Trumps Raw Deal Playing Cards

The People Behind The Face Cards: Don’t Ever Forget Them

Chick Bragg’s art cuts right to the raw deal: the real faces of the clubby clubs, Russian spades, broken hearts club, and the diamonds who helped Trump occupy and abuse the most powerful post on earth. Here’s their history and how they are connected.

Diamonds

2♦ - Tom Price, Trump’s Secretary of Health & Human Services, didn’t seem to know the price of a government flight shouldn’t include private and military jets. He resigned in September 2017 after his profligate private flying, used largely in the failed bid to try to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), became a public relations problem. In July of 2018, the Inspector General found that Price had squandered at least $341K on travel and should repay the costs.

3♦ -Scott Pruitt, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency Administrator until 2018 declared war on environmental protection in a series of suicidal acts for the agency including: removing all scientific data about climate change from the website, canceling the 2015 Clean Water Rule, nullifying Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and overturning the ban on the agricultural pesticide chlorpyrifos, shown to stunt growth in children’s brains.

4♦ - Gary Cohn, Director of Trump’s National Economic Council until 2018, previously headed the Wall Street investment titan Goldman Sachs. Cohn shepherded through one of the largest tax cuts for America’s wealthiest people and corporations, a.k.a. Goldman’s clients. He quit after Trump’s comments following the Charlottesville shooting that there were fine people on both sides. But he took the money before he ran for his clients and himself. By accepting the NEC job, Cohn was able to defer taxes on at least $300 million under Section 1043 of the Internal Revenue Code, which allows individuals who are forced to sell stock to meet federal conflict-of-interest rules to defer paying capital gains tax, so long as the proceeds are reinvested in government bonds, diversified index funds and other similar instruments.

5♦ - Wayne LaPierre is the CEO of the National Rifle Association which gave $30 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign. LaPierre’s fingerprints on the trigger of the Russian rifles shot into the US election can be found through 2♠ Maria Butina. She formed The Right to Bear Arms (Russian NRA) and in December 2015 hosted several NRA principals in Moscow at the same time Mike Flynn was in town.

6♦ - David Pecker, the publisher of the National Inquirer and CEO of American Media, bought up stories like Playboy bunny Susan McDougal’s about her affair with Trump and kept them quiet to protect Trump. The “catch and kill” schemes and his role in hush money paid by Michael Cohen put Pecker under federal investigation in 2018. He became a cooperating witness.

7♦ - Roger Ailes, CEO and Chairman of Fox News and Fox Television Stations was forced out of Fox News in July 2016 after a sexual harassment scandal with a $40 million platinum parachute. He had built the network into a sensational Republic news source and platform for right wing and alt right narratives that ignored facts, truth and history. He became an advisor to the Trump campaign and coached his candidate on the same. He died at 77 years of age from a fall in May 2017 after moving to his new $36 million Palm Beach mansion just down the road from Trump’s Mar-A-Lago.

8♦ - David Bossie, Deputy Campaign Manager for Trump in 2016 after Manafort’s resignation, filed the lawsuit Citizens United v FEC that ended campaign finance limits as we knew them and gave corporations the right to spend as they saw fit. He also produced incendiary films with Newt Gingrich and Steve Bannon, and produced “Hillary: The Movie” in 2008.

9♦ - Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, is himself a billionaire. The Paradise Papers revealed his ties to a Russian petrochemicals company where Putin’s son-in-law is an executive. An octogenarian, Ross is notorious for falling asleep at cabinet meetings, emblematic of a management style that makes sure corporations are free of government regulation.

10♦ - Betsy DeVoss is a billionaire who has been Trump’s Secretary of Education since 2017. She never attended public school and her obsession with private and charter schools is why DeVoss is the only cabinet official who ever needed the VP to break a 50-50 tie for confirmation in the US Senate. Fittingly, her fellow Christian warrior Mike Pence came to her rescue. DeVoss’s brother Erik Prince founded the mercenary company Blackwater.

Jack♦ - Rupert Murdoch, media mogul behind NewsCorp, 21st Century Fox and Dow Jones, built and led a media empire, including Fox News, that was critical to the Trump presidency.

Queen♦ - Rebekah Mercer funded the Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC, the largest Trump 2016 campaign funder. She is a co-owner of Cambridge Analytica, the psychographic firm that mined Facebook’s intimate details to manipulate the electorate. She used her father Robert Mercer’s fortunes to work with Steve Bannon to micro-target turnout favorable to Trump.

King♦ - Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, came from Goldman Sachs wealth and he continued the tradition at the firm that his father started. Mnuchin was a key architect of the 2017 tax cut that provided the biggest benefits to corporations and the wealthiest 1%, reducing the highest tax bracket by 2.6%. The day Trump signed the tax cut he told a group of his friends at Mar-a-Lago, “All of you just got a lot richer.”

Ace♦ - Charles and David Koch, billionaire owners of oil refining and other toxic commodities, created Americans For Prosperity to move the Republican right to a liberatian, corporate freedom, Tea Party-type mob demanding total purity and ideological loyalty. The Koch brothers created the playbook and many of the players that Trump used to occupy the White House.

Spades

2♠ - Maria Butina, the red-headed Red, was arrested and charged in July 2018 with conspiracy for acting as an agent for Russia. Butina worked for Putin’s ally Alexandr Torshin, head of the Central Bank of Russia, and formed The Right to Bear Arms (Russian NRA). In December 2015, she hosted several NRA principals in Moscow at the same time Mike Flynn was there. The NRA gave about $30 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign. Mueller wonders how much of that was from Russia (Putin)?

3♠ -Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor (NSA) for less than 6 weeks, ironically led the chants of “Lock Her Up” at the Republican National Convention in 2016. He came close to being locked up himself. He acted as a foreign agent for Turkey without registering. Flynn was arrested in December 2017 for lying to the FBI about phone conversations with Russia’s US Ambassador Kislyak. The topic prior to Trump taking office: Trump ending Obama’s sanctions on Russia over election interference. He pleaded guilty and is now cooperating. Flynn’s firing led to the Mueller probe. As of February 1, 2020 he has yet to be sentenced.

4♠ - Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 until 2017, attended the Republican National Convention in July 2016 and met with Trump confidantes Jeff Sessions, Carter Page, and JD Gordon. Following the 2016 election, on December 28th, President Obama issued economic sanctions against Russia for interfering in the US elections, sanctions that Russia viewed with contempt. Within days, Kislyak and Flynn talked on the phone about the sanctions and, unbeknownst to them, the NSA, the agency Flynn would soon head, was listening. Flynn told Kislyak that Trump would soon be in charge so not to worry. In 2017, Kislyak said on Russian television: “The Americans have an expression, ‘someone in the neighborhood has to be the adult.’ We Russians need to continue to be the adult and keep talking with Americans.”

5♠ - Felix Sater was a lifelong friend of Michael Cohen and developer of Trump Tower Moscow. On 11/3/15, Sater sent Cohen an e-mail stating, “Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin's team to buy in on this, I will manage the process.” Sater had worked with Trump since 2003. His Bayrock Group (coowned with Tevfik Arif) leased an office on the 24th Floor of the Trump Tower, just below the Trump Organization HQ. Bayrock had links to trans-national financing from Russian oligarchs. Bayrock promoted Trump hotels in Moscow, New York, Paris, London, Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale, etc. Felix was one of Trump’s main connections to Russian money.

6♠ - Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Ukraine-born lawyer, was the central player in the now infamous 6/9/16 Trump Tower meeting. She was in NYC on 6/9/16 at a court hearing for Prevezon Holding, a company indicted for money laundering by Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for Manhattan. After court, she went to Trump Tower to meet with Trump Jr, Manafort, & Kushner, presumably to arrange a handoff of “dirt” on Hilary for their promise to help in eliminating Magnitsky Act sanctions. Everyone involved denied everything. Later, Natalia attended the inauguration.

7♠ - Aaras Agalarov, a Russian billionaire developer and associate of Putin, is known as the Russian Trump. He hosted the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow and facilitated the infamous 6/9/16 meeting in Trump Tower.

8♠ - Paul Manafort, Trump’s second campaign manager. After the first of his criminal dealings became known, Trump famously said he “had nothing to do with our campaign.” Manafort was Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych’s campaign manager and advisor, dealings that led to a federal indictment. He was convicted of bank and tax fraud and is now serving a sentence in federal prison. News reports in February 2020 found that Igor Fruman, indicted with Lev Parnas in October 2019 for campaign finance violations related to Trump, had a close relationship with Manafort since at least 2008.

9♠ - Oleg Deripaska is a Russian aluminum magnate who was once the 9th richest man in the world. US sanctions against himself and his company have taken a financial toll. He recommended Paul Manafort to help Viktor Yanukovich win his 2010 campaign to be Ukrainian president. He invested with Manafort and filed suit against him in 2014 for stealing $19 million. Manafort owed Deripaska. Once Trump’s campaign manager, Manafort had resources to pay Deripaska back with political access. Manafort offered to give him ‘private briefings’ on the 2016 Trump campaign.

10♠ - Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, famously released stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee server after Trump called for help from Russia for those emails to be released on national television. Russian intelligence hacked the emails of Hillary Clinton and campaign manager John Podesta, then shared them with WikiLeaks. The 6/9/16 meeting at Trump Tower was held to learn more about the “dirt” on Hillary. On 10/7/16, WikiLeaks began releasing the e-mails. Assange said, “The only way to keep a secret is never have one.”

Jack♠ - Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, built and failed to police the social media platform that Russian and Trump operatives, including the firm Cambridge Analytica, manipulated to elect Trump with false information. Facebook curates the largest psychological profile of humanity and it allowed Russian and Trump advertisers to micro-target American voters with false information designed to help Trump win. Facebook still refuses to ban or radically alter its political advertising as Twitter and Google have.

Queen♠ - Rudolf Guiliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, is the queen on the political chessboard who moves outside and inside all the boxes and in every direction. He has dragged the president into being impeached by orchestrating the ouster of the US ambassador in Ukraine and leveraging US aid to Ukraine in exchange for the government investigating the son of Trump’s 2020 rival Joe Biden.

King♠ - Donald Trump said during the last election, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” After taking office, he and his lawyers have said flat out a president can never be convicted for anything he does while in office. King Donald has also famously declared “I love WikiLeaks,” and “I don’t see any reason why” Russia would help elect him.

Ace♠ - Vladamir Putin will be president of Russia until 2024. In July 2018, when asked if he wanted Trump to win the election, he admitted "Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.” The world economic sanctions President Obama orchestrated against Russia following the Ukrainian invasion took a deep toll on the nation. The 2016 US election was Putin’s revenge. The Ace got his King.

Broken Hearts

2 - Donald John Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, orchestrated the infamous 6/9/16 meeting at Trump Tower with the Russians. He runs the Trump Organization and is under federal investigation in DC and NY for his role in the President’s inauguration and concealing hush payments to Michael Cohen. A December 2019 poll found that 29% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would consider voting for him in 2024.

3 - Ivanka Trump, the first daughter, has occupied the white house since Day One and been a central advisor to her dad.

4 - Sean Spicer, Trump’s first press secretary, famously exaggerated the size of the crowd at the inauguration and other events in Trump’s first days in office.

5 - Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has been charged with responsibility for the Middle East. When his family’s financially disastrous flag-ship real estate project, 666 Fifth Avenue, was rescued with funds from the Qatar government, questions rose about whether access to and secrets from the West Wing were an unofficial part of the deal. The questions were stoked by the fact that Trump gave Kushner top-secret clearance over the objections of the intelligence community and the White House’s chief of staff and counsel. They were concerned about his foreign business relationships.

6 - Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior advisor, is Trump’s main speech writer and the man behind the Muslim Travel Ban Executive Order and Zero Tolerance border policy that separated kids at the border from their parents. Miller reportedly had his awakening after reading NRA chief Wayne Lapierre’s book “Guns, Crime and Freedom” and quit all his Latino friends. He specializes in targeting the “other” (Mexican immigrants, Muslims etc) and separating “them” from the U.S.

7 - Michael Pence, the Vice President, is the glue that holds the religious right to Trump, despite his moral, marital and financial infidelity to the code of a higher power. Mike Flynn’s lie to Pence set off the firing of James Comey and the Mueller investigation. When Flynn resigned, he said, “I inadvertently briefed the VP-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador.” See 4♠ Sergey Kislyak

8 - Steve Bannon was Trump’s third campaign manager, former chief strategist, co-founder of Cambridge Analytica with Q♦ Rebekah Mercer, and former CEO of Breitbart News. Bannon was exiled from the White House after revealing its secrets in the tell-all book, “Fire and Fury,” but continues to be a force for nationalism’s rise in America and the “divide and conquer” xenophobia.

9 - Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first Secretary of State and the former Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil, had close ties to Vladimir Putin and Russia. Tillerson got the top job in the Administration over Rudy Giuliani. Once National President of the Boy Scouts Of America, he had little tolerance for Trump’s ignorance of world affairs and reportedly called him a “moron.” Tillerson was forced out of the job and is rumored to be speaking out against the Administration under the pseudonym “Anonymous.” Only Trump could make the CEO of the world’s largest and most destructive oil company seem like a moral voice.

10 - Roger Stone, Trump’s political advisor dating back to 1987 and manager of Trump 2000 presidential campaign, became a central figure in the Russian election interference scandal. He had communications with Russian intelligence agents acting as Guccifer 2.0, who hacked Hillary Clinton emails, and 10♠ Julian Assange. He was a consulting partner with 8♠ Paul Manafort. Stone was convicted in November 2019 of seven federal felonies for obstructing Congressional inquiries, lying to investigators and witness tampering. He awaits sentencing and has appealed to Trump for a pardon. A photo circulating online shows a tattoo of Richard Nixon’s face on Stone’s back.

Jack - Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer from 2016 until 2018, is serving a federal sentence for lying to Congress. He paid Stormy Daniels’s hush money and worked with 5♠ Felix Sater to build Moscow Trump Tower in 2013. Before going to jail, he came clean before Congress about what Trump knew and when -- everything.

Queen - Kelly Anne Conway, counselor to the President, came on the Trump campaign in July 2016 at the request of Q♦ Rebekah Mercer to advise Trump how to better appeal to women. She became campaign manager when 8♠ Paul Manafort resigned and helped Trump navigate the Access Hollywood tape scandal. The queen of spin defended Sean Spicer’s exaggeration of the inauguration crowd as “alternative facts” on Meet The Press, a term otherwise known as “lies.”

King - James Comey, the former FBI director, was probably more responsible than any American for Trump’s election. Comey's decision just before the election to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server overshadowed the Access to Hollywood tapes scandal that would likely have turned more women voters against him. Comey’s firing by Trump as the FBI investigation of Russian interference into the election was heating up led to the Mueller investigation.

Ace - Donald John Trump has broken more hearts than heart disease.

In The Clubs

2♣ - Rick Perry, Trump’s Energy Secretary resigned in 2019 as details emerged about his role pushing Ukraine to investigate the company that employed the son of Joe Biden. He dubbed US exports of fossil fuels to Europe “freedom gas.”

3♣ - Sarah Sanders, White House Press Secretary, defended the defenseless with frank outrage: “I can definitively say the president is not a liar, and I think it’s frankly insulting that question would be asked.” As she said, “Frankly, I think my credibility is higher than the media’s.”

4♣ - John Bolton, Trump’s national security from 2018 to 2019, may yet be the “wild card” in how history views Trump. His forthcoming book says that Trump asked him to help pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals before anyone knew about the scheme.

5♣ - Ryan Zinke, Trump’s Interior Secretary, sought free travel and security details for his family and free federal lands for oil and gas companies. He epitomizes the freedom of self-dealing in Trump’s house of cards.

6♣ - Jeff Sessions, Trump’s Attorney General, may have frustrated Trump in not defending him hard enough, but his hard love, zero-tolerance immigration policy separated parents from their children at the border and showed the world the Trump inhumanity.

7♣ - Representative Devon Nunes, Trump’s pit boss on the floor of the House of Representatives, defended his King ruthlessly. He famously opined, “Global warming is nonsense.”

8♣ - Mike Pompeo, Trump’s Secretary of State, replaced Rex Tillerson and seems to be the yes man the commander has always wanted on foreign policy.

9♣ - Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s Acting Chief of Staff, channeled his boss’s chutzpha when he admitted the quid pro quo with Ukraine at a White House press conference, then said, “Get over it.”

10♣ - Sean Hannity, Trump’s favorite Fox host and key political advisor, has engaged in psych-ops with red America daily to propel false narratives and keep his strongman strong by feeding red meat propaganda to a hungry base.

Jack♣ - William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General after 6♣ Jeff Sessions, proved himself a true vassal by covering his boss’s tail and sweeping under the Justice Department’s rug the findings and conclusions of Independent Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Queen♣ - Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court pick and the queen of Congressional contempt, holds the key vote to make sure Trump’s executive privilege is absolute. Memorable quote from his confirmation: “I Liked Beer. I Still Like Beer”

King♣ - Mitch McConnell, Trump’s high card in the Senate, folded during the impeachment trial like he didn’t have a pair.

Ace♣ – Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager and 2016 digital campaign manager, is the wizard of psychographic data mining. Parscale said: "No one ever complained about Facebook until Donald Trump was president."

Get The Cards, Deal Back For Democracy!

The Cards

Raw Hands

The People Behind The Face Cards: Don’t Ever Forget Them

Diamonds

Spades

Broken Hearts

In The Clubs

Deal Back For Democracy!

See the whole deck of cards in this short video

Listen To A Podcast with Artist Chick Bragg and Consumer Watchdog’s Jamie Court About Trump’s Raw Deal