Trump TURNS to the MOB to SUPPORT INDICTMENT?!?!

Welcome to the Court of History.I'm Sean Wilentz with my co -host, Sidney Blumenthal.The court is now in session.Do subscribe to Legal AF and get us wherever you get your podcasts.Sidney and I are going to talk about a lot of things today, but mostly about the ratcheting up of the retribution, it seems.I mean, it's always been there.

It's just continuing, but it seems to be getting even hotter and even more telling because now the retribution campaign has turned to one Sammy the Bull Ravano.Now, just to remind our viewers and listeners who Sammy the Bull Gravano is, he is a former hitman and underboss for the Gambino crime family in New York.He is the man who basically Trump delivered the Teflon Don, John Gotti, to the feds.He has been in jail.He's involved in at least 19 murders that we know about, many more than that.He is a hitman.

He is a criminal of the highest order.He is mafia par excellence.And now, the Trump administration has turned to Sammy the Bold Ravano to help along its retribution campaign.What do you make of that, Sidney, and what's going on?Explain exactly what's happening here.

Well, Trump has always intersected with the mafia one way or another, including in his own head, as being a John Gotti wannabe, too.He's a godfather wannabe.He borrowed his look from John Gotti, the long tie, the open long coat, the suits.It's the John Gotti, the dapper Don look.as Gotti was called.And then, as you pointed out, Sammy the Bull Gravano was the rat, the stooge.

And Trump has had a relationship with Sammy the Bull.Trump has a long relationship with the mob.Trump Tower was built with what was called the Concrete Club, the Concrete Mob.Anthony Fantoni Salerno, Paul Castellano of the Genovese and Gambino crime families were brought in to build it.Roy Cohn, Trump's mobbed up lawyer who represented the five families and Donald Trump helped arrange all these things.There was then Trump when he moved into Jersey with the Taj Mahal and building a nightclub there was involved with Nikki Scarfo.

who was the head of the South Philly crime family.Nicky...

Any other connections between the Philadelphia mob and the Trump administration?

Well...

I'm thinking of Kellyanne in particular.

Well, Kellyanne's grandfather, who was known as Jimmy the Brute, and I believe that is what is engraved on his tombstone.was a soldier in Nicky Scarfo's mob and was a frequent witness whenever Scarfo was accused of murders.And Jimmy would come out and say, no, he was with me.So he's Kellyanne's grandfather.

So she grew up and he gave alternative facts.

In effect, it was, you know, he gave alternative facts for for Nikki and and the Taj and Trump's club were all built by.

OK, so so how do we come?How do we come?is Sammy the bull resurfaced after all these years?

Well strangely enough Sammy the bull resurfaced because of Donald Trump he he seems to Rent a room in Trump's head and so Trump is in his many retributions is You know, it's too clever to think that there are going to be ingenious things going on.And always go to the stupidest answer, and you will be correct.It's a kind of Occam's razor for Trump.And the stupidest thing for Donald Trump in going after James Comey, one of his top targets, former FBI director, for one of the stupidest cases ever, brought by a rigged grand jury that Tromi knew he was signaling the assassination of Donald Trump through arranging seashells on a beach in the numbers of 86 -47.So that's the preface.Donald tells the FBI they have to interview Sammy the Bull.

And what is Sammy the Bull going to tell them?

Well, he likes Sammy the Bull.And they've had a history, according to Sammy the Bull.And there's no reason to believe any of this, given the history of these characters.But Sammy the Bull says he once tried to bribe Donald and that Donald didn't take a bribe.And Donald wanted to remain legit in the biz, a real estate business in New York, although he was still working with the five families.So let's just say it's hard to assess.

Butbut he likes Sammy the Bull for saying that.So he tells the FBI, go interview Sammy the Bull in order to nail Comey.And if you're following me and the way to nail Comey is you get Sammy the Bull to say that this was a mafia technique of, you know, using 86.

86 men killing.86 meant rub out.

Yeah.And but there was a problem.The FBI actually did, on Trump's orders, interview Sammy the Bull Gravano, the mafia rat.And Gravano said that this would that the gangs, he said, and I'm quoting from the the the the the brief by Comey.that he's on that he has filed in order to try and get his case dismissed.He says that a gangster would never use that term.

That was a quote from Sammy, because they knew that law enforcement knew what the term meant.So it would be too stupid.But it was Trump's clever idea.And so now the other part of this that I'm thinking about, Sean, is why would Trump not think that you and I would not be talking about this, that this would not hit the papers, that this is not going to come out in discovery through me, that this is not going to be on the front page of the papers, that he is, you know, getting the FBI through that genius Kash Patel to interview Sammy the Bulgarvano to try and hang up James Comey.

Well, I mean,I think he I don't think you see anything wrong with that, actually.I mean, this is if you're thinking that that that that the president doesn't quite understand how public relations works.Who cares?I mean, you know, as far as he's concerned, Sammy the Bull Gravano is an expert in his field.He is very highly rated in his field.

And if you got to go to someone, you go to the expert and the expert is the hit man who would be able to tell you what you want to know.I imagine that's how it ran.Yes, exactly.So it's the first thing that came to mind.Why not?That's the way to do it.

So what do you think is going to come of that?

Well, Comey's trying to get his case dismissed, and this may help him with this level of idiocy may just allow a judge to throw it out.And then I don't know where Trump is. I mean, it's one of the most ridiculous of Trump's retributions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.Well, moving along, though, there's been a lot that's been going on recently, really right now, in fact, with the case of Anthony Fauci, which is he's long been a target of the president's, but not just the president's of members of Congress as well for his actions during the covid pandemic, his leadership in the covid pandemic.They go after Fauci as the mastermind of, you know, all of the Cover up, you know, we're suspending schools wearing masks all the rest of it He has become their evil genius, but now he's in trouble.

Yeah, so Donald Trump has Designated dr. Anthony Fauci as As one of his great public enemies and he revoked his security detail and Fauci had to hire a private security out of his own pocket andthat.And he's he's fired.Of course, all of Fauci's inner circle was fired from the National Institutes for Health, which has been gutted by Trump as part of his, you know, general assault on science.And, you know, 155 physicians, public health advocates wrote an open letter just recently condemning the Trump administration for waging a war on individual scientists through public harassment, arrests, and ongoing threats of prosecution.Jim Jordan, who is a far right -wing member of Congress in the House who was a co -conspirator with Trump in the run -up to the January 6th insurrection, has referred Fauci to the Justice Department for prosecution.

I don't quite know for what.But in any case, now he's hauled before the Senate today.to be made a spectacle of, and also a distraction.He's a great whataboutism and a great false equivalence, and on the other hand, And it's a it's a it's a dumb perjury trap is what it is.

Explain that, though.I mean, he's before that.Which committees are the Homeland Security or the health?I can't remember which one.

But but it's chaired by Rand Paul, who has long had, as Fauci says, an obvious obsession with him.And and Fauci's accused him, Fauci's has said that Rand Paul wants to put him behind bars and this is allhas to do with COVID and vaccines and the, you know, things that happened six years ago.So on July 29th, which is today when we're recording this, Fauci invoked his fifth amendment, writing in self -incrimination to all the answers.And he refused to answer them.Why?

Because of the Jim Jordan referral, no doubt instigated by Trump, who's been after Fauci, they're trying to set him up to answer questions in a way that could be distorted as somehow proof of that he was perjuring himself before the Senate to assist in this referral and prosecution to keep it going and harass him.And that's what we watched today.as well as a distraction.

But it seems to be that they have set up a trap, but if Fauci does not fall into the trap, the administration thinks it would still win, or Rand Paul et al would still win, because by taking the Fifth Amendment, you know, people think that automatically that means you're guilty of something.You know, you're back to the mob bosses of yore who are always taking the Fifth Amendment.So they are looking upon that as a public relations plus for them, I would imagine, right?

You are, and it stirs up the base, and they're in desperate shape going into the midterms, and they need something.So why not, you know, And it's, you know, COVID again, and use the image of the hate figure of Anthony Fauci.So they're doing whatever they can.and desperate political situation, and it intersects, if there's an intersectionality here, with Trump's retribution campaign.

Completely.Do we want to say something, though, about Trump's relationship to the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment?

We get the Fifth, we get the First.

Let's do the Fifth.Let's do the Fifth, because, you know, he has said, he's on record as saying that if you take the Fifth Amendment, that means you're guilty, right?And yet, As I recall, the president has had to take the Fifth Amendment on all kinds of things, has he not?

He has.He's a regular Fifth Amendment guy.He also said he's in in telling the FBI to go to Sammy the Gravano, he said the worst kinds of people are rats.Yeah.You know, as stool pigeons like Sammy Gravano.And but of course, Trump, we have to remember Just a little footnote in history, he was an FBI confidential informant.

Relating to what?

Relating to mob influence.and his extensive relationships with the mob, and he falsely accused one of his associates of being mobbed up, who was not, according to a Washington Post report some years ago.

And it's suspected on an all other front that he may have dropped the dime, as they say, on Jeffrey Epstein.And Jeffrey Epstein certainly thought that Donald Trump was a rat.

Jeffrey Epstein told Michael Wolff, as we have reported on the Court of History through our interviews with Michael Wolff, that Epstein believed that Donald Trump was the rat who set him up for the first time with the police to get him arrested.And that is because Donald Trump knew a lot.

Yeah, so, you know, rattiness.He just made up with Michael Cohen.

It reminds me of the scene in Havana where the Corleone brothers, Michael and, who's the weak one?Come on, help me out.Fredo.And Fredo has actually been a rat.and had told somebody else about Michael, who was another gangster, to set them up.And Michael says to him, as they're fleeing Havana during the revolution, I knew it was you, Fredo.

It was you with Johnny Ola.And that's Epstein and Trump.You know, that's the world.Yeah.I don't know why we always get back to the godfather.

With this administration, it seems to be the other way.

It's the subjects, yeah.The First Amendment.We had a celebration in Washington, D .C.Did we not?The biggest celebration of the year of the First Amendment at the White House correspondence which they had to move to New York because of the...

No, no, no.You say New York because it's the Waldorf Astoria, but it's the Waldorf Astoria in Washington.

Oh, in Washington.Oh, I see.

Okay.It's the former Trump Hotel.

I see.

So Trump had something to do with it.You know, part of his speech was about the chandeliers and the glass.I see.OK, go ahead.He did his whole interior decorating business, but they had to reschedule it.Usually it's in the basement, the cavernous basement of the Washington Hilton, known as the Reagan House.

where the attempted assassination by John Hinckley of Ronald Reagan took place.And for that dinner in April, a would -be assassin tried to run through the magnometers and get in, and the whole dinner turned into total chaos and was foiled.But he had done a valuable service to the entire press corps that they did not acknowledge.He had saved them from disgrace of having to hear Donald Trump.And for them to put Donald Trump on the podium before them to hold forth against the press.But they rescheduled it.

Bring it on, we love it.

We're in the basement of the Waldorf Astoria, a smaller but a higher class venue.And what do you know?Trump, who said he wasn't going to do the first speech, which was going to be a humdinger, attacking them.Well, not so much.He went after them anyway with a series of wild insults.And this takes place in the context of Trump's DOJ subpoenaing New York Times correspondents, sending armed agents to their homes.

Yes.Let's explain that.That's to do with the airplane.

It has to do with Trump's corruption.Yeah.Because the Times has been reporting on his new Air Force One that was a gift from the kingdom of Qatar.And He loves flying in that plane.He says it's much more luxurious.than the old Air Force One.

Gee, I hope so.I flew a lot of times on the Air Force One when I worked in the White House.

It wasn't so hot?

It was all right.It was just fine.But, you know, there was not a lot of room for the staff on really long flights to sleep.We didn't have, you know, we didn't have it.I think the press had better seats than we did.In any case, so he loves this plane.

There's only one problem.It's not equipped with all the security that it needs, including the counterattack measures.And the Times reported that.And so Trump has gone to war against the Times and its reporters.

And when you say war, you mean it.I mean, this is sending armed agents and so forth to their places.I mean, this is not messing around.

Yeah.And including to a mother of a reporter and served a subpoena on the wife of a reporter.And then DOJ unilaterally withdrew the subpoenas because the U .S.District Court judge in D .C.

reprimanded the prosecutors for bypassing all of their guidelines.And Meanwhile, there's a big backlash.The Senate Democrats are calling for a congressional probe.Well, would require taking the Senate, wouldn't it?Yeah.And Trump is going to war against the Disney Corporation because and trying to lift the licenses of local ABC affiliates because of they don't like some of the news coverage.

And so There's a real criminalization of journalism going on here.And that was the context of this dinner.

Yeah, I mean, the dinner is a disgrace.

Yeah, the dinner was a disgrace.It was a series of really bad, vulgar sexual jokes, jokes about the fatness of various political figures, name calling.sexual attacks on individual reporters, like Caitlin Collins accusing her of being just like the transgender Dylan Mulvaney.There were insulting nicknames applied to people.And Trump couldn't stop himself, couldn't help himself.And they gave him that platform to disgrace them, to trample on their profession.

which has been and still is my profession.And all the while, he isn't using the instruments of the federal government in an authoritarian way to try and to try to trample on the First Amendment and their rights very particularly.

Yeah, I mean, the press comes across as or rather the White House Correspondents Association comes across as supine in the midst of all of this.It really is quite quite disgraceful.There were those who said that his jokes landed like a thud at the at the room, that he didn't get what he wanted.However, that stuff's all been recorded.It's going to go out there.It's going to be, you know, part of his of his shtick that gets his base all riled up.

So, you know, giving him that platform, as you say, is in itself a disgrace.This is a moment for protest rather than protest.for facilitating.

Well, what was interesting to me is, first of all, they never should have invited...First of all, if you're going to hold the event and you're going to celebrate the First Amendment, don't invite the person who is the antagonist to the First Amendment, the chief antagonist in the country to it.waging war against your very members.That's one.Two, all right, so they invited him, and he was gonna be himself.If you invite Donald Trump, you're gonna get Donald Trump.

But not one of them walked out.Not one of them stood up, turned their backs, and had the bravery to just walk out.They should have walked out en masse, and they sat there silently.I have to say it's not the exact analogy, to say the least, but it reminded me of a film I had seen of Saddam Hussein and members of the Ba 'athist party, where he calls out individual names and calls them traitors.Then they're rounded up and taken out.And they're executed.

But this was you know, this is Trump's version of that.

Right.Right.Right.Right.Soft baptism or something.But it's the only way it's the way he operates.

It's a perfect.It's the perfect convergence of politics and madness.And, you know, he exemplifies that all the time.But this is a particularly dramatic example of where resistance was called for and resistance did not appear.And I mean, you know, I wasn't there.I don't know what I would have done, but I would have hoped that somebody would have asked me to walk out or or, you know, why would you not?

You know, it's crazy.I mean, it's crazy.insult.Anyway, well, the retribution will continue.This is just the beginning, not the beginning, just a midpoint in all of all this or a data point in all of this.But meanwhile, we'll have the we'll have Sammy the Bulger of honor to look back on.

We'll always have Sammy.

We'll always have Sammy.

As Bogey said, we'll always have Sammy.

As Bogey says to, yes, but never mind.We'll always have him.Well, on that note, let's bring this session of the Court of History to a close.We will stand adjourned.Do subscribe to Legal AF.Get us wherever you get your podcasts.

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