By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN- Review
EDNY COURTHOUSE, Feb 22 -- While waiting on Presidents' Day for the Weasel of Wall Street trial to restart, with Tim Leissner still on direct, Kurt went like a journalistic moth to a flame Cadman Plaza, this time over the Manhattan Bridge by foot, since he had time.
The East River shimmered underneath and ferries churned across its surface, helicopters above.
There was a UN Security Council meeting just up the river. Putin had just recognized as independent the Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" - Kurt couldn't help thinking of those who's referred, joking, to the "People's Republic of Brooklyn" - and the US had joined Ukraine's request for an emergency meeting. But what would be accomplished? Kurt decided to head up there on the 4 train from Borough Hall, even if he couldn't get in.
Typical for the increasingly irrelevant UN, there were not even any Ukrainian protesters on 43rd and 47th Street when Kurt got there. So he took up a position on 43rd, on the metal statue based he'd sat blogging from after he was thrown out. He watched UN Webcast, which had been knocked out earlier in the day not by Putin's hackers but routine UN incompetence; he recorded and spoke over short videos and put them up as Tweets.
It was the hypocrisy that got to him. Here was Ireland's Ambassador pontificating about dialogue and human rights, when she and her mission had followed Guterres in refusing to answer any of Kurt's written questions during her month as UN Security Council president. Questions on China, Cameroon, Nigeria and yes, Jho Low and his funding of UN bodies and "medias," with money stolen from the Malaysia people.
Was the UN going to return any of that money to the people of Malaysia? Was the US Justice Department, which seized rights to the Wolf of Wall Street film, going to go for forfeiture against the UN? Hadn't Democratic Senator from Oregon Jeff Merkley earlier in the month called Antonio Guterres going to the Genocide Games in China "shameful"? But Merkley was also pro-crypto, and the Administration wasn't.
Even on President's Day there were filings in the US v. Jho Low (and Ng) case, now about whether Ng's wife could or could not come to the US to testify, if she still had a passport and if a travel ban applied. They seemed like strange questions to be unanswered, even as as the Administration talked about imposing travel ban's on Putin's cronies who profited from the Donbas. But so it was in February 2022. #TheWeaselOfWallStreet
Goldman Sachs' Tim Leissner was the witness, the cooperator, the teacher's pet. He had been a Goldman partner, yet someone got a US government deal, to testify against non-partner - but Malaysian - Roger Ng. This while Jho Low was chilling in China.
Kurt Wheelock went to Brooklyn as early as he could, and walked fast through the rain in Cadman Plaza. He had his one-case press pass, and they let him take his laptop in. The media room on the third floor was empty but for a Court Security Officer, whom he greeted. He took his phone up to the sixth floor, expecting to check it outside the courtroom. But the two CSOs there said no, not today, take it back down to three. OK.
Once inside the courtroom there were more reporters than the previous week, maybe thirty in all. Leissner on direct examination by his new masters was bragging how it had been him, and not Ng, who had rejected the business of Kazakh Gold. Leissner called Kazakhstan "unsavory." Kurt wrote it down on his pad, hoping to tweet it later, generate some anger.
There were code names for Jho Low, and a meeting with Lloyd Blankfein to try to get Najib's daughter a job at Goldman in London. (Leissner got her a job at another private equity firm.) There was a $300,000 donation demanded by Najib's wife. But what exactly was it, that Roger Ng had done?
At 3:30 pm Judge Brodie called it for the day. Kurt rushed down to the media room and sent out a threadette of a six dozen tweets. Then he rushed outside, hoping to get back to SDNY for the four pm Jean Carroll v Trump case.
But after a stand-up video and buying a bottle of apple cider vinegar in the nearly empty Gristedes supermarket in the Urban Renewal Area, it was almost four as Kurt walk along Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights. So he dialed into Carroll v. Trump, and found a coffee shop off Joralemon on Court Street to tweet it from.
The place, City Baguette, had an upstairs seating area and Kurt settled in. Trump's lawyer wanted to amend so as to cite NY's new Anti-SLAPP law. The judge was dubious. Kurt tweeted, with an eye on the clock. UN Sec-Gen Guterres was to do a stakeout at 5 pm. Kurt was banned but could still cover it from here. The upstairs was empty now, but for him, so he was able to rant over Guterres. But he did not want to use his hot stop to upload the video, figuring it might bring him to capacity for the month. It would have to wait until he got back to the SDNY Press Room.
Guterres was typically pompous, saying he was defending the good name of peacekeepers. This while on his watch the UN peacekeepers had committed dozens of rapes, including of children, and had been held to account for none of them. Kurt sent a tweet, and took the four train back to Foley Square. Injustices large and small. #TheWeaselOfWallStreet.
Kurt had first heard of Jho Low while still in the UN, before he was thrown out. Jho Low appeared at a UN press conference in front of the ubiquitous and now defiled logo. #TheWeaselOfWallStreet, 1st in a new series
Inner City Press is also covering US v. Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, the self-rapped Crocodile of Wall Street, a story here, song here
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