a two-page memo issued to all US attorneys this week, Sessions lays out a policy of strict enforcement, rolling back Eric Holder’s more lenient policies under Obama.

This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency. This policy fully utilizes the tools Congress has given us

By definition, the most serious offenses are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.

In a speech earlier today, Sessions says he’s not targeting individual drug users – only traffickers:

“If you are a drug trafficker,” he said, “we will not look the other way. We will not be willfully blind to your misconduct.”

Furthermore, Sessions allows Attorneys General discretion when individual cases may not warrant a mandatory minimum sentence:

There will be circumstances in which good judgment would lead a prosecutor to conclude that a strict application of the above charging policy is not warranted. In that case, prosecutors should carefully consider whether an exception may be justified. Consistent with longstanding Department of Justice policy, any decision to vary from the policy must be approved by a United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General

The memo infuriated previous Attorney General Eric Holder, who wrote a lengthy screed calling the new policy ‘dumb on crime,’ stating:

It is an ideologically motivated, cookie-cutter approach that has only been proven to generate unfairly long sentences that are often applied indiscriminately and do little to achieve long-term public safety

Full statement from @EricHolder on new charging policy in all criminal cases pic.twitter.com/AM42xXjPpV

— Laura Jarrett (@LauraAJarrett) May 12, 2017

Sessions, however, argues that it’s the DOJ’s ‘responsibility is to fulfill our role in a way that accords with the law, advances public safety, and promotes respect for our legal system. It is of the utmost importance to enforce the law fairly and consistently.’

That said, you may want to revisit private prison stocks CoreCivic ($CXW) and Geo Group ($GEO). CoreCivic is currently flagged with a light oversold signal in Exodus.

This particular OS signal for $CXW (3 month) has a short track record, only having triggered once – however there’s another signal in Exodus which has a much longer track record; 8 out of 8 signals have returned an average return of 5.39% over a 10 day hold.

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Thought all you had to worry about was the NSA and 400 lb hackers?

Swiss cybersecurity firm Modzero has discovered that 28 models of HP laptops running Windows 7 or 10 – a little over 20% of all laptops – have been spying on users via a ‘keylogger’ – a program which records every keystroke made on the device. This means that passwords for banking, email accounts, and private communications on affected laptops are being stored locally – which “leads to a high risk of leaking sensitive user input”.

“Users are not aware that every keystroke made while entering sensitive information – such as passphrases (or) passwords on local or remote systems – are captured by (the software)” –Modzero

When Modzero contacted HP about the issue, the company went radio silent, so the Swiss firm went public with it’s findings. When UK based Sky News picked up the story and reached out to HP, the company said they were “aware of the keylogger issue on select HP PCs.”

HP told Sky News: “Our supplier partner developed software to test audio functionality prior to product launch and it should not have been included in the final shipped version. Fixes will be available shortly via HP.com.” –Sky News

A full list of affected laptops can be found here.

Here is Modzero’s writeup on how the keylogger works:

Conexant’s MicTray64.exe is installed  with the Conexant audio  driver
package and registered as a Microsoft Scheduled Task to run after each
user login. The  program monitors all  keystrokes made by  the user to
capture  and  react  to  functions  such  as  microphone   mute/unmute
keys/hotkeys. Monitoring of keystrokes is added by implementing a low-
level keyboard input  hook [1] function…

In addition to the handling  of hotkey/function key strokes, all  key-
scancode information [2] is written into a logfile in a world-readable
path (C:\Users\Public\MicTray.log).

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New infowars host Mike Cernovich sat down with Jack Posobiec of The Rebel Media for a discussion on what goes on behind the scenes at the White House press corps – having both attended and participated in press briefings.

While comparing notes, Cernovich and Posobiec noted how MSM journalists communicate with each other during the briefings to try and trip up the Press Secretary.

Cernovich: Here’s what I noticed too, is, they’re all texting each other what to ask. They’re colluding in real time. Did you observe that too?

Posobiec: Absolutely observed that. They were texting and I also saw a couple slack channels they had opened up. Slack is sort of like an internet chat room forum type thing, it’s private chat.

And all they’re trying to do is trip up [White House Press Secretary] Spicer.

So not only do MSM journalists sit around off-camera like soulless empty vessels – not doing any actual journalism, they also collude like a pack of hyenas using texts and slack chats with  “gotcha” questions try and trip up White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

And this is why the MSM is a complete joke.

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Sears ($SHLD) CEO Ed Lampert, whose hedge fund ESL Investments is Sears’ largest shareholder, swears business is great – calling reports of a pending bankruptcy “unbalanced,” and said the media had been “deliberately unfair” for a decade.

“We don’t need more customers. We have all the customers we could possibly want,” Lampert said at Sears’ annual shareholder meeting. “As soon as we start making money, people are gonna say, ‘How did I miss this?’”

“I give you my assurance I am not in denial,” he added. –Fox Business

Lampert, who is surely not mentally ill, spent much of the 90 minute Annual Shareholder Meeting ranting over a slideshow – insisting the media had unfairly hounded the retailer with negative news, “meant to scare our vendors” who then tried to negotiate better deals with the company.

“Every time people use the word bankruptcy, somebody who reads that doesn’t get past that word,” he said. “It makes it very unfair for us, and it’s a very uneven playing field for us.”

Once the largest U.S. retailer, Sears has not reported a profit for six years – which Lampert compared to Amazon‘s early growth. Lampert then warned haters of pending regret:

“As soon as we start making money, people are gonna say, ‘How did I miss this?’

Sure Eddie – couldn’t be your shitty business and the fact that you failed to jettison your ghost-town mall properties and successfully adapt to the online model.

Here’s a chart of $SHLD revenue going back to 2004, courtesy of Exodus

And a chart of the carnage – thanks to the ‘irresponsible’ media:

Fear not $SHLD longs, Eddie Lampert says “I’ll fight like hell” (to fix stores), adding: “We don’t want to destroy value, we want to create value.”

$SHLD closed down 9.61% today at $10.16

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National political reporter for axios.com, Jonathan Swan, reports that President Trump has been discussing a replacement for Sean Spicer after the White House Press Secretary appeared to have fumbled Tuesday’s announcement concerning the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.

I can independently confirm reporting that President Trump has been sounding people out about removing Sean Spicer as Press Secretary. 1/2

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) May 11, 2017

The President feels his press team poorly served him yesterday. He believes it was incompetence on their part, not lack of time. 2/2

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) May 11, 2017

As Newsweek and the Washington Post report, Spicer had planned to email a statement announcing Comey’s termination Tuesday afternoon – however he was apparently having technical difficulties. Unable to send the announcement, Spicer stood in the doorway of the press office around 5:40 p.m. and ended up “shouting a statement to reporters who happened to be nearby.”

At 5:41 or so, reporters began to tweet the news – and nine minutes later at 5:50 pm EST, Spicer issued a tweet with the announcement:

Statement from @WhiteHouse @PressSec on @FBI Director pic.twitter.com/EdBRntMim5

— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) May 9, 2017

Then, Spicer stepped outside

After a brief interview with Fox’s Lou Dobbs, Spicer apparently stepped over to some bushes and ordered reporters to turn their lights off – allegedly refusing to be filmed:

“Just turn the lights off. Turn the lights off,” he ordered. “We’ll take care of this. … Can you just turn that light off?”

WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer speaks to reporters about the firing of FBI Director Comey as he walks into the West Wing. #FBIDirector pic.twitter.com/c2SNG63lIr

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) May 10, 2017

(A correction from WaPo on Spicer’s spatial relationship to the bushes)

For about 10 minutes, Spicer answered questions surrounding Comey’s firing – repeatedly circling back to the fact that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein had made the assessment and recommendation to fire Comey in light of how he handled the Clinton email investigation during the 2016 election.

Spicer then thanked reporters for their time and reentered the White House.

Twitter is buzzing

Now that blood is in the water, Spicer’s detractors are piling on…

@jbillinson #Spicer officially 'Homered' it. pic.twitter.com/D22mCaBAaw

— Rachel Thompson (@RachelintheOC) May 11, 2017

Meanwhile, back in the rose garden…#PressBriefing#Spicer pic.twitter.com/G6ZhJy0R1Q

— T.R. Morley (@TheRealMorley) May 10, 2017

Out the rest of the week

Deputy White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, filled in for Spicer today – and is expected to address journalists throughout the rest of the week in Spicer’s stead.

Is this the end of the road for Sean Spicer? Will the Spice stop flowing? Or is all of this simply WaPo and Newsweek piling on a Press Secretary caught flat footed by a President who stayed mum on Comey’s firing until the last minute in an effort flush out leakers?

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