The Wall Street Journal has usefully identified those they are counting upon to control a Trump administration. According to them, should Trump win the election, the trusted loyalist who will fill the top 4,000 positions in Washington will be Howard Lutnick, a longtime friend of Trump who calls him “DJT.” In August, Lutnick was named the co-chair of the Trump transition team, and he is currently spending every business day from 9 am to 4 pm in back-to-back meetings with potential candidates to fill the government positions.
According to Jared Kushner, Lutnick is tasked to pick about three or four candidates to fill each vacant position and Trump would choose one from those names, according to a separate Wall Street Journal report. Kushner is fully supportive of Lutnick’s approach, but would like to keep the entire process less public. However, Lutnick talks openly with everyone about the process as seen in an Oct. 3 interview with Mike Tracey. According to Lutnick, very important in this process is that each potential political candidate have a business leader to vouch for him or her. He has solicited recommendations for candidates from Elon Musk, Jared Kushner, and an inner circle of mega-donors.
Lutnick, a billionaire, is CEO of the Cantor Fitzgerald investment banking and brokerage firm, which has a reputation of always seeking out new niche investments. Some of Cantor’s investments have been illegal, such as their foray into sports betting where Cantor had to pay a $22.5 million fine in 2016 for gambling and money laundering. More recently Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald has been managing the assets of the secretive owner of the world’s most traded cryptocurrency, Tether. Tether is under investigation by prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for possible violations of money-laundering rules and sanction rules reports the Wall Street Journal. There is also a separate investigation of Tether by the Treasury Department for criminal violations for doing business with people who have been sanctioned by the U.S. government. Some investigations include possible fraud committed by Tether in its founding documents that gave Tether access to the U.S. banking system.
