Feisty Democrats, etc.

From the lives of the rich, arrogant and disgusting files:

House Democrats hit back at a lying, sexual predator thug

Politico reports:

A Secret Report About a CEO’s Sexual Misconduct 

Was Just Made Public by Congress

Last week, after Zia Chishti filed a defamation lawsuit against the woman whose wrenching Congressional testimony about alleged sexual abuse cost Chishti his job as CEO of the unicorn AI firm Afiniti, Chishti explained himself by saying that “at this stage, I have nothing to lose.”

He may have spoken too soon.

On Saturday, a day after this column reported on the formerly high-flying Washington business figure’s unusual legal move against an ex-employee who testified under oath, the House Judiciary Committee entered a sharply critical 2019 arbitration tribunal ruling about Chishti’s workplace behavior into the Congressional Record — instantaneously turning the heretofore secret report into a publicly-available document.

The release, quietly added to the record of an unrelated hearing on a late-December weekend afternoon, amounts to a tidy Washington-procedural way of saying: Don’t mess with our witness.

As it happens, the document appears utterly devastating for Chishti, a man who not long ago operated from an office a block from the White House and was able to attract politics and government A-listers like former British Prime Minister David Cameron, former French Prime Minister François Fillon and former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen to Afiniti’s advisory board.

Though Chishti’s federal lawsuit alleges that former Afiniti staffer Tatiana Spottiswoode had “weaponized” a “consensual love affair” by “deliberately lying and misleading Congress under oath,” the report by independent arbitrator Ronald G. Birch reached the opposite conclusion, declaring that Chishti, now 51, had repeatedly sexually harassed an employee half his age, groped her in front of colleagues, insulted her for rejecting advances, brutally beaten her during a business-trip sexual encounter, and lied about it.  

The arbitrator awarded Spottiswoode over $5 million, calling Chishti’s conduct “outrageous in character and extreme in degree, going beyond all possible bounds of decency.”  

Suing over allegations made under oath at a Congressional hearing is highly unusual. When we spoke last week, Chishti said his suit against Spottiswoode, her attorneys and several others involved in the testimony was necessary since members of Congress weren’t interested in asking skeptical questions that might have allowed him to tell his side of the story. But critics told me that they worry the suit represents an ominous trend in which the legal system could be used to bully witnesses, yet another disincentive to speaking out against powerful, deep-pocketed people.

Spottiswoode’s testimony in congress was instrumental. Her horrific story helped to get a federal law passed that nullifies non-disclosure agreements when they are used to hide sexual misconduct. For years, thugs like Chishti and Trump have relied on secrecy agreements to hide their thug sexual behaviors.

Here is the deeply worrying thing: If the Republicans had been in control of the House or Senate, it is a reasonable bet that no such law would have passed or that Chishti’s disgusting behavior would even have become public. Chishti would have just gone ahead with his fabricated defamation lawsuit. He would have tried to use the courts to bankrupt Spottiswoode and make her life a misery. A copy of Chishti’s 102 page fabricated defamation lawsuit against Spottiswoode and a couple of other defendants is here.

At page 75 of his complaint, despicable Mr. Chishti complains: “My reputation has been damaged to the point that it is unlikely that I will ever again be able to gain meaningful employment, build and take public another company, or enter public service. I struggle to sleep at night, and I am consumed with anxiety by day.”

Consumed with anxiety? Yeah, right. Assuming it isn't a lie, and it probably is, whose fault is that? 

The 1/6 Committee report is released

A partial summary of what CNN reports:

January 6 committee releases final report, says 

Trump should be barred from office

Trump and his inner circle engaged in ‘at least 200’ attempts to pressure state officials

Committee identifies pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro as architect of fake electors plot

Trump WH called Eastman on the day he wrote his memo

January 6 committee recommends barring Trump from holding office again

Says lawyers should be held responsible

Trump’s false victory declaration was ‘premeditated’

Trump privately called some of Sidney Powell’s election claims ‘crazy’

One can expect a stream of sleaze to come out as people read and digest the 845 page report. 

Again, If Republicans had been in charge, little or none of this sleaze and crime would have come to light. Kevin McCarthy has already publicly stated that on Jan. 3, the day that radical right Republicans take control of the House, the 1/6 Committee will be dissolved. It will be unable to do anything more to inform the public.

About the tax gap, again

A pet peeve is congressional Republicans cutting the budget of the IRS so that rich people are free to cheat on their taxes with little chance of ever being audited and forced to pay what they owe. Most rich people hate taxes with an enraged vengeance. That level of theft amounts to hundreds of billions per year. My guess is it's about $1 trillion/year, but IRS estimates are lower, at about $450 billion/year. The NYT writes:

Trump Audit Shows Depths of I.R.S. Funding Woes

The agency lacks the resources to go after rich taxpayers. For years, a single revenue agent was responsible for the audits of Donald J. Trump.

Before Donald J. Trump became president and after, his exceedingly complex and voluminous tax returns came under regular scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. The number of agents assigned to the audit team: one.

After he left office, the I.R.S. said it was beefing up the audit team, to three. The tax agency itself acknowledged that it was still overwhelmed by the complexity of Mr. Trump’s finances and the resistance mounted by the former president and his sophisticated army of accountants and lawyers, which included a former I.R.S. chief counsel and raised questions early last year about why even three revenue agents should be assigned to audit him. 

The I.R.S. is a sprawling agency, and an audit notice can strike fear in most taxpayers. But the committee reports released this week highlight how depleted the I.R.S. has become in the last decade, as Republicans starved it of funding. They also show how the agency has become increasingly unable to crack down on wealthy taxpayers who push the legal limits to lower their tax bills and have the means to fend off audits if they get caught.

That has led to a $7 trillion “tax gap” of revenue over a decade [~ $700 billion/year] that is owed but goes uncollected, in many cases from superrich taxpayers such as Mr. Trump, who has boasted that he fights to pay as little tax as possible.

Most of the blame here (~90% ?) goes to congressional Republicans and their major donors. They accuse the IRS of being political, socialist and tyrannical. Donors have demanded and Republicans responded. They have cut the IRS budget for enforcing tax law against rich people. This is how the Republicans and wealthy people and interests get wealth to gush up to elites. Wealth does not trickle down to the masses. More wealth to elites is what the Christofascist Republican Party stands for and what it delivers.