high Crimes and Misdemeanors
high Crimes and Misdemeanors
A childhood friend, no fan of Donald Trump (understatement), worked in a Wall Street securities firm his entire life. We grew up together in Birmingham’s southern upscale white Mountain Brook suburb, aka The Tiny Kingdom. He lived there most of his life. I moved out of there in the early 1970s, when I was practicing law in Birmingham. A few years later, I resigned from The Tiny Kingdom’s Birmingham Country Club, to which my father and his father belonged. Because of them, I was able to become a member. When I was 16, I won the club’s junior golf tournament. When I told my father that I had resigned, because I wasn’t using the club and was interested in other things, he looked like he might have a heart attack. The other Tiny Kingdom country club was The Mountain Brook Country Club, which was even more difficult to get in, if you weren’t born into it.
In this text exchange below, BCC and MBCC refer to those Tiny Kingdom country clubs.
Me to my Childhood Friend
I’m curious how your firm’s equity accounts performed on average after Trump was sworn in? If you can tell me, I am not interested in naming your firm.
Childhood Friend
Obviously all saw some decline in value, and due to various portfolio structures, it would be impossible to pen an absolute number on it. There are some accounts that like to do S & P indexing, so they are down more than those with a more conservative strategy.
Me
“Senators call for probe into possible insider trading over Trump tariff reversal”
Wonder if put on polygraph, how many Tiny Kingdom BCC and MBCC MAGAS would fess up to trading stock indexes short, then long, because they were reading Trump loud and clear? Wonder how many billionaires he tipped off? Looks RICO to me. High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Good luck, Republican Congress whores impeaching him.
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From Section 4, Article 2, U.S, Constitution: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
RICO was enacted by Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (Pub. L. 91–452, 84 Stat. 922, enacted October 15, 1970), and is codified at 18 U.S.C. ch. 96 as 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1968.
From The Guardian, which is reader supported.
Trump ignites ‘insider trading’ accusations after global tariffs U-turn
Lauren Almeida
Thu 10 Apr 2025 06.40 EDT
Donald Trump is facing accusations of market manipulation after posting on social media that it was a “great time to buy” just hours before he made a dramatic U-turn on his trade war that led to big rises in stock markets around the world.
Shortly after US markets opened on Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”.
Less than four hours later, he shocked investors by announcing a 90-day pause on additional trade tariffs on most countries except China, sending share indexes soaring.
In America the S&P 500 blue chip index closed up by more than 9%, while the technology-focused Nasdaq index shut more than 12% up. Stocks continued to rise in Asia and Europe on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index up by 9%, and London’s FTSE 100 index rising by as much as 4% in early trading.
Trump does not usually sign off his post with his initials. Those letters happen to be the same as the ticker for Trump Media & Technology Group, the business that controls Truth Social, whose stock shot up by 22% on Wednesday.
The timing of the US president’s posts and subsequent huge share jumps has sparked accusations of market manipulation. The Democratic senator Adam Schiff has called for an investigation, saying: “These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading.
“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense? I’m writing to the White House – the public has a right to know.”
The Democratic senator Chris Murphy also wrote on X that an “insider trading scandal is brewing … Trump’s 9:30am tweet makes it clear he was eager for his people to make money off the private info only he knew. So who knew ahead of time and how much money did they make?”
The New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for all members of Congress to disclose any stocks they had bought in the past 24 hours. “I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor,” she wrote on X. “Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We’re about to learn a few things. It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.”
When asked by US reporters on Wednesday evening when exactly he arrived at his decision to pause the tariffs on most countries for 90 days, Trump said: “For a period of a time. I would say this morning. Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it.”
However White House officials have argued the shift was part of the strategy all along, with his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, arguing it was his “art of the deal” at work.
Several investors have used volatility in the stock market in recent weeks as a buying opportunity. The US representative for Georgia, Republican and Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene, disclosed that she had made several purchases on 3 and 4 April – days when there were sharp market falls after Trump first detailed his “liberation day” tariffs on 2 April – including shares in Amazon.com and Apple. Shares in the technology companies rose by 12% and 15% respectively on Wednesday.
While Trump has paused many of the new country-specific tariffs, he has maintained pressure on China, the second biggest economy in the world. He increased the tariff on Chinese imports to 125% from the 104% level that started on Wednesday. Beijing could respond again after hitting US imports with 84% tariffs that began on Thursday.
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At the nearly all white Birmingham Bridge Club yesterday, situated in Shelby County, south of Birmingham, a fellow asked me what did I think about all the commotion in California? I asked what he was talking about? He said the demonstrations. I asked him, what about the insider trading in the White House? He said a lot of people do that. I said, I never heard of a president doing it before now. He gave me the look. The bridge club has a strict rule: no talking politics or religion.
Martha Stewart got put in a federal prison for insider trading her own company’s stock. When I see her on TV advertising some company’s products, there’s no mention that she spent time in a federal prison for insider trading.
The witch is my driver now, because my feet are so numb that, in an emergency, my right foot might not function properly between the accelerator and the brake. When she came to the bridge club to pick me up yesterday, I was sitting outside waiting for the next round of play to begin. She said she started feeling bad in her heart, stomach and head as she got close to the clubhouse. I asked her to come in and watch until we finished. She said she didn’t want to do that. I said to please do it. She did it. She started feeling a lot worse.
I told her as she drove us home that I needed her to be in clubhouse, so I could see how it affected her. She’s an empath, meaning she absorbs what is going on in other people. I told her, if it’s that bad for her at the club, then something is wrong in me, because I don’t feel it, and I don’t need to be there either.
The Witch dreamed last night that we were at the bridge club, and we laid out a beautiful meal of nutritious food on a table and no one there was interested.
