by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall Street On Parade:

Two of the most intuitive members of Congress, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Elijah Cummings, sent a letter to the Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) all the way back on November 23, 2016 demanding an investigation of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team expenditures, business conflicts and communications with foreign leaders. If the duo had been peering into a crystal ball, they couldn’t have delivered a more prescient recital of today’s unprecedented train wreck in the White House.

The GAO report is set for draft release to relevant Federal agencies this month. Expect leaks before its official public release.

The GAO is the nonpartisan Congressional watchdog that investigates, at the beckoning of members of Congress, how the Federal government spends taxpayer dollars. GAO says its mission is to “provide Congress with timely information that is objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, nonideological, fair, and balanced.” For the most part, it succeeds in its mission although Wall Street On Parade has noticed a certain timidity creeping into its work.

The November Warren/Cummings letter read in part:

“Mr. Trump currently serves as the Chairman and President of the Trump Organization, a ‘sprawling’ international real estate conglomerate with ‘deep ties to global financiers [and] foreign politicians.’ According to public reports, the Trump Organization has ‘deep [business] connections’ to countries like China, Libya, and Turkey and may expand into Ukraine and Russia. Several weeks ago, the general counsel for the Trump Organization, Michael Cohen, claimed that Mr. Trump is ‘not interested in the company anymore.’

“Just last week, we learned that despite claims that Mr. Trump is not interested in his business anymore, the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. hosted ‘about 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey … to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. [P]resident-[E]lect’s newest hotel.’ Diplomats told the press that ‘spending money at Trump’s hotel is an easy, friendly gesture to the new president.’ Mr. Trump recently took a break from his preparation for the Presidency to meet ‘in his office at Trump Tower with three Indian business partners’ and his adult children, who will soon take over his company. New reports this week indicate that when Argentinean President Mauricio Mauri called to congratulate Mr. Trump on his victory, Mr. Trump ‘asked Macri to deal with the permitting issues that are currently holding up’ a Buenos Aires office building project planned by Mr. Trump and his Argentinean partners. At this point, it is not clear if the line between Mr. Trump’s Presidency and his and business ventures is blurred — or entirely nonexistent.

“Several weeks ago, the general counsel for the Trump Organization, Michael Cohen, explained that Mr. Trump will transfer management of the Trump Organization to his adult children, who will run the company ‘through a blind trust.’ But claims that Mr. Trump will set up a ‘blind’ trust do not appear to be consistent with the meaning of that term or with legal requirements that apply to such trusts. A qualified blind trust, which must be approved by the Office of Government Ethics, would allow Mr. Trump to forgo reporting the details of some assets in his financial disclosures. The Ethics in Government Act explicitly prohibits Mr. Trump’s children from managing such a trust….”

The letter also asks for an analysis of taxpayer-funded expenditures remitted to Trump or his organization, noting that in “the early months of the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump charged the Secret Service $1.6 million for flights” because he owned the airline on which the Secret Service had flown.

Warren and Cummings also raised early national security concerns about Trump’s communications with foreign leaders, writing:

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