Maddow Shocked By ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Report on Military Spending at Trump Resort: ‘Uncharted Waters’ in ‘Presidential Corruption’
By Aidan McLaughlinSep 7th, 2019, 9:30 am
RE:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/maddow-s...al-corruption/
Rachel Maddow was stunned by a new report revealing that Congress is investigating unusual military spending at one of President Donald Trump’s properties, raising questions over what could be yet another avenue of the president using his position to personally enrich himself.
The “jaw-dropping” and “truly bonkers” story, Maddow explained, reported on unusual military spending at the Trump Turnberry golf course and resort in Scotland — including an Air National Guard crew making an unusual overnight stay there — that could profit the president’s organization.
“Since April, the House Oversight Committee has been investigating why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane made the unusual stay — both en route to the Middle East and on the way back — at the luxury waterside resort, according to several people familiar with the incident,” Politico’s Natasha Bertrand and Bryan Bender reported. “The inquiry is part of a broader, previously unreported probe into U.S. military expenditures at and around the Trump property in Scotland. According to a letter the panel sent to the Pentagon in June, the military has spent $11 million on fuel at the Prestwick Airport — the closest airport to Trump Turnberry — since October 2017, fuel that would be cheaper if purchased at a U.S. military base.”
“Taken together, the incidents raise the possibility that the military has helped keep Trump’s Turnberry resort afloat — the property lost $4.5 million in 2017, but revenue went up $3 million in 2018,” the report states.
“I mean, the implication in this brand new reporting tonight from Politico is that Trump’s, you know, got this money-losing resort in Florida to which he now wants to direct the G7,” Maddow explained. “He’s got this money-losing golf resort in Ireland, which he has already directed Vice President Pence and his entourage.”
“Now, in addition, he’s got this money-losing golf resort in Scotland that was about to lose the money-losing airport that serviced it.”
She continued: “But now, miraculously, now that Donald Trump is president, American military cargo planes have started refueling at that airport, at a significant price mark up. It’s much cheaper for them to get their fuel at military bases. That’s part of the reason they always stop at military bases. Also, they’re the military. They’re no longer stopping at military bases. Instead they’re stopping at the airport that Trump needs to prop up to keep his Scottish golf resort going and they’re paying full freight commercial airport rates for that fuel. And then they’re sending the aircrews to go stay at the president’s resort.”
“It is bad enough when the vice president goes 180 miles out of his way to put taxpayer money directly into the president’s pocket,” Maddow said. “But if the U.S. military is being used to prop up one of the president’s troubled properties, A, this is uncharted waters, obviously, in terms of presidential corruption. B, this implicates the president himself, obviously, and everybody else who participated in it. This Scotland part with the C-17s, flying into that weird little airport outside Glasgow? This implicates the military who apparently went along with this, didn’t peep about it, and now isn’t cooperating with congressional oversight committees that are trying to investigate it.”
Natasha Bertrand then appeared on MSNBC to discuss her reporting, referring to the “self-dealing and grift” revealed in the story as “remarkably brazen.”
Watch above, via MSNBC. On site the video of her report.