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      in US Politics

      Trump Media executives worried over murky $8m loans, emails reveal

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      Top executives at Donald Trump’s social media company started to become concerned last spring about $8m that they had accepted from opaque entities in two emergency loans when its auditors sought further details about the payments, according to documents, emails and sources familiar with the matter.The payments had come at a critical time for Trump Media – which runs the Truth Social platform – because it was running out of cash after its planned merger with a blank check company known as DWAC that would have unlocked $1.3bn in capital stalled pending an SEC investigation.But the financing, which came in the form of a $2m loan from an entity called Paxum Bank registered in Dominica in December 2021 and a $6m loan from a entity called ES Family Trust in February 2022, had been arranged in a hurry and Trump Media knew next to nothing about the emergency lenders.The executives had good reason to be concerned: a subsequent examination revealed that the trustee of ES Family Trust was simultaneously a director of Paxum Bank, and one of the part-owners of the bank would turn out to be the relation of an ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.And, months after Trump Media came under criminal investigation for the merger by the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York, federal prosecutors started to examine whether the company violated money-laundering statutes over the payments, the Guardian revealed on Wednesday.Around that time, Trump Media’s chief financial officer, Phillip Juhan, weighed returning the money because of the opaque nature of its origins, former Trump Media co-founder turned whistleblower Will Wilkerson recounted in an interview.But the money was ultimately not returned, Wilkerson said, in part because the $8m represented such a large proportion of the roughly $12m in cash that Trump Media had in its accounts that losing those funds could put the company in a precarious financial position.The question about who knew about the origins of the $8m that ran the risk of having illegitimate origins because of the Russian connection, and what Trump Media did to ensure that kind of money was not entering the United States has become a key issue arising from the episode.The implications and, more generally, the optics of Trump’s company borrowing money from potentially unsavory sources through opaque conduits are significant considering they could cast a pall over the former president as he seeks to recapture the White House in 2024.According to documents and emails reviewed by the Guardian and interviews with multiple people familiar with the payments, the knowledge about the $8m being potentially problematic stretched across a number of top executives at Trump Media.A lawyer for Trump Media declined to comment on the criminal investigation or the $8m financing. A spokesman for the former president’s son, Don Jr, and the justice department declined to comment.The first $2m loan was sourced by DWAC’s chief executive, Patrick Orlando just days before Christmas 2021 when Trump Media’s financial situation was becoming increasingly acute. Orlando later charged a $240,000 finder’s fee for the loan to Trump Media, according to an invoice billed through his brokerage firm Entoro Securities LLC.Even at that stage, there was some concern about the origin of the payment given the fact that it was being routed through an offshore bank and Orlando declined to provide any further information about the lender, telling Trump Media associates that the lender was extremely private.The financing itself also got approval at the Trump family level, when Don Jr, who had become increasingly involved in the Trump Media deal since the summer when he pushed to renegotiate the licensing deal that Trump had with the company for Truth Social, signed off on the loan.“Just want to keep you in the loop – no guaranty that these will get signed and funded, but we remain hopeful,” John Haley, outside counsel for Trump Media said in a 24 December 2021 email seen by the Guardian, to which Don Jr replied: “Thanks john much appreciated. d.”The issue then lay dormant for months until it resurfaced on 8 March 2022, when Trump Media’s CFO Juhan flagged the fact that the company had virtually no information about ES Family Trust and that the entity had never signed the promissory note confirming the loan conditions.“Our auditors require confirmation statements signed by all noteholders. We don’t have a contact for ES Family Trust other than the name of Angel Pacheco (Trustee). Can you provide contact info (email) so that our auditor (BF Borgers) can email this confirmation? Thanks!” Juhan wrote in the email also reviewed by the Guardian.It remains unclear what further information, or whether a signed version of the loan agreement, was actually passed on to Juhan or to the auditor.But in the following weeks, Juhan considered whether to return the money because of its potentially questionable origins, Wilkerson recounted. Whether Juhan consulted with the board – which includes Don Jr, Trump ally Kash Patel and former Republican congressman-turned chief executive Devin Nunes – is unclear.It was also unclear whether Orlando, a licensed SEC broker-dealer, or the auditor BF Borgers completed any due diligence under anti-money laundering and “Know Your Customer” requirements that mandate vetting of investors to combat the proliferation of illicit money.A person who picked up the phone at BF Borgers this week put a reporter seeking comment on hold until the line disconnected. On a subsequent call, the person said they would pass the request on to managing partner Ben Borgers. Juhan and Orlando did not respond to multiple requests for comment.But, Wilkerson recounted, the money was not returned. And by the time that his attorneys Patrick Mincey, Stephen Bell and Phil Brewster alerted the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York to the payments on 23 October 2022, the links to a Putin ally were evident. More

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      in Elections

      More than a quarter of Republicans approve of Capitol attack, poll shows

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      More than a quarter of Republicans approve of the January 6 Capitol attack, according to a new poll. More than half think the deadly riot was a form of legitimate political discourse.The Economist and YouGov survey said 27% of Republicans either strongly or somewhat approved of the riot on 6 January 2021, which Donald Trump incited in an attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.Nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides, have been linked to the attack. More than 1,000 people have been arrested and hundreds convicted.The longest sentence yet handed down is 10 years in prison, to a former New York police officer who assaulted Capitol officers. The statutory maximum sentence for seditious conspiracy, the most serious convictions yet secured, is 20 years.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection, but acquitted. The House January 6 committee made four criminal referrals regarding Trump to the Department of Justice. The federal investigation continues.The Republican party itself has called the riot legitimate political discourse.In February 2022, a Republican National Committee resolution said Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republicans on the January 6 committee, were pursuing the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.A Democratic committee member, Jamie Raskin, said: “The Republican party is so off the deep end now that they are describing an attempted coup and a deadly insurrection as political expression.“It is a scandal that historians will be aghast at.”More than a year later, the Economist/YouGov poll said 54% of Republicans thought rioters “participated in legitimate political discourse”. Among all voters, that total was 34%.The poll also said 8% of Republicans strongly approved of the takeover of the Capitol and 19% somewhat approved.Among all respondents, 19% approved of the riot “to stop congressional proceedings”. The figure for those who did not approve was 65%, leaving 15% “not sure”.Asked about Trump’s responsibility for the riot, 49% of Republicans said he had some, from a little to a lot. Among all voters, that figure rose 68%.Trump is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and leading most polls, despite facing legal jeopardy over January 6 and on many other fronts.Respondents to the Economist/YouGov poll were also asked about the decision by the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, to hand more than 40,000 hours of Capitol security footage to Tucker Carlson.The Fox News host has used the footage to show a highly partial version of events on January 6, arguing most rioters were peaceful and claiming without discernible irony the attack has been taken out of context for political purposes.McCarthy has been widely criticised. He has said other networks will have access to the footage.Among Republicans in the new poll, 61% approved of McCarthy’s decision to release the footage to Carlson and Fox News. Among all voters, 42% did.Republicans under McCarthy, including the far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, plan to stage an official visit to individuals jailed over January 6.Trump has recorded a charity single, with a choir of prisoners. More

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      in US Politics

      Stormy Daniels: Donald Trump legal team ‘pushes for end to hush money case’

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      Donald Trump’s legal team recently urged the Manhattan district attorney’s office not to indict the former president over his role in paying hush money to a porn star, arguing that the payments would have been made irrespective of his 2016 presidential candidacy, sources familiar with the matter have said.The lawyer who represented the Trump team at the meeting with the district attorney’s office, Susan Necheles, also argued that campaign funds had not been used for the payments to the porn star, known as Stormy Daniels, and were therefore not a violation of campaign finance laws.The arguments presented to the district attorney’s office mark the most formal defense that the Trump team have raised to date, as they attempt to settle on a strategy to avoid conviction in the event that the former president is charged with a misdemeanour or felony over the payments.Trump may face an uphill struggle with those arguments, given the fact that having “mixed motives” to protect himself personally and to protect his campaign could leave him liable, and the timing of the payments suggests there was an urgency to pay the money before the end of the 2016 campaign.The effort to convince the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, not to bring charges may also prove futile amid increasing signals that an indictment is likely.On Wednesday, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen testified for around two hours before the grand jury and told the Guardian that he provided the most complete account of the hush money scheme. He added that every juror asked a question, which suggested a particularly engaged grand jury.That is a typical sign for prosecutors as they weigh potential charges, legal experts say, because it could indicate the grand jury found him to be a compelling witness – and a jury at an eventual trial might be similarly convinced.Cohen is the crucial witness because he made the $130,000 payment to Daniels in late October 2016, buying her silence about the story of an affair with Trump. Trump later reimbursed him as president, through monthly $35,000 checks from his personal checking account, and Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges involving the hush money.The district attorney’s case is likely to focus on how Trump and the Trump Organization handled the reimbursements. According to court filings in the federal case, the Trump Organization falsely recorded the payments as legal expenses, referencing a legal retainer with Cohen that did not exist.Falsifying business records can be a misdemeanour in New York. But it can rise to a felony if prosecutors can show beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s “intent to defraud” included an effort to commit or conceal a second crime.What is unclear in this investigation is the potential second crime, though Bragg could tie the falsification to a violation of state election law, arguing the payment to Daniels was an illicit contribution to the Trump campaign, given the money stifled Daniels and helped his campaign.Also on Wednesday, Daniels herself met with the district attorney’s office at their request, her lawyer said in a tweet. Daniels responded to questions, he said, “and has agreed to make herself available as a witness, or for further inquiry if needed”.The district attorney’s office has questioned at least seven other people before the grand jury and Cohen was expected to be one of the final witnesses to make an appearance. Trump was also recently invited to testify, but his legal team is understood to have declined the offer.The recent moves by the district attorney suggest criminal charges against Trump could be imminent. It would be rare for a prosecutor to question essentially every relevant witness in a high-profile white-collar criminal case and ultimately decline to seek an indictment. More

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      in US Politics

      Chinese business tycoon and Bannon ally Guo Wengui arrested in $1bn fraud conspiracy

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      Guo Wengui, a self-exiled Chinese tycoon with close links to prominent Trumpist Republicans including Steve Bannon, has been indicted on 12 counts relating to an alleged $1bn fraud.The charges announced by the US attorney for the southern district of New York on Wednesday include wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.Kin Ming Je, a Hong Kong and UK dual citizen also known as William Je and described as Guo’s financier, was also named in the charges and faced a further count of obstruction of justice.The US attorney for the SDNY, Damian Williams, said Guo “led a complex conspiracy to defraud thousands of his online followers out of over $1bn.“[Guo] is charged with lining his pockets with the money he stole, including buying himself, and his close relatives, a 50,000 sq ft mansion, a $3.5m Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses, and financing a $37m luxury yacht.”Guo was arrested early on Wednesday at his home in a building on 60th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Just after noon, a fire broke out at the same address, according to the New York fire department.ABC News reported that FBI agents were inside the $32.5m penthouse apartment when the fire broke out, and that the bureau is now investigating whether the blaze was related to the arrest.Guo’s contacts in influential circles have been widely reported.In October 2022, the New Yorker described how his application to buy the penthouse at an exclusive building on Fifth Avenue included “a personal recommendation from Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister, [who] said, ‘Miles is honest, forthright and has impeccable taste.’”The same report, however, said that in China, Guo was “at the center of a burgeoning scandal involving corruption and espionage”.Guo was also reported to have “paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump advisers, including Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani and the attorney L Lin Wood, who joined efforts to overturn the 2020 election”.Bannon, who was Trump’s campaign chair when he was introduced to Guo during the 2016 election, came to call him “the Donald Trump of Beijing”.Bannon was aboard Guo’s yacht on the Long Island Sound when he himself was arrested on fraud charges in August 2020.Guo left China in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by the president, Xi Jinping.In 2017, Guo made a series of salacious accusations about the Chinese government, accusing officials of having illegitimate children, houses and large sums of money in overseas bank accounts. The Chinese police accused him of paying associates to forge Chinese government documents and requested that Interpol issue a notice for his arrest.Guo claimed that allegations against him in China were launched in retaliation for his efforts to expose graft.On Wednesday, the Department of Justice said Guo, who is also known as Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok, was “an exiled Chinese businessman who has resided in the US since in or about 2015 and garnered a substantial online following.“In or about 2018, Kwok founded two purported nonprofit organizations, namely, the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society. Kwok used the nonprofit organisations to amass followers who were aligned with his purported policy objectives in China and who were also inclined to believe Kwok’s statements regarding investment and money-making opportunities.”Je, the department said, “owned and operated numerous companies and investment vehicles central to the scheme and served as its financial architect and key money launderer”.Guo was also charged with laundering hundreds of millions of stolen funds to conceal the conspiracy’s illegal activities and continue the fraud’s operations, Williams said.Michael J Driscoll, assistant director of the FBI, said: “Fraudulent investment scams make victims out of innocent people, ultimately harming the public’s confidence in the integrity of financial systems.“The FBI continues to make investigating complex financial crimes a top priority, and anyone attempting these crimes will be made to face the consequences in the criminal justice system.”Maximum sentences for the charges range from five years in prison, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud and money laundering, to 20 years. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump would have believed aliens stole votes, key ally reportedly told jury

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      Such was Donald Trump’s troubled state of mind after the 2020 election that he would have believed aliens had stolen his ballots if anyone had told him so, a leading Republican senator said, according to a member of the special grand jury in the investigation of the former president’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in Georgia.According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an unnamed juror described Senator Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina and a close Trump ally, as saying: “During that time, if somebody had told Trump that aliens came down and stole Trump ballots … Trump would’ve believed it.”Running for the Republican nomination again, Trump continues to push the lie that his conclusive defeat was the result of electoral fraud.The Atlanta paper interviewed five of the 23 members of the Fulton county grand jury, whose report was made partially public last month. The jury recommended indictments. Against whom is not known.In Georgia, Trump and his allies, including Graham, pressed state officials to investigate or overturn Biden’s narrow win.The Journal-Constitution said Emily Kohrs, the jury foreperson who spoke to the media last month, was not among jurors it spoke to.Lawyers for Trump have tried to use Kohrs’ comments to have the case dismissed.One juror said criticism of Kohrs led to the group being “portrayed as not serious. That really bothered me because that’s not how I felt. I took it very seriously.”Another said: “One of the most important things we’ll be a part of in our life was this eight-month process that we did … [it was] incredibly important to get it right.”Describing evidence not previously public, jurors described a call in which Trump tried to persuade the state House speaker, David Ralston, to convene a special session and overturn Biden’s win.Ralston, who died in November, “basically cut the president off”, the juror said.“He said, ‘I will do everything in my power that I think is appropriate’ … He just basically took the wind out of the sails. ‘Well, thank you,’ you know, is all the president could say.”The jurors heard from poll workers targeted by Trump and threatened by his supporters.“I was pretty emotional throughout the whole thing,” one juror said. “I wouldn’t cry in front of any of the witnesses, but when I would get in my car, I was like, I just left that and I have to just go do my job now? … I just know things that are hard to know.”Witnesses who invoked their fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination – reported to have included the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani – proved frustrating.“When people would take the fifth over and over, we could kind of go, ‘Ugh,’” a juror said. “Not because we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh you’re guilty, whatever.’ It was like, ‘We’re going to be here all day.’”One juror said prosecutors used video of speeches, interviews or other testimony if a witness did not answer.Trump did not appear. One juror said: “With the benefit of hindsight, we should have sent a voluntary invitation.”The juror said his mind had been changed by moves to indict Trump in New York, over a hush money payment to a porn star.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, is now deciding whether to convene another grand jury to issue indictments. The full report remains under wraps.One juror said: “A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later. And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.” More

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      in US Politics

      Federal investigators examined Trump Media for possible money laundering, sources say

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      Federal prosecutors in New York involved in the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s social media company last year started examining whether it violated money laundering statutes in connection with the acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties, according to sources familiar with the matter.The company – Trump Media, which owns Trump’s Truth Social platform – initially came under criminal investigation over its preparations for a potential merger with a blank check company called Digital World that was also the subject of an earlier probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission.Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8m wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the sources said.The expanded nature of the criminal investigation, which has not been previously reported, threatens to delay the completion of the merger between Trump Media and Digital World, which would provide the company and Truth Social with up to $1.3bn in capital, in addition to a stock market listing.Even if Trump Media and its officers face no criminal exposure for the transactions, the optics of borrowing money from potentially unsavory sources through opaque conduits could cloud Trump’s image as he seeks to recapture the White House in 2024.The extent of the exposure for Trump Media and its officers for money laundering remains unclear. The statutes broadly require prosecutors to show that defendants knew the money was the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and the transaction was designed to conceal its source.But money laundering prosecutions are typically based on circumstantial evidence and can be based on materials that show that the money in question was unlikely to have legitimate origins, legal experts said.The first $2m payment to Trump Media came in December 2021 when the company was on the brink of collapse after the planned merger with Digital World – that would have unlocked millions for the company – was delayed when the SEC opened an inquiry into whether the arrangement broke regulatory rules.Trump Media needed a bridge loan to keep the company afloat. But it struggled to get financing until Digital World’s chief executive Patrick Orlando sourced a $2m loan wired from Paxum Bank registered in Dominica, according to the wire transfer receipt reviewed by the Guardian.The wire transfer identified Paxum Bank as the beneficial owner, although the promissory note identified an entity called ES Family Trust as the lender. Two months later, an unexpected second $6m payment arrived in Trump Media’s account from ES Family Trust, the transfer receipt showed.In both instances, Orlando declined to provide details about the true identity of the lenders or the origin of the money to Trump Media executives, Trump Media’s since-ousted co-founder turned whistleblower Will Wilkerson recounted in an interview.Though the two payments to Trump Media ostensibly came from two separate entities – first Paxum Bank and second ES Family Trust – the trustee of ES Family Trust, a person called Angel Pacheco, appears to have simultaneously been a director of Paxum Bank.The Russian connection, as being examined by prosecutors in the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York, centers on a part-owner of Paxum Bank – an individual named Anton Postolnikov, who appears to be a relation of Putin ally Aleksandr Smirnov.Smirnov, who heads the Russia-controlled maritime company Rosmorport, worked in the Central Office of the Russian government until 2017. Before that, Smirnov was the First Deputy Minister of Justice of Russia until 2014, and for most of Putin’s first two terms as president, Smirnov served in the executive office of the president.A spokesman for the justice department, the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York and outside counsel for Trump Media declined to comment about the investigation. Rosmorport and Paxum Bank did not respond to requests for comment.Concern inside Trump MediaThe obscure origins about the $8m loans caused alarm at Trump Media and, in the spring of 2022, Trump Media’s then-chief financial officer Phillip Juhan weighed returning the money, according to Wilkerson.But the money was never returned, Wilkerson said, in part because losing $8m out of the roughly $12m cash that Trump Media had in its accounts at that time would have placed significant stress on its financial situation.Prosecutors appear to have also taken a special interest in the payments because the off-shore Paxum Bank has a history of providing banking services for the pornography and sex worker industries, which makes it higher risk of engaging in money laundering and other illicit financing.There appears to have been some awareness at Trump Media that the first $2m was to come through because Trump’s eldest son Don Jr, who joined the board with Trump ally Kash Patel and former Republican-turned Trump Media chief executive Devin Nunes, had confirmed to the company’s lawyers to proceed with the transaction.“Just want to keep you in the loop – no guaranty that these will get signed and funded, but we remain hopeful,” John Haley, outside counsel for Trump Media said in a 24 December 2021 email seen by the Guardian, to which Don Jr replied: “Thanks john much appreciated. d.”Since Orlando, who arranged the $8m financing, is an SEC-licensed broker-dealer, he would be subject to SEC rules governing anti-money laundering and “Know Your Customer” requirements that mandate due diligence of investors to combat the proliferation of illicit money.As a private company arranging private loans, the obligations for Trump Media to vet the financing under the SEC rules are less clear. But the securities regulations are separate to the US criminal money laundering statutes, which apply universally.A spokesman for Don Jr declined to comment. Orlando, Nunes, Patel and Juhan did not respond to requests for comment.Federal prosecutors’ interest in the two payments appear to have started when Wilkerson, through his attorneys Patrick Mincey, Stephen Bell and Phil Brewster, alerted the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York to the payments on 23 October 2022.Trump was the chairman of Trump Media at the time, though it was unclear whether he was aware of the opaque nature of the two loans. Trump typically did not seem to be particularly interested in managing the day-to-day running of Trump Media, Wilkerson said.But Trump was interested in the deal, Wilkerson said, because he got to own 90% of the shares without putting in any money into the company. According to one source familiar with the matter, however, Trump invested some money into Digital World, which could allow him to cash out twice in the event the merger was consummated. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump says the Queen, Diana and Oprah Winfrey ‘kissed my ass’ in letters

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      Queen Elizabeth II, Diana, Princess of Wales, Richard Nixon, Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton and other correspondents will be shown to have “kissed my ass”, Donald Trump said on Tuesday, promoting a forthcoming book of their letters.Letters to Trump will contain 150 missives from figures also including Kim Jong-un and Ronald Reagan. Drawn from Trump’s life before and after he ran for president, the book is due to be published next month.“I think they’re going to see a very fascinating life,” Trump told the far-right Breitbart News of what readers might expect.“I knew them all – and every one of them kissed my ass, and now I only have half of them kissing my ass.”His son Donald Trump Jr told Breitbart his father had corresponded with “some of the most interesting people in the world” but “it’s amazing how quickly their adoration of him changed when he ran for office as a Republican.“Letters to Trump shows you exactly how they felt about him and how phony their newfound disdain truly is.”Trump has not announced a deal to write a conventional memoir of a presidency which ended in disgrace and a second impeachment after the deadly January 6 attack on Congress. His reputation has not improved out of office.Running for the Republican nomination in 2024, Trump remains under the threat of criminal indictments including a reportedly imminent New York charge related to hush money paid to a porn star. He is also under investigation for retaining classified material, reportedly including letters from Kim Jong-un.Trump continues to claim his conclusive defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud, the lie that incited the Capitol attack.Far-right support courted by Trump, meanwhile, includes devotees of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that leading Democrats are members of a cannibalistic, paedophilic cabal.QAnon followers also believe John F Kennedy Jr, the son of President John F Kennedy, did not die in a plane crash in 1999 and will soon come to their aid.Trump shared with Breitbart a letter in which JFK Jr, then a magazine publisher, thanked Trump for visiting his office to “discourse on politics, New York, men and women”.Trump said JFK Jr was a friend, “even though we were of a different persuasion”.The Kennedy family is one of the most powerful in the Democratic party. In fact, Trump was a Democrat too for a while.Trump said: “I believe [JFK Jr] would have run for the Senate and that he would have been president someday. He was a handsome guy. He was a fantastic guy. He had the ‘it factor’ and he would have gone to the top of the world in the Kennedy family.”Trump’s admission that many correspondents no longer flatter him was telegraphed in the first report on the new book, by Axios last week.Axios said an Oprah Winfrey letter from 2000 says: “Too bad we’re not running for office. What a team!” Thanking Trump for compliments, the TV host says: “It’s one thing to try and live a life of integrity – still another to have people like yourself notice.”According to Axios, Trump writes: “Sadly, once I announced for president [in 2015], she never spoke to me again.”Letters to Trump will sell for $99 unsigned or $399 signed. It follows another pricey tome, Our Journey Together, a primarily visual account of Trump’s time in the White House.Trump published his picture book after blocking plans for a White House photographer to publish a book of her own. More