<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Alex Wong/Getty ImagesRobert Mueller has extensive experience prosecuting organized crime and white collar cases from his time as FBI director.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Paul Manafort's recent plea deal and cooperation agreement with the special counsel Robert Mueller is the latest indication of how the Russia investigation mirrors an organized crime case.</li><li>The hallmark of any prosecutor's approach to an organized crime case is the use of cooperating witnesses to move up the chain.</li><li>"You start low and you ask people: who did you answer to? Who gave you orders? Who did you report to?" said one Justice Department veteran. "That's the only way to get to the top of a criminal organization, and that's exactly what Mueller's doing."</li><li>But there are also a few crucial differences that also make the Russia probe similar to a complex white-collar investigation.</li></ul>As the special counsel Robert Mueller works his way through the myriad of threads in the Russia investigation, his approach bears more and more similarities to what prosecutors do when they're tackling complex organized crime cases.Mueller's recent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-plea-deal-mueller-guilty-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plea deal and cooperation agreement with Paul Manafort</a>, the former chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, is just the latest indication of that.The hallmark of any prosecutor's approach to an organized crime case, experts say, is the use of cooperating witnesses.Going up the ladder is critical in these types of cases because the organization typically has a hierarchical structure and a clear chain of command. It also usually involves wide-ranging, multi-party criminal activity."The higher you go, the more insulated those people are," said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York who successfully prosecuted more than 100 members and associates of the Sicilian mafia. "So the best way to penetrate that closed inner circle is by flipping people, and flipping them up."After investigators get a sense of which players are part of a criminal enterprise, they start by targeting those at the lowest levels."If they don't voluntarily cooperate, you get honest leverage on them to compel their cooperation," said Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti in the 1990s. "You find their criminal conduct and use that to force them to do what they should have done originally, which is to tell the truth."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesFormer Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded guilty this week.</div></div></div>Honig said he once nailed a case by flipping someone who was the driver for a more powerful person in the organization."That led us right up the chain," he said. "And you can see that happening in the Russia investigation."The first plea deal Mueller's office announced was that of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/george-papadopoulos-sentenced-14-days-jail-mueller-russia-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">George Papadopoulos</a>, who served as an early foreign policy aide to the Trump campaign. Next, he looped in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-has-been-charged-in-russia-investigation-mueller-trump-2017-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Flynn</a>, the former national security adviser who admitted to lying to the FBI.In February, Rick Gates, the former deputy chairman of the Trump campaign, announced that he would be pleading guilty and cooperating with the special counsel. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rick-gates-testifies-committed-crimes-paul-manafort-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gates' cooperation</a> led prosecutors upstream, and his courtroom testimony against Manafort helped them successfully convict his former boss on eight counts of financial fraud last month.Likewise, legal scholars say, Manafort's cooperation, as well as that of Trump's former longtime lawyer, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-plea-deal-prosecutors-trump-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Cohen</a>, will likely help Mueller and New York federal prosecutors get information on an even bigger fish."It's a classic strategy used in organized crime," Cotter said. "You start low and you ask people: who did you answer to? Who gave you orders? Who did you report to? That's the only way to get to the top of a criminal organization, and that's exactly what Mueller's doing."<h2>'When you pull at a thread, you never know what you're going to unravel'</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Associated Press/Craig Ruttle; Associated Press/Alex Brandon; Business InsiderMichael Cohen and Paul Manafort are the two highest ranking people who have flipped.</div></div></div>That said, there are two critical differences between Mueller's approach to the Russia probe and prosecutors' approach to organized crime cases.The first is that most criminal enterprises don't have a clear paper trail."Organized crime is particularly dependent on insider witnesses, because everything is kind of hidden and done in the shadows," said Alex Whiting, a former Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted organized crime and corruption cases when he worked at the US attorney's office in Boston."These cases usually aren't paper heavy because there's no email trail or documentation," he added.The Russia investigation, by contrast, has often been document-heavy. Prosecutors introduced 400 pieces of evidence at Manafort's first trial in Virginia last month, and they planned to put forward almost three times that amount at his second trial had he not struck a last-minute plea deal.Similarly, their charging document against Gates extensively cited his financial records, emails, and communications with other witnesses.In that sense, Whiting said, certain aspects of the Russia probe make it more like a white-collar case.The other crucial difference is that organized crime cases cases involve activities that clearly cross legal boundaries.But Mueller's team is sifting through a mix of legal political activity and potentially illegal activity.The prototypical example of that overlay, Whiting said, is Trump himself."The president has the legal authority to fire the FBI director, but is it obstruction if he fired him to hamper an investigation into him?" Whiting said. "Trump has the power to pardon anyone for any federal crime, but is he obstructing justice if he does it to prevent them from testifying? Is collusion a crime?""There's a complexity here that you don't often see with organized crime," he added. "In that respect, it's much more like investigating white-collar crime, because the main questions there are, what was the conduct, and did the conduct cross into illegal territory?"The bottom line in a case like the Russia probe, Honig said, is that there's no way to tell where it will ultimately lead."When you pull at a thread, you never know what you're going to unravel." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-cbd-oil-how-made-marijuana-cannabis-plant-health-2018-8">What is CBD oil and how did it become a $1 billion industry?</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Mueller's investigation bears the hallmark of an organized crime case

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesFormer national security adviser Susan Rice.</div></div></div>President Donald Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, has reportedly concluded that his predecessor, Susan Rice, did nothing wrong when she tried to learn the identities of officials on Trump's transition team who were mentioned in US intelligence reports last year.That is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-03/you-can-thank-leakers-for-new-russia-sanctions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to</a> Bloomberg View's Eli Lake, who first broke the story in early April that Rice, who served under President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-03/you-can-thank-leakers-for-new-russia-sanctions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tried to "unmask"</a> Trump associates mentioned by foreign officials in conversations picked up as part of the US' intelligence-gathering operations.Almost one month after Lake broke that story, McMaster appears to have sent a letter to Rice informing her that she could maintain her security clearance, according to the <a href="https://www.circa.com/story/2017/08/03/politics/susan-rice-keeps-top-secret-security-clearance-hr-mcmaster-letter-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">conservative news outlet Circa</a>, which obtained a copy of the letter.McMaster added that he would "waive the requirement that you must have a 'need-to-know' to access any classified information contained in items you 'originated, reviewed, signed or received while serving,' as National Security Adviser.""Going forward, the NSC will continue to work with you to ensure the appropriate security clearance documentation remains on file to allow you access to classified information," read the letter, which bears McMaster's signature.McMaster said that the decision is based on his determination that "such access is consistent with the national security interests of the United States, and that appropriate steps have been taken to protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure or compromise."Spokespeople for Rice and McMaster were not immediately available for comment. According to Lake, documents showing that Rice made the unmasking requests were uncovered by the NSC's former senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was fired by McMaster on Wednesday. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-officials-helped-devin-nunes-get-access-2017-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cohen-Watnick was involved</a> in providing documents related to the incidental surveillance of members of Trump's transition team to House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes in March.Michael Ellis, a former Nunes staffer who now works at the White House, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-probe-in-turmoil-as-top-dem-calls-for-nunes-recusal-001353160.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">was reportedly involved</a>, too. It is unclear how Trump, who called the Rice unmasking revelations "the big story" in June, will respond to the <keyword id="6355005" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="News">news</keyword>. The White House did not respond to request for comment, but senior West Wing officials told Circa that Trump did not know about the letter. McMaster, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-am-2468578756.html?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&amp;stream=top-stories" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">is apparently already on thin ice</a> with the more nationalist wing of the White House. Trump ally and Fox News host Sean Hannity, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/07/26/trump-dines-with-sean-hannity-ousted-fox-executive-bill-shine-and-scaramucci/?utm_term=.089a74d2c70b" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dined with the president</a> last week, tweeted: "What is this? Does H.R. McMaster need to go? Susan Rice? Omg."One official told the outlet that the letter "undercuts the president's assertion that Susan Rice's unmasking activity was inappropriate" and argued that "anybody who committed a violation as she did would not be given access to classified information." It is unclear what "violation" the official was referring to. Rice <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/susan-rice-unmasking-trump-associates-leaks-2017-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told NBC's Andrea Mitchell</a> in April that allegations she unmasked Trump associates for political reasons were "absolutely false." And national-security experts <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/susan-rice-trump-unmask-intelligence-wiretap-2017-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">broadly agree</a> that Rice's reported requests to identify who was speaking with the foreign officials before Trump was inaugurated were neither unusual nor against the law."The identities of US persons may be released under two circumstances: 1) the identity is needed to make sense of the intercept; 2) if a crime is involved in the conversation," said Robert Deitz, a former senior counselor to the CIA director and former general counsel at the National Security Agency.Rice met with the Senate Intelligence Committee late last month to discuss Russia's election interference, but the Republican chairman of the committee, Richard Burr, said he did not ask Rice about accusations that she improperly unmasked any Trump transition officials."The unmasking thing was all created by Devin Nunes, and I'll wait to go through our full evaluation to see if there was anything improper that happened," Burr <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/21/politics/susan-rice-senate-intelligence-committee/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told CNN at the time.</a> "But clearly there were individuals unmasked. Some of that became public which it's not supposed to, and our business is to understand that, and explain it." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-communications-director-anthony-scaramucci-reacts-sean-spicer-resignation-2017-7">'I'm used to dealing with friction': Trump's new communications director reacts to Sean Spicer's abrupt resignation</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="liYTExYzE6Uk6m88ynZNMmibrGdane_5" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Trump's national security adviser reportedly thinks Susan Rice did nothing wrong

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Anyone can come up with award-winning, money-making business ideas.</li><li>Business Insider tapped 10 entrepreneurs, founders, small business owners, and CEOs for their tips for imagining up the next big thing.</li><li>Their advice includes solving a problem that interests you, building off an already successful idea, improving upon a product, and using your hobbies as inspiration.</li><li>They also recommended keeping an eye out for social trends and journaling.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul>At first glance, the three startups Max Krohn founded - <a href="https://www.sparknotes.com/">SparkNotes</a>, <a href="https://www.okcupid.com/">OKCupid</a>, and <a href="https://keybase.io/">Keybase</a> - might seem worlds apart. But according to Krohn, each company helped to generate the idea for the next.Krohn - who is now the CEO and founder of Keybase, an end-to-end encryption service - and his partners Sam Yagan, Chris Coyne, and Eli Bolotin developed SparkNotes as an online alternative to CliffNotes in 1999 while they were students at Harvard. "We thought we could produce study guides cheaply and wouldn't have to update them much," Krohn said. "We were basically iterating over things to work on and then stumbled upon that idea and thought it was worth attempting." They originally started developing an online site for casual dating because other dating sites like Match.com seemed too serious for college students, but when they started getting traction on SparkNotes they put their online dating app on the backburner. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>"We were always interested in matching people," he said. Eventually, SparkMatch became an intern project at SparkNotes. Later on they turned it into its own site - OKCupid - in 2003 after selling SparkNotes to Iturf Inc. in 2000 (the company was sold a second time to Barnes and Nobles for $3.5 million, Krohn said). "We came back to our half-baked product that almost worked and then reimagined the idea," Krohn said. OKCupid started out as SparkMatch, a site where registered users could take personality tests and then contact each other based on their test results. Initially, OKCupid was advertised to SparkNotes users because the online study guides attracted the same demographic and many SparkNote customers had used that beta version of SparkMatch. In 2010, OKCupid was (ironically) <a href="https://www.iac.com/media-room/press-releases/iacs-matchcom-acquires-okcupid">sold for over $50 million to IAC</a>, the owner of Match.com.Around the time that OKCupid was sold, it dawned on Krohn and his partners that people using apps - like OKCupid - were giving up a lot of personal data and trusting companies to protect it. "We started with that insight and thought about how to build a company to protect data," he said. Thus Keybase was born.Coming up with award-winning, money-making business ideas like Krohn did (three times!) isn't something only certain people can accomplish. Anyone can do it - if they follow these tips, courtesy of expert founders and business owners.<h1>Solve a problem that interests or bothers you</h1>Most entrepreneurs admit that their ideas were born out of problems they encountered or saw others struggle with. For example, Jason Brown, the CEO of <a href="https://www.meettally.com/">Tally</a>, said the idea to create a personal finance app that helps customers pay off their credit cards was inspired by his childhood. Tally currently manages nearly half a billion dollars of consumer credit card debt. "Growing up, there was a good amount of financial stress and anxiety," said Brown. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>That memory of his family's financial burdens was always in the back of his mind. Then Brown noticed how automation was becoming more prevalent, and he wondered what role automation would play in the next 20 years. He combined those two thoughts and came up with the idea to create an intelligent banking service that could take the emotional burden out of managing finances. Brown said that his formula for coming up with winning ideas is to consider what interests you, look for a big trend shaping our human experience, and then think about how that trend intersects with your interests. "My cofounder and I decided to try to find the widest unsolved problem first," Brown said. "That's why we zeroed in on credit card debt. <a href="https://www.meettally.com/blog/credit-card-anxiety-new-norm/">Two-thirds of people with credit card debt have anxiety</a> triggered by their debt. We wanted to focus on the emotional experience people have with their money."<h1>Build off of an already successful idea</h1>One of the easiest ways to come up with new business ideas is to leverage an already existing venture, much like TV studios spin off of their most popular TV shows and turn them into movies, merchandise, and other offerings to grow their audience.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>"Serial entrepreneurs are always thinking about how to spin off an already successful idea into another thriving business model," explained Leeron Cohen, cofounder and CEO of <a href="https://www.lamediagrp.com/">LA Media Group</a>, a digital marketing agency in Hollywood, FL, <a href="https://clipsgarage.com/">Clips Garage</a>, a video, photo, and illustration library, and <a href="https://www.countlesscreatives.com/">Countless Creatives</a>, a custom video and graphic design studio. This is exactly what Cohen did when developing his three businesses. He started with LA Media Group, and after seeing the success of that company spun off The Clips Garage to help businesses with videography and photography, and then created Countless Creatives to provide businesses with graphic design support.<h1>Improve a product</h1>Gary Nealon, who grew his company <a href="https://www.thertastore.com/kitchen-cabinets/rta-kitchen-cabinets.html">RTA Cabinet Store</a> to $40 million before exiting, recommended thinking critically about the products you're currently using - and considering why you use them, if you're satisfied with them, and whether they could be improved. He also suggested reading product reviews. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>"Are people commonly reporting issues and problems that you could solve?" he asked. Then make a better version. This is the strategy Nealon employed when he developed his ready-to-assemble, customizable kitchen cabinets, providing home-improvement aficionados another option for remodeling their kitchens. It's important to remember that your business ideas don't necessarily have to be groundbreaking. "You don't need a revolutionary idea or disruptive patentable technology to launch a business," said Jon Richards, cofounder of <a href="https://www.nomatic.com/">Nomatic.com</a>, a travel accessories company. "You just need to be able to do something better, faster, or cheaper than everyone else." Richards and his cousin Jacob Durham entered the travel accessories business by designing an innovative slim wallet that gives users easy access to their four most-used credit cards via a pull tab. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>And you don't need to re-invent a product as long as you solve a long-standing, common problem with it, said Miguel Madrid, founder and CEO of Perk Apparel, an online men's apparel company. "It's about pointing out the problem in a customer's life, how your product will solve that problem, and how they'll be the hero of their own story by purchasing your product," he said. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>The idea to start Perk Apparel came to Madrid after trying on his first pair of expensive underwear. He liked how they felt, but he didn't want to spend $300 stocking up on underwear. "Perk was born as an elevated basics brand for busy men who need reliable, all-day comfort," said Madrid, who runs a lean, three-person operation with over $100,000 in monthly sales. <h1>Look out for social trends</h1>Elizabeth Babinski - who is the founder of <a href="https://lizraeweddings.com/">Liz Rae Weddings</a>, an agency offering nondenominational ministers who create unique wedding ceremonies, Vows Well Traveled, an agency that plans elopement vacations, and Storytelling for Digital Nomads, an online storytelling course - pays "close attention to social media, specifically Facebook groups, to find new ideas or aspects people complain about." "A lot of people don't realize that social trends and business opportunities are actually deeply intertwined," said Peter Yared, the former CTO and CIO of CBS Interactive and a seven-time founder with more than $500 million in exits to companies such as Sun, Oracle, and VMware. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>For instance, Yared developed Sapho, which was acquired by software company <a href="https://www.citrix.com/">Citrix</a> for $225 million, based on the social trend that millennials prefer to use an app for daily tasks. Sapho allows employees to file expense reports or request time off via app rather than through legacy time-and-attendance software. Transpond, a business platform for creating quizzes and sweepstakes to engage customers, was based on Yared's 2007 observation that consumers enjoyed sharing content with friends over Facebook. Transpond was eventually acquired by Webtrends and renamed "Webtrends Social," and then acquired by Oracle.<h1>Use your hobbies as inspiration</h1>Robert Wray, currently the founder of ecommerce company <a href="https://www.whitebox.co/">Whitebox</a>, advised that aspiring business owners dive into their hobbies for inspiration. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>"Patterns will emerge if you think through the lens of what businesses could exist" to support that hobby, he explained. Plus, this ensures you actually enjoy working on your idea. His first company, Mp3car, a forum and ecommerce store that sold hard-to-find electronic parts, was developed from Wray's interest in listening to digital audio in his car before the advent of streaming services. <h1>Whenever something comes to mind, write it down</h1>Some entrepreneurs look inward for ideas. Babinski develops hers through daily journaling. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>"I'll review the journal entries weekly to comb through frustration points, things I noticed, or other items that stick out to find solutions," she said. Her idea for Liz Rae Weddings stemmed from her experience as a wedding officiant. She didn't like how she was treated by other vendors when she arrived at weddings and decided she wanted to be more involved in the vision for the weddings she officiated. Mike Myer, the founder and CEO of <a href="https://goquiq.com/">Quiq</a>, a text messaging platform for businesses, keeps a running list of ideas on his phone as they pop into his head and then finds time to sit down and rank the list in order of viable business ideas. "Let the ideas find you as you go about your life and current career," he said. "Be inquisitive and open minded and, over time, the ideas will appear."

Want to come up with the next SparkNotes? Here's how its creator - and 9 other successful entrepreneurs - got their ideas.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">ReutersU.S. President Donald Trump.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>President <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-donald-trump-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump's</a> approach to an ongoing impeachment inquiry and the whistleblower complaint that launched it bear several striking parallels to how the mafia operates.</li><li>Among other things, Trump accused the whistleblower of espionage, said the congressman investigating him should be tried for treason, accused lawmakers of attempting a coup, slammed witnesses who testify against him as rats, and said prosecutors probing him are corrupt.</li><li>A former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti told Insider: Gotti's "lawyers accused the prosecutors and the FBI of wrongdoing. They attacked witnesses. They attacked us."</li><li>"They got protesters to march in front of the courthouse. They went on TV and smeared us with ad hominem attacks," he added. "They planted stories in the press. They did everything Trump is doing, but he's doing it on a much larger scale."</li><li>Federal prosecutors who investigated Trump's campaign for conspiring with Russia during the 2016 race also treated the case like they would an organized-crime syndicate.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>The whistleblower who filed a complaint against him <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-says-whistleblower-is-close-to-a-spy-at-private-event-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">committed espionage</a>. The congressman investigating him should be <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-07/trump-adam-schiff-nancy-pelosi-treason-impeach" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tried for treason</a>. The lawmakers weighing whether to impeach him are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-tweet-8-real-life-coups-2019-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attempting a coup</a>. The witnesses who testify against him are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/17/calling-michael-cohen-rat-trump-brings-american-underworld-lingo-white-house/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rats</a>. The prosecutors probing him are <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/464096-trump-says-hes-considering-a-major-lawsuit-over-mueller-investigation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">corrupt</a>.That's a sample of the attacks President <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-donald-trump-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> has lobbed at his perceived enemies as he faces an ongoing impeachment inquiry amid allegations that he used his public office for private gain.The latest volleys came on Tuesday. Early in the morning, the president <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1181560708808486914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1181560772255719424&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fstate-department-blocks-gordon-sondland-from-testifying-to-congress-2019-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">praised</a> the State Department's decision to block US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland from testifying voluntarily before Congress as part of the impeachment probe.Trump said that while he'd "love to send" Sondland to testify, "he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican's [sic] rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public ... to see."Later in the day, Trump's White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-says-trump-wont-cooperate-with-dems-impeachment-inquiry-2019-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told House Democrats in a letter</a> that the president and his administration would not cooperate with the "partisan and unconstitutional" impeachment inquiry.Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who was on the team that convicted the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, said he's struck by the parallels between Trumpworld's handling of the impeachment controversy and the mafia's playbook on pushing back against charges leveled against it."When I prosecuted the mob, one of their go-to tactics whenever we indicted them was to spend a lot of time trying to show the government did something wrong," Cotter told Insider. "It had nothing to do with the substance of the allegations and everything to do with trying to detract from our case by attacking us. It's illogical and it's what we used to call half a confession."Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-official-trump-ukraine-call-crazy-frightening-2019-10" data-analytics-position="1">A White House official who listened in on Trump's Ukraine call described it as 'crazy' and 'frightening'</a><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Associated Press</div></div></div></h2><h2>Trump takes a page out of the mafia's playbook but 'on a much larger scale'</h2>In the Gotti case, Cotter added, the similarities are even more stark."His lawyers accused the prosecutors and the FBI of wrongdoing. They attacked witnesses. They attacked us," he said. "They got protesters to march in front of the courthouse. They went on TV and smeared us with ad hominem attacks. They planted stories in the press. They did everything Trump is doing, but he's doing it on a much larger scale."At the heart of the latest controversy engulfing the White House is a July 25 phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which he repeatedly pressured Zelensky to investigate former Vice President <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-joe-biden-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden</a> and his son for corruption. Biden is a 2020 Democratic frontrunner and one of Trump's chief political rivals.The phone call is the subject of an explosive whistleblower complaint that a US intelligence official filed against the president in August. In addition to accusing Trump of abusing his power and violating federal law, it says Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is a "central figure" in Trump's effort and that Attorney General William Barr "appears to be involved as well."Trump and his allies have attacked the whistleblower, suggesting the individual is disloyal to the US and committed espionage against Trump, despite the fact that they followed the law when filing their complaint. The president has also repeatedly called for the whistleblower's identity to become public.A White House summary of the call confirms the main details of the complaint, and Trump's handpicked spy chief testified to Congress that the complaint is "in alignment" with the memo.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-great-dealmaker-keeps-caving-to-foreign-leaders-2019-10" data-analytics-position="2">Trump says he's a master dealmaker, but his record of dancing to the tune of foreign leaders says otherwise</a>The intelligence community watchdog, moreover, deemed the complaint to be "urgent" and "credible." Last week, Trump confirmed the complaint's central allegation - that he wanted a foreign government to investigate a political opponent - when he publicly called for both Ukraine and China to look into the Bidens.Given these developments, "it doesn't matter who the whistleblower is or what they did," Cotter said. "When someone gives you information, you try to corroborate it. This whistleblower said they think the president essentially tried to bribe a foreign official to get dirt on his political rival. And now we have the body - the body is the White House memo where the president's own words prove what he was accused of."<h2>'You don't fight on the other guy's ground, you define what the debate is going to be about'</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/roy-cohn-and-donald-trump-attend-the-trump-tower-opening-in-news-photo/962171754?adppopup=true">Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images</a>Roy Cohn (L) and Donald Trump attend the Trump Tower opening in October 1983 at The Trump Tower in New York City.</div></div></div>This isn't the first time Trump's actions have prompted comparisons to mob tactics. Indeed, one of his longtime confidants was none other than Roy Cohn, the notorious fixer that Sen. Joseph McCarthy hired as his chief congressional counsel while trying to root out communists in the 1950s.Following McCarthy's downfall and his own resignation from the panel, Cohn went on to private practice in New York, where he represented several high-profile mafia figures, like Gotti, Carlo Gambino, and Tony Salerno.Cohn and Trump met in the 1970s while the Trump Organization was being sued by the Justice Department for denying housing to African-American applicants. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/roy-cohn-mafia-politics/599320/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Atlantic's George Packer noted</a> that after the two met, Trump became Cohn's client and protégé and that they won the case by employing many of the same strategies the mafia uses: counterattacking, raising phony and misleading charges, and refusing to give an inch or admit any wrongdoing."Roy would always be for an offensive strategy," the longtime GOP strategist and Trump confidant Roger Stone said in the documentary film, "Where's My Roy Cohn?""These were the rules of war. You don't fight on the other guy's ground, you define what the debate is going to be about," Stone added. "I think Trump would learn that from Roy."Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/house-democrats-weigh-masking-whistleblower-identity-trump-allies-2019-10" data-analytics-position="2">House Democrats are so afraid Trump allies will expose the whistleblower that they might mask the person's voice and face during testimony</a><h2>'It's not about anything else except the boss'</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Senate-Terror/a7177ffe75094adb8ee4061be40355d6/72/0">Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP</a></div></div></div>Trump's mafia-style tactics haven't gone unnoticed by those around him.Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime former lawyer, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/88e83c32a9d54d82abe3ac52bfad22e4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified to Congress</a> in February that the president runs his operation "much like a mobster would do."Former FBI director James Comey has frequently <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/james-comey-donald-trump-russia-fbi-mueller-1251419" target="_blank" rel="noopener">compared the president to a mob boss</a> and said that when he first met Trump, he couldn't shake the feeling that he felt he was dealing with the Cosa Nostra."It's not about anything else except the boss," Comey said while giving a talk at the 92Y in New York City last year. "It's a fear-based leadership."FBI investigators who examined whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 election also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-investigation-organized-crime-white-collar-similarities-russia-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">treated the case like they would an organized-crime syndicate</a>, particularly through the use of cooperating witnesses."The higher you go, the more insulated those people are," Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York who successfully prosecuted more than 100 members and associates of the Sicilian Mafia, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-investigation-organized-crime-white-collar-similarities-russia-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Insider last year</a>. "So the best way to penetrate that closed inner circle is by flipping people, and flipping them up."Honig said he once nailed a case by flipping someone who was the driver for a more powerful person in the organization."That led us right up the chain," he said. "And you can see that happening in the Russia investigation."The first plea deal the former special counsel Robert Mueller's office announced was that of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/george-papadopoulos-sentenced-14-days-jail-mueller-russia-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">George Papadopoulos</a>, who served as an early foreign policy aide to the Trump campaign. Next, he looped in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-has-been-charged-in-russia-investigation-mueller-trump-2017-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Flynn</a>, the former national security adviser who admitted to lying to the FBI.In February 2018, Rick Gates, the former deputy chairman of the Trump campaign, announced that he would be pleading guilty and cooperating with the special counsel. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rick-gates-testifies-committed-crimes-paul-manafort-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gates' cooperation</a> led prosecutors upstream, and his courtroom testimony against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort helped them successfully convict Manafort on eight counts of financial fraud last August.Manafort, too, eventually pleaded guilty to additional criminal charges and began cooperating with prosecutors.And the continued cooperation of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-plea-deal-prosecutors-trump-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cohen</a> - who is currently serving a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign-finance violations, tax evasion, bank fraud, and lying to Congress - will likely help prosecutors get information on an even bigger fish.The Russia investigation has formally ended. But Mueller spun off more than a dozen criminal matters stemming from his investigation to other US attorneys' offices across the country. The vast majority of those matters remain under wraps. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-impeachment-process-president-congress-constitution-2017-2">Columbia Law School professor explains exactly how impeachment works, and what it takes for a president to be impeached</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Trump's approach to the impeachment inquiry bears a striking resemblance to how the mafia operates

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/license/925372774">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a>Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Paul Manafort attended a sentencing hearing Wednesday in the second of two cases against him from the special counsel Robert Mueller. In the case, brought in Washington, DC, Manafort pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of obstruction.</li><li>For the first count, a federal judge sentenced Manafort to 60 months in prison, with 30 months concurrent to his sentence in a prior case, brought in Virginia, that resulted in a sentence of 47 months.</li><li>For the second count, the judge sentenced Manafort to 13 months, to run consecutive to the first count and the sentence in the Virginia case.</li><li>In all, Manafort will serve 7.5 years in prison - well short of federal sentencing guidelines.</li></ul>Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, was sentenced Wednesday in the second of two cases against him from the special counsel Robert Mueller.Last week, Manafort was sentenced in the first case, brought in Virginia, to 47 months in prison.In the second case, he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of obstruction. US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Manafort to 60 months for the first count, with 30 months running concurrent to his sentence in the Virginia case.For the second count, Jackson sentenced Manafort to 13 months, to run consecutive to the sentence in the first count and the Virginia sentence.In total, Manafort has been sentenced to 90 months, or seven and a half years in prison. The Virginia charged him with multiple counts of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failure to report foreign bank accounts. He was convicted of eight out of 18 counts in the case.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-sentenced-prison-47-months-virginia-mueller-russia-2019-3" data-analytics-position="3">Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months in prison in Virginia case</a>In Washington, DC, Manafort was charged with additional counts of false statements, obstruction, conspiracy, money laundering, and failure to register as a foreign agent. He struck a plea deal before going to trial in the second case and pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and obstruction.But Jackson voided the deal after finding that Manafort lied to prosecutors about several events in the Russia probe.During Wednesday's sentencing hearing, prosecutors argued heavily for a strict sentence for the former Trump campaign chairman."Mr. Manafort committed crimes that undermined our political process," Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor on Mueller's team, told the court. He also emphasized how serious it was for Manafort to illegally lobby for foreign governments on US soil. "It is hard to imagine a more righteous prosecution of this act," Weissmann said, adding that it is not the first time someone has been prosecuted for violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).Weissmann also pointed to the crimes Manafort committed after already being charged in the Russia probe."After being indicted, while on bail from two federal courts in a high profile matter," Weissmann said, Manafort engaged in criminal conduct that "goes to the heart of the American justice system."When Manafort had a chance to speak before the court, he expressed remorse, saying, "I'm sorry for what I've done ... My behavior in the future will be very different ... I have already begun to change."Jackson said she believed Manafort was being sincere in his apology. She also noted that evidence of "any conspiracy, collusion ... was not presented in this case.""If the people don't have the facts, democracy doesn't work," Jackson added. "Court is one of those places where facts still matter."Prosecutors have long <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-manafort-criminal-sentencing-memo-2019-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">urged the court</a> to impose a harsh sentence on the former Trump campaign chairman, calling him a "bold" and "hardened" criminal whose actions warrant a tougher punishment.Manafort's conduct, even after he pleaded guilty to two federal crimes, "reflects a hardened adherence to committing crimes and lack of remorse," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo, adding that he "repeatedly and brazenly violated the law."They added that Manafort not only engaged in criminal conduct leading up to his first indictment, but his actions also "remarkably went unabated even after indictment."Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-sentencing-analysis-what-legal-experts-are-saying-2019-3" data-analytics-position="3">People have a lot to say about Paul Manafort's 47-month prison sentence on tax and bank-fraud charges</a>"The sentence in this case must take into account the gravity of this conduct, and serve both to specifically deter Manafort and generally deter those who would commit a similar series of crimes," the memo said.Manafort's lawyers, meanwhile, have downplayed the severity of his conduct and accused Mueller of "spreading misinformation" to "vilify" Manafort.Noting that he was a first-time, nonviolent offender, defense attorneys wrote in an earlier sentencing memo that Manafort accepted responsibility for two counts of conspiracy and obstruction, and he "admitted his guilt with respect to the conduct involved in the remaining charges in this case."Meanwhile, Ellis' ruling last week stirred controversy because it fell well short of federal sentencing guidelines, which recommend 19.5 to 24 years prison time for the crimes Manafort was convicted of in Virginia. Legal experts also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-sentencing-analysis-what-legal-experts-are-saying-2019-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> Ellis' statement that Manafort had lived an "otherwise blameless" life before being convicted of financial crimes.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-and-mandatory-minimum-sentences-white-collar-drug-crimes-2019-3" data-analytics-position="3">What Paul Manafort's 47-month prison term for bank and tax fraud says about mandatory minimum sentences</a>"A below-guidelines sentence would've been perfectly fair but 47 months is a joke," <a href="https://twitter.com/eliehonig/status/1103810241072939008">tweeted</a> Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York."Steal millions from US Government, violate bail, get convicted by jury, fake cooperate, lie to prosecutors, refuse to accept responsibility - and get an enormous break. That's an unjust sentence," Honig added.Walter Shaub, an attorney focusing on government ethics who formerly served as the director of the US Office of Government Ethics used Manafort's sentence to allude to the fact that some get harsher sentences for lesser crimes."They sure have two different kinds of justice in this country," he said <a href="https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1103812914673274881">in a tweet</a>. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-praised-questioning-michael-cohen-hearing-trump-2019-2">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is being praised for her line of questioning at Michael Cohen's hearing - watch it here</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to an additional 3 1/2 years in prison, will serve 7 1/2 years total

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Former national security adviser Susan Rice, who served under President Obama from 2013 to 2017, reportedly tried to learn the identities of Trump transition officials whose conversations with foreign officials were incidentally collected during routine intelligence-gathering operations.The intelligence reports Rice obtained "were summaries of monitored conversations - primarily between foreign officials discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials," <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-03/top-obama-adviser-sought-names-of-trump-associates-in-intel">Bloomberg's Eli Lake reported</a> on Monday.National-security experts say Rice's reported requests to identify who was speaking with the foreign officials before Trump was inaugurated were neither unusual nor against the law - especially if, as Lake reported, the foreign officials being monitored were discussing "valuable political information" that required the identity of the people they were speaking to, or about, to be uncovered."The identities of US persons may be released under two circumstances: 1) the identity is needed to make sense of the intercept; 2) if a crime is involved in the conversation," said Robert Deitz, former senior councilor to the CIA director and general counsel at the National Security Agency (NSA). "Any senior official who receives the underlying intelligence may request these identities," Deitz added. Documents showing Rice made those requests were uncovered by the National Security Council's senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, according to Lake's reporting. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-officials-helped-devin-nunes-get-access-2017-3" target="_blank">Cohen-Watnick was involved</a> in providing documents related to the incidental surveillance of Trump's transition team to House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes roughly two weeks ago, though it is unclear if they are the same documents reported on by Lake.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Nunes, a California Republican, told reporters earlier this month that he briefed President Donald Trump on the documents because he was concerned about the potential "unmasking" of US persons caught up in routine surveillance, though he said he had no evidence that such unmasking had been unwarranted and therefore illegal.In any case, Deitz said, "I do not think you should call" what Rice did "an 'unmasking.'""It is not as if these folks are whistleblowers," he said."If Vladimir Putin calls me to wish me happy birthday, and my name is minimized, it is possible that an official would wish to know my identity simply to find out who is on good enough terms with Putin that he would be called on his birthday," Deitz added. "The bar for obtaining the identify is not particularly high. But it must come from a senior official, and the reason cannot simply be raw curiosity."Lake's article followed a Fox <keyword id="6355005" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="News">News</keyword> report citing "a source" that the official who sought to identify who was speaking with monitored foreign agents was "very well known, very high up, very senior in the intelligence world." Trump on Monday praised Fox's "amazing reporting on unmasking and the crooked scheme against us," which he said showed that "there was electronic surveillance" of his inner circle during the transition.There is no evidence that Trump and his team were directly surveilled, as Lake reported. Rice's move, if she had probable cause, could most likely be viewed as fairly routine and expected of high-level intelligence officials, said Paul Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the CIA and former executive assistant to the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>"There is an unavoidable tension between, on one hand, restricting information to protect the privacy of US persons and, on the other hand, sharing enough information with the consumers of intelligence so that the intelligence report in question is comprehensible and useful (and if the report is not that, why bother collecting and disseminating the information in the first place?)," Pillar said in an email."The producer of the report, usually the NSA, tends to err on the side of restricting the information, while a senior consumer's natural tendency is to want more information," he added.Steve Slick, a former CIA operations officer and National Security Council official who now heads the Intelligence Studies Project at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed that the consumer of the report will often require more information to understand the significance of the intelligence."By definition, any report that the NSA elects to disseminate is relevant to a foreign or national security issue," Slick said, but it is "often not possible for a 'consumer' or reader to fully understand the significance of a report without knowing precisely which US person may have been communicating with the foreign official.""The National Security Adviser, or a member of his/her staff or perhaps a morning intelligence briefer, would convey that request to the originating agency with an explanation of who wishes to know the identity and why," Slick added. "In my experience, legitimate requests are promptly granted and less defensible requests (or requesters) are challenged. "<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Pillar, who is now a non-resident senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, said Rice may have even been motivated to request identities in order to constrain her own communications."If Ms. Rice was communicating with members of Trump's team regarding transition matters, and she learns from intelligence that some such members also are communicating with the Russians, she would want to know exactly who is doing that so she can be extra careful in her own talks, lest something she says gets relayed to Moscow," Pillar said.At least one member of Trump's transition team had his conversations picked up incidentally during routine surveillance of Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, last year: Former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He was forced to resign after reports surfaced that he spoke with Kislyak about US sanctions on Russia, despite telling Vice President Mike Pence that he hadn't.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The FBI has been examining whether Trump associates colluded with Russian officials to undermine Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. The probe into Trump's ties to Russia are part of the bureau's broader investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey said <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/james-comey-testimony-trump-russia-2017-3">during a House Intelligence Committee hearing</a> earlier this month."This whole story strikes me as just more of the effort to divert attention from the issue of the relations that Trump and his associates have had with Russia, and as part of the diversion to try to suggest impropriety of some sort on the part of the Obama administration," Pillar said."In other words, it's a continuation of an effort to salvage something from Trump's baseless charges about Obama wiretapping him," he added.The White House has tried repeatedly with varying degrees of evidence to attempt to validate Trump's explosive claim earlier this month that Obama "tapped" his phones at Trump Tower during the election.A former Obama administration official responsible for the Defense Department's Russia policy, for instance, came into the White House's crosshairs <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/evelyn-farkas-trump-wiretap-obama-white-house-2017-3" target="_blank">last week</a> for what they have characterized as her admission that Obama-era officials were collecting intelligence on President Donald Trump and his transition team.Pillar said "an important thing to remember is that we are dealing with foreign intelligence - intelligence on Russian activities - and indeed Russian activities that strike close to the heart of our democratic processes.""We should be disturbed if whoever was in office was not keeping close tabs on that sort of thing," he said. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/awkward-moment-trump-ignores-handshake-angela-merkel-germany-politics-white-house-2017-3">Trump appears to ignore requests for a handshake with Angela Merkel during their first meeting</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="gyZ2pkYTE6P5c2q3gM2s57loZrLqoVW1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

We now have a better idea who's behind 'unmasking' Trump officials' contact with foreign agents - and why

With a popularity rating below 20%, France's Socialist president, François Hollande, is no stranger to criticism.
But the decision on January 1st&#xa0;by Thomas Piketty, a French economist and bestselling author of&#xa0;"Capital in the 21st Century", to refuse the award of the Légion d'Honneur was a cruel snub.
Close to the Socialist Party, Mr Piketty backed Mr Hollande for election in 2012. Now he says that his government "would do better to concentrate on reviving growth in France and Europe" rather than handing out honours.
Mr Piketty did not dwell on the reasons for his rejection of the award, other than to state that: "I am refusing this nomination because I do not think it is the government's role to decide who is honourable." But he has in the past voiced two broad criticisms of Mr Hollande, whose presidency&#xa0;he recently called a "disaster".
First is Mr Hollande's failure to press his case in the euro zone for less austerity and more pro-growth policies. During his election campaign, Mr Hollande promised to put an end to austerity in the currency area. In office, he then tried to rally a "club Med" group of Mediterranean euro-zone countries in an effort to force the hand of Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel. But it came to little, and Mr Hollande's political weakness now is such that he has constantly been defeated by German intransigence.
Mr Piketty's second criticism touches on Mr Hollande's tax policy. For years the French economist has argued for a more progressive tax system, which would merge both income tax, currently paid by only half of French households, and the "contribution sociale généralisée", a non-progressive social charge paid by all.
This too was one of Mr Hollande's campaign promises. Yet the president has shelved any plans to overhaul the tax structure, preferring instead simply to increase taxes on the middle-classes and the rich.
Paradoxically, the one measure brought in by Mr Hollande that Mr Piketty did approve of was a&#xa0;top income-tax rate of 75%. An advocate of a global wealth tax, Mr Piketty once said approvingly of this flagship campaign proposal that "lots of other countries will inevitably follow this route." Instead, the French government quietly let the 75% tax die on December 31st 2014 after it failed to bring in as much revenue as expected.
Mr Piketty is not the only French citizen to turn have turned down the Légion d'Honneur. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir both did, along with various other writers, artists and scientists over the decades since Napoleon introduced the honour in 1802. Nor is Mr Piketty the only left-leaning French economist to denounce Mr Hollande's economic policies. Others, such as Philippe Aghion and Elie Cohen, both of whom joined Mr Piketty in&#xa0;backing Mr Hollande for the presidency,&#xa0;have also laid into his record in office.
But none comes remotely close to enjoying Mr Piketty's <keyword id="6356001" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">international</keyword> fame, nor shares his ability to damage Mr Hollande's reputation abroad. After a televised new year address in which Mr Hollande urged the French to be more confident and less self-critical, this is a crushing snub indeed.

Just What Francois Hollande Needs-A Public Slight From A Former Supporter

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Thomson ReutersProtesters clash with riot police during a rally to demand a referendum to remove Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, September 1, 2016.</div></div></div>Venezuela's deepening economic and political dysfunction have <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/venezuela-migration-economic-political-crisis-2016-11" target="_blank">spurred waves of outmigration</a> in recent years.In the years since Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, well-off Venezuelans left the country, followed by educated professionals, and, most recently, the youth and middle class.Now another marginalized group has begun to head for the exits: Venezuelan Jews, who have in the past moved to the US or Panama but have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/venezuelan-jews-are-moving-to-israel-to-escape-deepening-poverty/2017/01/01/437d015b-8676-49ed-89d3-1edc0a57418e_story.html" target="_blank">struggled</a> to do so as Venezuela's economic drains more of the country's wealth.Official Israeli figures <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/venezuelan-jews-are-moving-to-israel-to-escape-deepening-poverty/2017/01/01/437d015b-8676-49ed-89d3-1edc0a57418e_story.html" target="_blank">cited</a> by The Washington Post list 111 Venezuelan Jews as immigrating to Israel in 2015, or making "aliyah," as it is referred to in Hebrew.That 2015 total was more than double the number who immigrated in 2012. Official totals for 2016 have yet to be released, but a charity that helps Jews from troubled areas reach Israel <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/venezuelan-jews-are-moving-to-israel-to-escape-deepening-poverty/2017/01/01/437d015b-8676-49ed-89d3-1edc0a57418e_story.html" target="_blank">told</a> The Post that it helped about 90 people get to the Middle Eastern country.Venezuela's current Jewish community, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/15/venezuelas-government-sponsored-anti-semitism/" target="_blank">mainly Orthodox</a>, is thought to be between <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/venezuelan-jews-are-moving-to-israel-to-escape-deepening-poverty/2017/01/01/437d015b-8676-49ed-89d3-1edc0a57418e_story.html" target="_blank">6,000 and 9,000</a> in number, down from <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/15/venezuelas-government-sponsored-anti-semitism/" target="_blank">roughly 30,000</a> in the country around 2000.Venezuela has <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/15/venezuelas-government-sponsored-anti-semitism/" target="_blank">a long history</a> of Jewish communities. The oldest such community was a Sephardic congregation in Curacao - a Dutch territory just off Venezuela's Caribbean coast - that dates back to 1651. Since then, Venezuela has, at times, encouraged European migration, and Jewish people were able to integrate with relative alacrity.Venezuela's recent relationship with Israel, however, has been fraught.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Ali HashishoA Lebanese child shouts slogans near a Venezuelan flag during a protest organized by a leftist group in front of the Egyptian embassy in Beirut against Israel's attacks on Gaza, January 7, 2009. The Arabic writing on the Venezuelan flag reads, "Arab Republic of Venezuela."</div></div></div>After moving away from the US in the wake of the 2002 attempted coup against Chavez, Venezuela denounced Israel for the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which Chavez called a "<a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/15/venezuelas-government-sponsored-anti-semitism/" target="_blank">new Holocaust</a>" against Palestinians and Lebanese.The governments of Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, have been quick to condemn Israel went it comes in conflict with neighbors, especially Palestine and Iran, with whom Venezuela has formed close alliances. And their <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/15/venezuelas-government-sponsored-anti-semitism/" target="_blank">broad rhetoric</a> has been accused of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dina-siegel-vann/official-antisemitism-sub_b_1305309.html" target="_blank">stoking</a> anti-Semitic attitudes and <a href="http://www.jta.org/2009/02/01/news-opinion/world/concern-criticism-follow-venezuelan-synagogue-attack" target="_blank">behavior</a>."For several years, we have seen anti-Semitic accusations and themes appear in Venezuelan public discourse," Jonathan A. Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League <a href="http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/anti-semitism-international/adl-repulsed-by-shockingly-graphic-anti-Semitic-imagery-venezuelan-journal.html" target="_blank">said</a> in August 2016, in response to anti-Semitic imagery that appeared on a Venezuelan magazine."At present, most Venezuelan Jews do not face open discrimination from their neighbors," Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, a Foreign Policy contributor and professor at Northwestern, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/15/venezuelas-government-sponsored-anti-semitism/" target="_blank">wrote</a> in late 2014. "Even so, a sense of dread and isolation is pervasive among much of the community."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Laura VeraA man puts up a sign reading "Millions of dead Jews tell you to get out" outside the Iranian embassay during a protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Venezuela, in Caracas, November 25, 2009.</div></div></div>Chavez expelled the Israeli ambassador in 2009, and the two countries still do not have diplomatic relations, which complicates Venezuelan Jews' efforts to relocate.In the last month, nine such immigrants have found their efforts to move stymied by the resistance of the Israeli government.Israel's <keyword id="6355470" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Law">law</keyword> of return requires Jews of choice who want to relocate to Israel to have been converted in a "recognized Jewish community" with a full-time rabbi and an active synagogue, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762617" target="_blank">according</a> to Haaretz.The nine Venezuelans were <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762617" target="_blank">converted</a> by a Conservative rabbinical court in 2014, after three years of study. Their hometown, Maracay, does not have a recognized Jewish community, but the group joined a synagogue in the nearby city of Valencia, where the Jewish community is recognized.Despite that, Israel's Interior Ministry <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762617" target="_blank">told</a> Haaretz that "during the entire period when they were preparing for their conversion and in the period that followed, they did not belong to a Jewish community."The decision has spurred frustration and criticism from a number of people from across Judaism's denominations.Documentation provided to the Jewish Agency - recommendations from which the Israeli Interior Ministry typically bases its immigration-eligibility decisions on - confirmed that the nine Venezuelans had joined the community in Valencia. In this case, it appears that the ministry <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762887" target="_blank">disregarded</a> the agency's recommendation, and the chairman of the agency is <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762887" target="_blank">reportedly</a> considering intervening.During a special Israeli parliament session at the end of December, at which American rabbis were present, Israel's government was rebuked for its decision."These nine individuals underwent conversions that were 100 percent in line with the Law of Return, and I am saying that as an Orthodox rabbi," said Asher Lopatin, a modern Orthodox rabbi, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762617" target="_blank">according</a> to Haaretz. "They must be allowed to come to Israel."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Amir CohenIsraeli policemen detain a protestor during an anti-racism protest in Tel Aviv, June 3, 2015. The shirt reads "Part of solving the problem is to talk about it - Racism."</div></div></div><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wife-of-israeli-minister-tweets-racist-joke-about-president-obama-2015-6" target="_blank">Race and ethnicity</a> and their relation to Israel's immigration decisions have been a controversial topic. The country has approved <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35475403" target="_blank">less than 1%</a> of the asylum applications it's received since signing the UN Refugee Convention 60 years ago.Israel has also been resistant to granting asylum to African refugees, about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/31/opinion/sunday/exposures-israel-chilly-reception-for-african-asylum-seekers.html" target="_blank">60,000 of whom</a> have entered the country since 2005 - former Interior Minister Eli Yishai <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/31/opinion/sunday/exposures-israel-chilly-reception-for-african-asylum-seekers.html" target="_blank">said</a> Israel's intention was to "make their lives miserable.""Sadly it is all too common that issues of race and denominational affiliation play into the decisions made by the Interior Ministry," Andy Sacks, a rabbi and director of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly in Israel, said, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762617" target="_blank">according</a> to Haaretz. Sacks also said the Israeli prime minister's office ignored his requests to intervene.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">© AFP Gali TibbonIsraeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri.</div></div></div>Reuven Hammer, a rabbi and former president of the <keyword id="6356001" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">International</keyword> Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement, told Haaretz the ministry's decision indicated a "<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762887" target="_blank">hidden agenda</a>" against non-Orthodox converts.The current interior minister, Aryeh Deri, is the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.Orthodox rabbis have spoken out against the decision, with one calling it a "<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762887" target="_blank">dangerous precedent</a>" during a meeting at the Israeli parliament and another <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762887" target="_blank">telling</a> Haaretz that the Venezuelans' conversions were valid and that they should be allowed to immigrate."These people, regardless of the denomination of their conversions, decided to unite their destiny to that of our people," Daniel Askenazi, an Orthodox rabbi and spiritual leader of the Jewish community in the western Colombia city of Barranquilla, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.762887" target="_blank">told</a> Haaretz. "It is our duty as Jews to raise our voices and demand that the State of Israel ... expedite the adsorption of these people." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/john-kerry-explains-us-abstained-un-resolution-israel-two-state-palestine-gaza-strip-netanyahu-2016-12">'Friends need to tell each other the hard truths': Kerry explains why the US abstained from the UN resolution on Israel</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="c4YWFtODE6pT1opCN8Dcts97FeN60wOr" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Venezuelan Jews have started migrating to Israel, but not all of them have been welcomed

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for The New York TimesGoldman Sachs Group chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein.</div></div></div><section><article><div><div><section data-share-hash=""><div>Goldman Sachs just announed a new class of managing directors.</div><div></div><div>Here's the statement:</div></section></div>NEW YORK, November 8, 2017 -- The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) today announced that it has selected a new class of Managing Directors, effective from January 1, 2018, the start of the firm's next fiscal year."Our new Managing Directors have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to our people, clients and culture during their tenures at the firm, and we wish them continued success as they take this important next step in their careers," said Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.The following individuals have been promoted to Managing Director: Gregg Abramson Sanjay Acharya Khalid Albdah Amal Alibair Karthikeyan Anbalagan Rolf Andersson Volker Anger Jonathan Armstrong Ken Ashley Lavanya Ashok Sebastian Ayton Jonathan Babkow Julio Badi Amitayush Bahri Soren Balzer Robert Barlick Jr. Philip Barreca Santiago Bau David Bauer Oksana Beard Lee Becker Virender Bedi Stuart Beer Christian Beerli Amanda Beisel Yumiko Bekku David Bell Pierre Benichou Andrew Benito Marco Bensi Laura Benson Stephen Bergin Daniel Berglund Greg Berry Shital Bhatt Dipanjan Bhattacharjee Anu Bhavnani Carissa Biggie Vineet Birman Daniel Bitel Anne Black Richard Blore Emmanuel Bodenstein Timothy Braude Sean Brenan Hugh Briscoe Nathaniel Bristol Leo Brito Troy Broderick Levee Brooks Eric Brothers Robert Bruns III Anthony Bunnell Meg Burke Susan Burt Sean Butkus Russell Byrne Edward Byun Adam Cahill Alessandro Calace Cristiano Camargo Ken Cawley Swapan Chaddha Patrick Chamberlain Richard Chambers Daphne Chan Lily Chan Ben Chance Ginger Chang Vikram Chavali Alex Cheek Jae Joon Choi Ken Choi Paul Choi David Clark Denis Cleary Daniel Cleland-James Ayanna Clunis Pamela Codo-Lotti Jesse Cohen Paul Coles Simon Coombes Jenny Cosco Philip Coureau Nathan Cowen Matthew Cox (Securities) Shaun Cullinan Christine D'Agostino Emile Daher Hiren Dasani Russell Day Pierre De Belen Merche del Valle Caitlin DeSantis Jack Devaney Thomas Devos Mats Dewitte Hristo Dimitrov Tim Dinsdale Isabella Disler Christian Ditullio Terence Doherty Yakut Donat Nicola Dondi Brian Dong Jason D'Silva Stefan Duffner Jane Dunlevie Marie Duval Julien Dyon Rohini Eapen Zach Eckler Sayaka Eda Jason Eisenstadt Chris Emmerson Tiffany Eng Chendan Esvaran Erkko Etula Liz Ewing Michael Fargher Matteo Farina Leigh Farris Sarah Faulkner Tom Favia Brett Feldman Jennifer Feng Jon Ferguson Alex Field Herbert Filho Alex Finston Dean Flanagan Greg Flynn Trip Foley Andrew Ho Kwon Fong Moran Forman Michael Fox Caroline Fraser Daniel Freckleton Tim Freeman Reto Frei Giles French Kirsten Frivold Michael Fu Rob Fuentes Kenji Fujimoto Carrie Gannon Chantal Garcia Akhil Garg Alex Garner Nick Gelber Andrew Gent Gizelle George-Joseph Andrea Gift Sean Gilbride Andreas Glaser Yong Suan Goh Sona Gohel Amir Gold Jeremy Goldstein Steven Gonzalez Jeff Gowen Adam Greene Tom Groothaert Hannes Gsell Ashwin Gupta Ali Haji Ayaz Haji Robert Hamilton Kelly Victoria Hampson Raja Harb Andy Harding Ryan Harster Selma Hassan Stephen Hawinkels Jacqueline Haynes Jason He* Craig Hempstead David Herrmann David Hickey Thomas Hilger Mitch Hochberg Jodi Hochberger Jane Hodges Peter Hodgkinson Dylan Hogarty Tim Holliday Naftali Holtz Amy Hong Jason Hudes Earl Hunt Joseph Hwang Yoshinori Ide Kazuya Iketani Daniel Jackson Ankit Jain (Risk) Gaurav Jaitly Jan Janssen David Jeria Alnawaz Jiwa Kim Johns Scott Johnson Elis Jones Neil Jones Robert Jones Philip Joseph Anand Joshi Shawn Joshi Ritu Kalra Michael Kaprelian Nadeem Kayani Alicia Keenan Neil Kelleher Tom Kennedy Aqil Khan Sarah Kiernan Daniel Kim Eugene Kim (IMD) Jason Kim (GIR) Sora Kim Kristy Kinahan Eugene King Laura Kirk Kunal Kishore Elliot Klapper Jayee Koffey Jason Koon Jennifer Kopylov Daniel Korich Ichiro Kosuge Vladimir Kotlyar Samuel Krasnik Katherine Krause David Kraut Sergey Kraytman Nitin Kulkarni Ram Kulkarni Dileep Kumar (Securities) Santosh Kunnakkat Wendy Kwong JP Lall Bill Lambert David Landman Yi Larson Niccolo Laudiero Nick Laux David Lee Phillip Lee Samuel Lee Shawn Lee Michael Leister David Lerner Naomi Leslie Matt Levine Na Li Haining Liang Nancy Licul Monica Lim Michelle Ling Srujan Linga Philip Linton Alan Liu Daniel Liu Eric Liu Heiman Lo Juan Lorenzo Tian Lu Wayne Lu James Lucas Dennis Luebcke Martin Luehrmann John Lynch Gina Lytle Leo Ma* Caesar Maasry Geoff MacDonald Robert Magnuson Toshiyuki Makabe Mariano Mallol Geydar Mamedov Kara Mangone Donna Mansfield Ajit Marathe Gilberto Marcheggiano James Marchese Michael Marcus Joshua Matheus Ann Mathews Chris Mathie Brian McCallion Graham McClelland Anne McCosker Michael Meehan (Compliance) Taylor Mefford Neil Mehta Adam Meister David Mericle Vitali Meschoulam Eric Meyers Alex Mignotte Andras Mikite Christopher Milligan Rahul Mistry Mike Mitchell Neil Moge Waleed Mohsin Babak Molavi Joel Monson Guy Morgan James Morris Antoine Munfa Aimee Mungovan Yuji Murata Dan Murphy Josh Murray Brian Musto Shehzad Nabi Devarajan Nambakam Ramanathan Narayanan Ganapathy Natarajan Danielle Natoli Murad Nayal Karim Nensi Scott Neu Dennis Ng Ken Ng Benjamin Ngan Joy Nguyen Salman Niaz Anders Nielsen (IMD) Howard Nifoussi Jun Niki Leah Nivison Laura Noble James Nolan Lauren Oakes Lynn Oberschmidt Allison O'Connor John O'Connor Shunil Ohrie Damian Ordish Leke Osinubi David Ossack Sathiya Padmanaban Danielle Pallin Salvador Pareja Dalmir Pasini Clorinda Pasqua Chris Pawson Paris Pender Patrick Perkins Philippe Perzi Wendy Peters Andy Phillips Flavio Picciotto Michael Pieck Sam Pirog Thomas Plank Joseph Plotkin Wade Podlich Ashish Pokharna Caitlin Pollak Charles Pollock Joe Porter Travis Potter Rohit Prabhu Richard Privorotsky Andrew Pucher Jay Rabinowitz Ankit Raj Harsha Rajamani Dmitry Rakhlin Yasser Rathore Edoardo Rava Elizabeth Reed Alexandre Reinert Stephen Reinhard Irfan Rendeci Christian Resch Andrew Rhee Riccardo Riboldi James Rinsler Caroline Riskey Helen Robinson Mark Rosen Amit Roy Joe Ryan Bernhard Rzymelka Takehiro Sakuramoto John Sales Rob Sarazen Vineeta Saxena Dominik Schaefer Andrea Scott Majid Sebti Bipin Sehgal Arseni Seregin Irma Sgarz Paulomi Shah Shreyas Shah Sunny Shah Faisal Shamsee Daniel Shapiro Mahesh Sharma Shripal Sharma Mai Shin Romy Shioda Toshimichi Shirai Mark Short Pankauz Shrestha David Shrimpton Obaid Siddiqui Mike Sidorov Scott Silverglate Stefani Silverstein Amy Silverzweig Jasdeep Singh Gabriella Skirnick Michael Sklow Maxine Sleeper Michael Slomienski Michael Sloyer Nicholas Smith (IBD) Ruth Smithson Christine Smyth Ben Snider Stacy Sonnenberg Cleaver Sower Ro Spaziani Brian Steele Johannes Steffens Duncan Stewart Stephen Stites Laurent Storoni Caroline Styant Joel Sulkes Mancy Sun Winnie Tam Nachiket Tamhane Ken Tang MK Tang Amish Tanna Melissa Teng Ross Tennenbaum Greg Thompson Fiona Thomson Justin Tobe Jason Tofsky Brad Tuthill Masahiro Uchiyama Nehal Udeshi Saad Usmani Meg Vaden Pramod Vaidyanathan Adam Van de Berghe Fred van der Wyck Suzanne van Staveren Andrew Vass Mahesh Vellanki Kadambari Verma Christopher Vilburn Iva Vukina Heng Vuong Ketan Vyas Joe Wall Jeffrey Wang Jiantao Wang Joshua Wang Lily Wang (Technology) Sherry Wang Victoria Ward (Compliance) Jeff Warren Noriko Watanabe Ramey Watkins Sam Watkins Heiko Weber Niki Webster Scott Weinstein Ryan Westmacott James Westwood Keith Wetzel Mark Wetzel James Whittingham Sabine Wick Robert Wieser Devin Wilde David Wilkins John Wilkinson Andrew Williams Ed Wong (IBD Technology) Eric Wong (Internal Audit) Kate Wood Amanda Wu Douglas Wu Joanne Xu Liang Xu** Rupam Yadav Kazushi Yamaguchi Hubert Yang Lisa Yang Basak Yavuz Zeynep Yenel David Yu Brian Zakrocki Thomas Zeppetella Yi Zhang* Adib Zouein Patrik Zumstein Piotr Zurawski Jonathan Zwart*Employee of Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities Company Limited **Employee of Beijing Gao Hua Securities Company Limited</div></article></section>Get the latest Goldman Sachs stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GS-Quote"> here.</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-kristina-hooper-chief-investment-strategist-at-invesco-2017-11">We talked to the chief investment strategist at $920 billion fund giant Invesco about where you should invest right now</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

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