Remus
2017-12-22 20:43:51 UTC
So Tennessee Senator Bob Corker is in trouble now, because he
flip-flopped to vote for Donald Trump's tax bill after a provision was
included that reportedly helps him personally.
Color me not shocked. I spent most of this past summer investigating
Corker, whose personal finances have been an open scandal for years.
Everything you need to know about the Senator can be discerned from
this chart.
Click on that link and you'll see: Corker went from having an estimate
net worth of zero when he entered the Senate in 2007, to being (as of
2015) the fourth-wealthiest man in the Senate, worth $69 million.
How do you increase your net worth by 69 million dollars while you're
working full-time as a Senator? That is not an easy story to explain.
Moreover, Corker didn't just enter the Senate without any money. He
entered it carrying, according to his own disclosure forms, a mountain
range of huge loans.
Corker took office in January, 2007, during the last gasp of the
Bush/Rove political juggernaut. The Iraq war had gone south and the
Republicans had just been routed in midterms. The financial crisis was
just around the corner. And nobody paid attention to the
smooth-talking freshman Senator from Tennessee, who turned out to have
some financial issues.
The former Chattanooga mayor's election was not without controversy.
Corker was a country-club Republican who used an old Southern formula
to get elected. He benefited from a lurid race-baiting RNC ad that
showed a white woman winking and asking Corker's African-American
opponent, Democrat Harold Ford, to "Call me!"
But no one knew about Corker's private peccadilloes.
It wasn't until Corker took office and filled out disclosure forms
that his finances became public sort of. Few in the media seem ever
to have read the "liabilities" section of Corker's first disclosure,
where the former mayor and construction magnate listed a series of
massive outstanding loans. At the low end, Corker appeared to owe a
hair-raising $24.2 million. At the high end, $120.5 million.
He took office in debt to some of the nation's biggest lenders
including somewhere between $12 million and $60 million in debt to GE
Capital alone.
Corker had been a construction magnate in Tennessee before taking
office, a sort of mini-Trump. Before he ran for office, he sold off
his business to a local developer named Henry Luken.
It has always been Corker's contention that when he sold his business,
his debts were also sold, meaning he was not technically in debt when
he went to Washington. Still, he continued to list the loans as
liabilities.
This is what Corker spokesman Micah Johnson told me this summer, about
Corker's outstanding loans back then, and why they were listed on his
Senate disclosure:
"On January 4, 2006, in preparation for his run for the Senate and to
avoid conflicts, Senator Corker sold the majority of his commercial
real estate portfolio. The loans were transferred with the
properties," Johnson wrote. "While the sale took place in January, 10
months before he was elected and one year before he took office, they
still would have been listed on his 2007 financial disclosure since
the sale took place in 2006."
Many of Corker's critics have disagreed with this interpretation of
events. But even if the loans were discharged when he sold his
company, it's what happened after Corker got elected that boggles the
mind.
Ten years before reporters would swarm over Trump for (among other
things) raising fees at his Mar-a-Lago resorts before making a series
of taxpayer-funded visits, Corker tested the limits of the
profiteering possibilities in the legislative branch, essentially
becoming a full-time day-trader who did a little Senator-ing in his
spare time.
In the first nine months of 2007, Corker made an incredible 1,200
trades, over four per day, including 332 over a two-day period.
When I asked Johnson about this, and asked if Corker was making those
trades himself or through a broker, Johnson gave a curious answer.
"Soon after taking office in January of 2007, rather than continuing
to have a broker make discretionary transactions on his behalf
throughout the day or week on a wide range of stocks in various
companies, the senator felt it would be prudent to eliminate this
arrangement," Johnson said. "The closing out of this arrangement would
have added substantially to the number of trades normally made in the
broker's discretionary account."
Johnson seems to be saying that Corker would have made substantially
more trades if he had executed them through a broker. So, he didn't. I
can offer no commentary shedding light on what this means, except to
say that at the bottom of all of this is the still-incontrovertible
fact that Corker made a truly awesome number of financial transactions
while in office.
By 2014, when Corker sat on the Senate Banking Committee, a position
that gave him regular access to prime information about the future
direction of the markets, the Tennessee Senator still had his foot on
the gas. He made 930 stock trades that year.
Of his colleagues on the committee, Rhode Island's Jack Reed made 39
trades, Pennsylvania's Patrick Toomey 26, and nobody else made any
meaning Corker made 93.5% of all trades made by the legislators most
plugged-in to the country's finances.
When I asked about that extraordinary volume of trading in 2014, when
Corker sat on the Banking Committee, Johnson answered thusly: "In
2014, Senator Corker entered a separately managed account (SMA), which
is a portfolio managed by a professional asset management firm. Since
he had not previously been in a SMA, he asked the Senate Ethics
Committee for a ruling on how they should be reported," he said.
He went on: "The Senate Ethics Committee studied the issue for several
weeks, and out of an abundance of caution, advised us to report all
underlying positions of the account, even though the senator was
making no investment decisions."
A Separately Managed Account is not the same thing as a blind trust.
That the Senate Ethics Committee advised Corker to continue reporting
his positions even if the senator was making "no investment decisions"
was noteworthy. And no matter what, it continued to be true that
Corker was making a dizzying number of financial moves while sitting
on the Senate Banking Committee.
Corker's activities didn't go completely unnoticed. A few ethics
groups cried foul over the years.
Anne Weismann, director of the Campaign for Accountability, which
filed a complaint against Corker in 2015, described Corker's trading
history in damning terms.
"Senator Corker's trades followed a consistent pattern," she said. "He
bought low and sold high. It beggars belief to suggest these trades
netting the senator and his family millions were mere coincidences."
One financial analyst I know said Corker's trading patterns looked
more like the work of "an office of multiple analysts all grinding at
least 60 hours a week" than like the work of "one guy moonlighting as
a Senator."
Johnson's responded on behalf of Corker, stating that they were "yet
another baseless accusation by this political special interest group.
These claims are categorically false and nothing more than a smear
campaign. When amending the senator's financial disclosure report, our
office worked directly with the Senate Ethics Committee to ensure
items were reported accurately and in line with Senate guidelines."
Corker's name sometimes comes up in stories about other members of
Congress who trade auspiciously and often. There are conflicting views
on the propriety of such activities, and Corker has never been
formally censured.
Until this week, Corker's history has been scrutinized only
occasionally, and most often because of the role he's played in an
unrelated controversy known colloquially as #Fanniegate.
This monstrous dispute over the future of the "government sponsored
entities" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in which Corker played a loud
and conspicuous part, made him enemies among investors who are
embittered over the unilateral seizure of the two companies' profits
six years ago, on August 17th, 2012. Corker supported that
controversial and unprecedented move, known as the "revenue sweep."
But other than that affair, few paid attention to Corker over the
years. There was some guffawing when it was reported last winter that
Donald Trump may have passed over Corker for the Secretary of State
job because of his height.
Six months or so later, Corker was seen playing golf with Trump and
Peyton Manning. No hard feelings. This, too, is in keeping with
Corker's bio. As much as any politician in America, he likes to keep
his options open, politically and ideologically.
When Corker took on Trump this fall saying the White House was "an
adult day care center" and that Trump's behavior threatened "World War
III" he suddenly became a darling of sorts in the liberal media.
Now he's a bad guy again, for reportedly doing what he's always done,
acting in his own financial interest while earning a paycheck as a
U.S. Senator.
The Corker story to me is a classic example of why it's always
dangerous to overlook a politician's failings because he happens to be
on the right side of some partisan debate at a given moment in time.
The reason is obvious: these types eventually revert to form, and soon
enough, a politician's flaws will be working against you again, rather
than for you.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-bob-corker-corrupt-what-a-surprise-w514493
flip-flopped to vote for Donald Trump's tax bill after a provision was
included that reportedly helps him personally.
Color me not shocked. I spent most of this past summer investigating
Corker, whose personal finances have been an open scandal for years.
Everything you need to know about the Senator can be discerned from
this chart.
Click on that link and you'll see: Corker went from having an estimate
net worth of zero when he entered the Senate in 2007, to being (as of
2015) the fourth-wealthiest man in the Senate, worth $69 million.
How do you increase your net worth by 69 million dollars while you're
working full-time as a Senator? That is not an easy story to explain.
Moreover, Corker didn't just enter the Senate without any money. He
entered it carrying, according to his own disclosure forms, a mountain
range of huge loans.
Corker took office in January, 2007, during the last gasp of the
Bush/Rove political juggernaut. The Iraq war had gone south and the
Republicans had just been routed in midterms. The financial crisis was
just around the corner. And nobody paid attention to the
smooth-talking freshman Senator from Tennessee, who turned out to have
some financial issues.
The former Chattanooga mayor's election was not without controversy.
Corker was a country-club Republican who used an old Southern formula
to get elected. He benefited from a lurid race-baiting RNC ad that
showed a white woman winking and asking Corker's African-American
opponent, Democrat Harold Ford, to "Call me!"
But no one knew about Corker's private peccadilloes.
It wasn't until Corker took office and filled out disclosure forms
that his finances became public sort of. Few in the media seem ever
to have read the "liabilities" section of Corker's first disclosure,
where the former mayor and construction magnate listed a series of
massive outstanding loans. At the low end, Corker appeared to owe a
hair-raising $24.2 million. At the high end, $120.5 million.
He took office in debt to some of the nation's biggest lenders
including somewhere between $12 million and $60 million in debt to GE
Capital alone.
Corker had been a construction magnate in Tennessee before taking
office, a sort of mini-Trump. Before he ran for office, he sold off
his business to a local developer named Henry Luken.
It has always been Corker's contention that when he sold his business,
his debts were also sold, meaning he was not technically in debt when
he went to Washington. Still, he continued to list the loans as
liabilities.
This is what Corker spokesman Micah Johnson told me this summer, about
Corker's outstanding loans back then, and why they were listed on his
Senate disclosure:
"On January 4, 2006, in preparation for his run for the Senate and to
avoid conflicts, Senator Corker sold the majority of his commercial
real estate portfolio. The loans were transferred with the
properties," Johnson wrote. "While the sale took place in January, 10
months before he was elected and one year before he took office, they
still would have been listed on his 2007 financial disclosure since
the sale took place in 2006."
Many of Corker's critics have disagreed with this interpretation of
events. But even if the loans were discharged when he sold his
company, it's what happened after Corker got elected that boggles the
mind.
Ten years before reporters would swarm over Trump for (among other
things) raising fees at his Mar-a-Lago resorts before making a series
of taxpayer-funded visits, Corker tested the limits of the
profiteering possibilities in the legislative branch, essentially
becoming a full-time day-trader who did a little Senator-ing in his
spare time.
In the first nine months of 2007, Corker made an incredible 1,200
trades, over four per day, including 332 over a two-day period.
When I asked Johnson about this, and asked if Corker was making those
trades himself or through a broker, Johnson gave a curious answer.
"Soon after taking office in January of 2007, rather than continuing
to have a broker make discretionary transactions on his behalf
throughout the day or week on a wide range of stocks in various
companies, the senator felt it would be prudent to eliminate this
arrangement," Johnson said. "The closing out of this arrangement would
have added substantially to the number of trades normally made in the
broker's discretionary account."
Johnson seems to be saying that Corker would have made substantially
more trades if he had executed them through a broker. So, he didn't. I
can offer no commentary shedding light on what this means, except to
say that at the bottom of all of this is the still-incontrovertible
fact that Corker made a truly awesome number of financial transactions
while in office.
By 2014, when Corker sat on the Senate Banking Committee, a position
that gave him regular access to prime information about the future
direction of the markets, the Tennessee Senator still had his foot on
the gas. He made 930 stock trades that year.
Of his colleagues on the committee, Rhode Island's Jack Reed made 39
trades, Pennsylvania's Patrick Toomey 26, and nobody else made any
meaning Corker made 93.5% of all trades made by the legislators most
plugged-in to the country's finances.
When I asked about that extraordinary volume of trading in 2014, when
Corker sat on the Banking Committee, Johnson answered thusly: "In
2014, Senator Corker entered a separately managed account (SMA), which
is a portfolio managed by a professional asset management firm. Since
he had not previously been in a SMA, he asked the Senate Ethics
Committee for a ruling on how they should be reported," he said.
He went on: "The Senate Ethics Committee studied the issue for several
weeks, and out of an abundance of caution, advised us to report all
underlying positions of the account, even though the senator was
making no investment decisions."
A Separately Managed Account is not the same thing as a blind trust.
That the Senate Ethics Committee advised Corker to continue reporting
his positions even if the senator was making "no investment decisions"
was noteworthy. And no matter what, it continued to be true that
Corker was making a dizzying number of financial moves while sitting
on the Senate Banking Committee.
Corker's activities didn't go completely unnoticed. A few ethics
groups cried foul over the years.
Anne Weismann, director of the Campaign for Accountability, which
filed a complaint against Corker in 2015, described Corker's trading
history in damning terms.
"Senator Corker's trades followed a consistent pattern," she said. "He
bought low and sold high. It beggars belief to suggest these trades
netting the senator and his family millions were mere coincidences."
One financial analyst I know said Corker's trading patterns looked
more like the work of "an office of multiple analysts all grinding at
least 60 hours a week" than like the work of "one guy moonlighting as
a Senator."
Johnson's responded on behalf of Corker, stating that they were "yet
another baseless accusation by this political special interest group.
These claims are categorically false and nothing more than a smear
campaign. When amending the senator's financial disclosure report, our
office worked directly with the Senate Ethics Committee to ensure
items were reported accurately and in line with Senate guidelines."
Corker's name sometimes comes up in stories about other members of
Congress who trade auspiciously and often. There are conflicting views
on the propriety of such activities, and Corker has never been
formally censured.
Until this week, Corker's history has been scrutinized only
occasionally, and most often because of the role he's played in an
unrelated controversy known colloquially as #Fanniegate.
This monstrous dispute over the future of the "government sponsored
entities" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in which Corker played a loud
and conspicuous part, made him enemies among investors who are
embittered over the unilateral seizure of the two companies' profits
six years ago, on August 17th, 2012. Corker supported that
controversial and unprecedented move, known as the "revenue sweep."
But other than that affair, few paid attention to Corker over the
years. There was some guffawing when it was reported last winter that
Donald Trump may have passed over Corker for the Secretary of State
job because of his height.
Six months or so later, Corker was seen playing golf with Trump and
Peyton Manning. No hard feelings. This, too, is in keeping with
Corker's bio. As much as any politician in America, he likes to keep
his options open, politically and ideologically.
When Corker took on Trump this fall saying the White House was "an
adult day care center" and that Trump's behavior threatened "World War
III" he suddenly became a darling of sorts in the liberal media.
Now he's a bad guy again, for reportedly doing what he's always done,
acting in his own financial interest while earning a paycheck as a
U.S. Senator.
The Corker story to me is a classic example of why it's always
dangerous to overlook a politician's failings because he happens to be
on the right side of some partisan debate at a given moment in time.
The reason is obvious: these types eventually revert to form, and soon
enough, a politician's flaws will be working against you again, rather
than for you.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-bob-corker-corrupt-what-a-surprise-w514493