While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the amount of money he owes them.

Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, the report claimed that the actual number is likely much larger at $300 million.

Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years.

There have been concerns about Trump’s ties to the bank becoming a conflict of interest, dating back to the 2016 election, and the evidence to support those concerns is now becoming clear.

During the week of Christmas, the Federal Register announced that the Trump Administration had issued waivers to Citigroup, JPMorgan, Barclays, UBS and Deutsche Bank—all megabanks facing charges of fraud and corruption.

The banks were involved in the LIBOR Scandal, in which they colluded to deliberately depress the rate at which they paid out on investments. By suppressing the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) at the beginning of an economic crisis in 2007, the megabanks were able to boost their earnings and to give their customers a false sense of security.

Deutsche Bank pled guilty to wire fraud in a U.S. court in 2015, and it went on to pay $3.5 billion for its role in the LIBOR scandal—more than any other bank involved—before it reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department in early 2017.

Then in June 2017, Deutsche Bank trader David Liew, who is based in Singapore, pleaded guilty to conspiring to spoof gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures in federal court in Chicago, confirming that the biggest banks in the world have conspired to rig precious metals markets.

While Trump granted 5-year exemptions to Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Barclays, and 3-year exemptions to UBS and Deutsche Bank, it should be noted that his administration is not the only one to have done this. As International Business Times noted, “In late 2016, the Obama administration extended temporary one-year waivers to five banks,” which just happened to be the same ones Trump has now extended the exemptions on—revealing the real rulers in DC.

Not surprisingly, the latest decision to pardon the banks comes in stark contrast to one of Trump’s most applauded campaign promises—that he would finally stand up against Wall Street and demand that the most powerful banks be held accountable to the public.

“I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We’re going to tax Wall Street,” Trump said during a campaign rally in January 2016. (For more from the author of “As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks for Corruption Charges” please click HERE)

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In bluntly vulgar language, President Donald Trump questioned Thursday why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa rather than places like Norway, as he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal, according to people briefed on the extraordinary Oval Office conversation.

Trump’s contemptuous description of an entire continent startled lawmakers in the meeting and immediately revived charges that the president is racist. The White House did not deny his remark but issued a statement saying Trump supports immigration policies that welcome “those who can contribute to our society.”

Trump’s comments came as two senators presented details of a bipartisan compromise that would extend protections against deportation for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants — and also strengthen border protections, as Trump has insisted. (Read more from “Trump: Why Allow Immigrants From ‘Sh**Hole’ Countries” HERE)

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It’s become fashionable among journalists and various politicos to discuss whether Democrats should attempt to remove President Donald Trump from office via the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, supposedly because he has become too mentally incapacitated to fulfill his duties.

After his televised meeting with top House and Senate leaders from both parties, the liberal fantasy that they can simply nullify the results from the last presidential election — bolstered by the discredited accounts from Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” that made the president appear psychologically unstable — should no longer be entertained by the media any more than it already was.

No individual who is mentally unstable or dangerously unfit could have possibly ran an hour-long negotiation and discussion over complex policy solutions as the president did Tuesday.

Throughout the meeting, Trump not only seemed engaged and alert, but also served as a leader managing both parties’ desires.

Even an article in USA Today, whose editors wrote an editorial late last year titled “Will Trump’s Lows Ever Hit Rock Bottom?” called the meeting “extraordinary.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham called the negotiations “the most fascinating meeting I’ve been involved with in 20-plus years in politics.”

The president’s performance Tuesday afternoon raised further questions about how a Yale psychiatrist deemed it appropriate to deliver a warning to a group of Democratic lawmakers that they should consider removing Trump from office.

Nor does the president’s clear sanity and mental fitness — regardless of whether or not one agrees with him on policy issues — jive with Wolff’s assertion that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a subject of regular conversation within the White House.

In an interview on “Meet The Press,” Wolff told Chuck Todd that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment — which allows the vice president to take power in cases where the president dies or becomes incapacitated — is “alive every day” in the West Wing.

On top of being grossly inappropriate, any effort by Democrats or anti-Trump Republicans to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment going forward will have to reconcile with the fact that millions of Americans have now seen Trump publicly performing the duties of the office more than competently.

Of course, there are those who won’t ever be happy. A Vox article ran last weekend arguing that Trump needed a psychological evaluation “by force if necessary.”

Trump defended his mental state in a series of tweets earlier this week.

….Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

The idea of essentially kidnapping a president because some tweets made a liberal writer uncomfortable was comically ridiculous before, but after today’s public meeting, it just seems like a pathetic attempt to kick a Republican out of office. (For more from the author of “While Everyone Is Freaking out Over Trump DACA Promise, He Just Did the Most Trump Thing Ever” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.