[Firestarter]

Gratitude, Trump's Mar-a-Lago cronies

In April 2012, Jeffrey Epstein formed Gratitude America Ltd. in the Virgin Islands “to support the expression of gratitude for the ideals of America”.
Epstein was president of Gratitude America, Ltd. until 2015, when Richard D. Kahn took over that role.

The executors of Epstein’s Last Will, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, were directors for Epstein´s Gratitude America in the US Virgin Islands.
Indyke and Kahn have been sued by 3 women, 2 of which, "Katlyn Doe" and "Lisa Doe", were only 17 when they were first sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein. Some of this sexual abuse took place, after Epstein pleaded guilty followed by the sweetheart deal and lenient prison sentence.

Lisa says she met Epstein in 2002 when she was 17, when he promised he could advance her career in dance (in return for sex).
Katlyn was forced into "sexual encounters" with Epstein and another young female at the headquarters of his Florida Science Foundation. She also alleges that in 2013 Epstein paid her $10,000 to marry an associate so he could become a legal resident of the US.
Priscilla also comes with the story that she was paid for sex for years starting when she was 20.
I don´t see much difference between Priscilla and a prostitute though...

After Epstein had served his prison sentence in a Palm Beach jail, he settled over two dozen lawsuits for coercing teenagers into sex and paid to recruit others. Three of those cases, filed by attorney Brad Edwards, settled for a total of $5.5 million: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-2...g-lawsuits


Since Darren K. Indyke is vice president of Gratitude America, before that he was treasurer. Indyke is a longtime lawyer for Epstein; active in all 3 of Epstein’s former foundations, Epstein Interests, C.O.U.Q. Foundation (a.k.a. Florida Science Foundation) and J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation (a.k.a. Enhanced Education).
Virgin Islands tax attorney Erika Kellerhals is Gratitude America's secretary and treasurer. She was also secretary, treasurer and trustee of the J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation.

In 2015, Gratitude America, Ltd. recorded revenues for the first time, with a mysterious $10 million donation from a New York shell company - BV70 LLC.
Epstein’s groups shuffle money to each other. In 2008, Epstein Interests donated $100,000 to the C.O.U.Q. Foundation. In 2009, Enhanced Education contributed $200,000 to C.O.U.Q.

Gratitude America Ltd. has been used to funnel money to a variety of causes.
In 2016, Gratitude America Ltd. funded a TV show with $110,000 through Verse Video Education hosted by the wife of Larry Summers, Elisa New, a Harvard economist and Treasury secretary under former President Clinton.
Gratitude America’s biggest donations included $375,000 to the International Peace Institute Inc. A New York think tank staffed by former United Nations officials and run by the Norwegian Terje Rød-Larsen. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is honorary chairman.

On July 23, 2018, Epstein, Indyke and Kahn each donated $2,700 to Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Kellerhals and partners at her law firm have been frequent donors to Plaskett.
Epstein, Indyke and Kahn also donated to Plaskett in August 2016, each for a total of $5,400.
In July 2014, both Kahn and Indyke donated $2,600 to Plaskett's campaign, while Kellerhals donated a total of $1,000 in July 2013 and January 2014.

In June 2014, Indyke donated $5,200 to New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Gary King's campaign and Kahn’s business, HBRK Associates Inc., gave King $5,200.
In the following weeks Epstein’s businesses – JEGE; FT RealEstate; Laurel; Nautilus; Maple; and Neptune LLC - donated more than $35,000 to King’s campaign.
Gary King’s father, former Gov. Bruce King, sold Epstein his 10,000-acre Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico. Bruce King was listed in Epstein’s little black book.

And now for the most interesting part...
In 2016, Gratitude America, Ltd. donated $100,000 and $50,000 in 2017 to the Bruce and Marsha Moskowitz Foundation. While Gratitude America Ltd. registered a $100,000 donation in 2017, Moskowitz recorded a donation for only half of that ($50,000).
Bruce Moskowitz is one of Trump's Mar-a-Lago cronies that secretly influences policies in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bruce Moskowitz is also in in Epstein’s little black book: https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-ep...e-money-to


An informal troika - Ike Perlmutter, Bruce Moskowitz and Marc Sherman – control Veterans Affairs (VA) from Mar-a-Lago (President Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Florida).

The Mar-a-Lago troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment; a longtime acquaintance of Donald Trump and close to Donald’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump and Perlmutter regularly talk on the phone and dine together at the Mar-a-Lago.

On 28 December 2016, president-elect Donald Trump asks Perlmutter at Mar-a-Lago for help putting a government together, according to people familiar with the matter. Then Perlmutter enlisted the assistance of his friends Sherman and Moskowitz.
Bruce Moskowitz specialises in knowing the world’s top medical experts and arranging appointments for wealthy clients.
Marc Sherman is yet another a lawyer, who specialises in financial fraud, white collar investigations and damages disputes.

The troika speaks with VA officials daily to review policy and personnel decisions. In email after email, VA officials ask approval from the trio.
A former administration official said: “Everyone has to go down and kiss the ring

Everything needs to be run by them.
They view themselves as making the decisions.”
Another former official commented: “On any veterans issue, the first person the president calls is Ike”.

The Mar-a-Lago troika has made a nice profit from their control over VA.
Starting in February 2017, Perlmutter negotiated with executives at Johnson & Johnson, on a public awareness campaign about veteran suicide.
They planned a promotional event at the New York Stock Exchange around the time of Veterans Day. Executives from Perlmutter’s company Marvel and its parent company, Disney, joined Johnson & Johnson as sponsors of the Veterans Day event.

Bruce Moskowitz wanted Apple and the VA to develop an app for veterans to find medical services, for which he selected his son, Aaron, who had built a similar app. The VA finally killed the project after months of pushing by Moskowitz.
Moskowitz set up the Biomedical Research and Education Foundation to encourage keeping track of devices for their patients. The foundation built a registry to collect data from doctors and patients. Moskowitz chaired the board, Perlmutter’s wife was also a member and Moskowitz’s son earned $60,000 a year as the executive director...

In September 2017, the Mar-a-Lago troika pushed to expand the use of the private sector.
Perlmutter wrote in an email to Shulkin and other officials:

We think that some of the VA hospitals are delivering some specialty healthcare when they shouldn’t and when referrals to private facilities or other VA centers would be a better option.
Our solution is to make use of academic medical centers and medical trade groups, both of whom have offered to send review teams to the VA hospitals to help this effort.

This looks like a proposal, so they can outsource VA health care to private providers like themselves (and their crooked gang).

Former administration officials say that VA leaders were pushed out or passed over by the Mar-a-Lago troika if they didn’t cooporate; including: the secretary, deputy secretary, chief of staff (acting under secretary for health), deputy under secretary for health, chief information officer, and the director of electronic health records modernization.
After making a good impression on the Mar-a-Lago troika, Peter O’Rourke became chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs. In February 2018, Moskowitz emailed him on a new mental health initiative; O’Rourke replied: “Received, I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action”.
In May 2018, O’Rourke became acting secretary.

The Mar-a-Lago troika grew frustrated with David Shulkin, because he wasn’t listening to them.
According to 2 former officials, senior adviser Camilo Sandoval, who knew Perlmutter from his work on the campaign with Jared Kushner, presented himself as Perlmutter’s eyes and ears within the agency.
One email shows that Sandoval kept tabs on the Apple project and reported back to Moskowitz and Sherman:

I will update the tracker, and please do let me know if this helps answers questions around Apple’s efforts or if additional clarification is required.

https://www.propublica.org/article/ike-p...-of-the-va
(archived here: http://archive.is/1VJai)


On 4 December 2017, White House adviser Jake Leinenkugel sent Sandoval a plan to change VA’s leadership.
Not only Shulkin — but all the officials the Leinenkugel memo singled out were removed and replaced with cronies of Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz.
Like the memo suggested:
In April 2018, Sandoval became head of the Office of Information and Technology, overseeing the implementation of the Cerner contract;
In June 2018, Deputy Secretary Tom Bowman had to leave;
In July 2018, Richard Stone was made under secretary for health.

Leinenkugel himself took charge of a commission on mental health (on which Moskowitz had emailed O’Rourke): https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/...-Memo.html



In August 2018, following the ProPublica report, Veterans’ advocacy group VoteVets and Democracy Forward filed a complaint against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, to stop the influence of 3 friends of President Donald Trump on decisions at the agency.
The lawsuit asks the court to block the Mar-A-Lago troika - Ike Perlmutter, Bruce Moskowitz and Marc Sherman - from weighing in on decisions, policies and personnel changes.

A group of Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and Tim Walz demanded that Robert Wilkie provide unredacted copies of all documents, records and correspondence between the troika and current or former VA employees.
The VA has used the VoteVets and Democracy Forward lawsuit for an argument to not release documents.

The Trump administration defends the legality of the 3 Trump cronies manipulating the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for personal gain, asserting that the Watergate-era law FACA on advisory committees doesn't apply.
The administration argued that FACA doesn't apply to every formal or informal consultation.

The government lawyers also argued that because the Mar-A-Lago troika doesn't fit the law's definition of an advisory committee because they aren’t under the agency's control:

Far from alleging that the department managed or controlled the three individuals, the complaint asserts quite the opposite: that the three individuals asserted influence over the department.

The VA case has been assigned to Trump appointee Judge Timothy J. Kelly: https://psmag.com/social-justice/lawsuit...f-trump-va