As a reminder, all of these threats were sent by a company that, per the F.T.C., was supposed to be patenting and promoting customers’ products, but in reality “provided almost no service in return,” lost consumers about $26 million, and, in some cases, caused people to lose their life savings. (According to The Wall Street Journal, World Patent Marketing and Cooper settled earlier this year, agreed not to promote any other patent-marketing services, and turned over a Miami Beach waterfront property to the U.S. government.)

Meanwhile, Whitaker was reportedly paid $9,375 in advisory fees between 2014 and 2016, and was owed an additional $7,500 at the time the F.T.C. took action to seize the company.

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Maxine Waters now has the power to go after Deutsche Bank re: Trump

In May 2017, just a few short months after a former beauty-pageant owner was inaugurated president on the steps of the Capitol, Representative Maxine Waters and other Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee sent Deutsche Bank a letter asking it to turn over information about Donald Trump and Russia. Specifically, lawmakers wanted to know why the German lender continued to loan Trump money at a time when most financial institutions wouldn’t touch the serial bankruptcy declarer with a 10-foot pole. Waters & co. were also keen to learn whether or not the loans made to the former real-estate developer had been “guaranteed by the Russian government, or were in any way connected to Russia.“ (Deutsche Bank had recently paid $630 million to settle investigations into mirror trades that were allegedly used to launder $10 billion out of the Eastern European country.)

These seemed like fair queries! Unfortunately, the bank refused to turn over any information whatsoever, saying that it was against company policy to do so, even if it was a matter of national security. Still, Deutsche could have been forced to cough up whatever it had on Trump, if Republicans on the committee had been willing to issue a subpoena, which obviously they were not. You can see where this is going, right?