Following the money

 Judge Arthur Engoron has yet to lock Trump up for violating his gag order as if it were E. Jean Carroll in a department store changing room, but he clearly knows what he's dealing with.   He appointed Independent Monitor Barbara Jones to make sure Trump, his spawn and his business associates are not creating shell companies or hiding assets in advance of his decision about how much they owe the state of New York.  It's the only way to deal with a crook who inflates and deflates his net worth depending on whether the tax people or the loan officers are on the other end, and who has spent decades honing his skills as a professional bankrupt.  

The lawsuits are swirling like autumn leaves.  The latest is attorney Robert Costello, who says Rudoph Giuliani owes him $1.4 million in legal fees.  Both Costello and Giuliani are being sued by Hunter Biden for "hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen" from the famous LAPTOP.  (I love that "generally obsessing over," which sounds like Margie Greene getting excited about the dick pics.)  The younger Biden may want to consider a line of mugs, shirts, etc., featuring his genitalia, because his own legal bills are said to total over $10 million and his father has declined to set up a defense fund for obvious reasons.  And to close the circle, Giuliani is suing Joe Biden for calling him a "Russian pawn" during a 2020 debate.  He prefers to be known as a rook, or at least a bishop.

For reasons that are obscure, Elon Musk decided to wreck the life of Ben Brody by accusing him of participating in a street brawl as a "false flag" federal agent posing as a neo-Nazi.  You know, to make Nazis look bad.  Brody, who is Jewish, was subjected to harassment and driven from his home.  Musk should know by now that nothing he reads on X (formerly Twitter) is credible.  Now Brody is suing him for defamation and an undisclosed sum of money, and his attorney is Mark Bankston, who won over a billion dollars from Alex Jones (at least on paper) on behalf of the Sandy Hook families.  

How can you sue in two places at once when you're already getting prosecuted far away?  Among a thicket of lawsuits choking the civil courts like an algal bloom, Trump is suing Michael Cohen for $500 million because Cohen testified against him in the New York fraud case.  Or possibly the hush money case, or are they the same?  Anyway, he was due in Miami today for a deposition but had to beg off because he's in New York scowling and ordering take-out.  He doesn't need to be at the fraud trial as he hasn't been called as a witness yet, but he can't resist staging a mini-hate rally for the media every afternoon.  Maybe it's time for them to cover something else.

Trump's ex-spokesmodel Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now governor of Arkansas, managed to spend $19,029.25 on a deluxe lectern using a government credit card.  Subsequently, the state was reimbursed by the Republican Party.  All well and good, if not to my taste, but it looks like records of the purchase were altered and the state police have been concealing records about the governor's travel and security arrangements.  This was uncovered by brother blogger Matthew Campbell, whose suspicions have led to investigation by the legislature.  Sanders recently signed a law choking off public access to such records, opposed even by some conservatives.  The Trump force is strong in this one.

This is interesting:  Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, sometimes touted as the Republican Party's path out of Trump Mordor, has accepted a $2 million contribution from Jeff Yass, who holds a large stake in controversial app Tik Tok.  What does it mean that China is investing in Governor Spit Curl?