SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR: Nothing to see here

Some reporters have an uncanny eye for details . . . what they're saying and not saying:

Is trouble brewing for Ivanka Trump and Don Jr? They’re certainly acting like it

Arwa Mahdawi

Let's see a series of rhetorical questions posed to unravel ...

"What gives? Is the former president’s eldest child desperate for attention or desperate for money?. . .At first glance, the former might seem more likely.

Don Jr, after all, has shown himself to be as addicted to social media as his dad – and there is no obvious financial need for him to hawk personalised videos. Indeed,

Don Jr sold the fancy Hamptons house he owned with his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a few months ago for more than $8m – almost double what they paid for it in 2019. When you are pocketing profits like that, why bother flogging yourself on online video platforms?

Expensive lawsuits, maybe?

For legal reasons, I should make it clear that I am in no way insinuating that the Trump family is on the verge of being bankrupted and ruined reputationally by a swathe of lawsuits. But I am also not not saying that.

What I am doing is simply observing some interesting developments. . .For example:

Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump, recently told a crowd in North Carolina that her mooted 2022 US Senate run is a “no for now”. One imagines she ran a few focus groups, which told her, unequivocally, that no one wants to see another Trump in politics for a very long time.

Ivanka Trump may have heard the same thing. It was long rumoured that she would run for the Senate. Now, however, she seems to be spending her days walking her dog (a very small, very white dog called Winter) in Miami and telling anyone who will listen that she is “focusing on family time”. Thanks so much, Ivanka! I, for one, feel empowered hearing that."

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Son Eric

Son Don Jr. Fuming for 13 minutes

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From Lee Moran writing in HuffPost:

Twitter users were surprised by the ex-president’s sons commenting on the active investigation in the first place, with some even suggesting they were inadvertently putting their foot in it with their defenses:

Bless his little heart. Someone tell Eric that neither “The amount we stole is hardly worth talking about” nor “There are people doing even worst crimes” are actual or effective legal defenses.

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) July 2, 2021

Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. Raise Eyebrows With Responses To Trump Org Charges

Donald Trump’s sons left some people puzzled over their defenses to the charges filed against the Trump family business.

By Lee Moran

HuffPost |

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. made TV appearances on Thursday to respond to the charges that have been filed against The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. . . the comments from ex-President Donald Trump’s sons, who are both executives in the Trump family business, raised plenty of eyebrows.

The Trump scions described the charging of the company and its CFO over an alleged tax fraud scheme (which both parties deny) as politically motivated and aimed at stopping their father from running for president again in 2024. . .

> But the Manhattan district attorney’s charges were “the political persecution of a political enemy,” Donald Trump Jr. declared on Fox News. It was “no different” to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s treatment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, he argued, likening it to “banana republic stuff.” Don Jr says this indictment is “no different” than what Putin has done to Alexei Navalny.

(Navalny, who Don Jr. refers to as “Navatny,” was poisoned with a nerve agent and imprisoned.) pic.twitter.com/GGmLcIVi98

— Jan Wolfe (@JanNWolfe) July 1, 2021

> Eric Trump, appearing on Newsmax, said he wasn’t worried about being charged himself because his family had “always lived amazingly clean lives.” He then tried to divert attention from the charges with an attack on President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Eric Trump later appeared on Fox News and railed against the district attorney’s office for focusing “on $3.5 million to take down a political opponent” when, he claimed, crime “is rampant” and people are leaving “dirty” and “disgusting” New York City “in record numbers.”“I mean, this is what they do, this is New York state for you,” he claimed. “This is worse than a banana republic. It’s truly horrible.”

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Donald Trump at the border on Wednesday. A report by the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington argues that ‘Trump is at serious risk of eventual criminal indictment in New York state’.

Photograph: Brandon Bell/Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock

It looked like a typically Trumpian bid to deflect attention from a scandal that had been expected to erupt that day

Trump gonna Trump: ex-president diverts and deflects as legal woes mount

David Smith

the Guardian

The former president appeared to mount a typically Trumpian bid to focus attention away from the growing scandal at his company - No one could accuse Donald Trump of lying low when the long arm of the law finally caught up with him.

> On Wednesday the former US president visited the Mexico border, highlighting his favourite campaign issue, then held an hour-long televised town hall with Sean Hannity, his favourite Fox News host. . .Trump’s first post-presidential rally last Saturday in Wellington, Ohio, drew thousands of true believers.

In interviews they said with absolute conviction that the election was stolen, Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, the 6 January insurrection was staged by the FBI or actually quite trivial and Trump might soon be reinstated in the White House.

With their roars of support for jailing everyone from congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the leading epidemiologist Anthony Fauci, the crowd seemed ready to follow Trump into the gates of hell..."