Flags of All Colors Fly for Patrick Witt

Semafor sat down with Trump II's top crypto advisor Patrick Witt to discuss dwindling opportunities to pass the Clarity Act.  Witt warned that time is running out.  I wondered who is this Patrick Witt, other than a former McKinsey staffer and almost NFL quarterback.

Digital assets, emerging financial technologies, strategic capital for the country's defense...for one to be an expert in all these would be rather amazing.  Not for Patrick Witt, Trump II's Executive Director of the White House Council of Advisors for Digital Assets and Acting Director of the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Capital.  Witt was appointed in August 2025 to these positions.

Witt's background raised interest with "served as managing director for a lower-middle market private equity firm."  None of his bio's stated which private equity underwriter (PEU).

From January to May 2025 Witt was interim Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and Deputy Chief Technology Officer.  Was he able to steer any military contracts to firms associated with Eric and Don Jr.?

Internet sources show Witt founded Turnkey Contractor Solutions LLC, served as Managing Director for EcoFusion Solutions and worked in a director role for First Liberty Building and Loan.

Turnkey dissolved as a Georgia corporation in September 2024.  EcoFusion's website is no longer findable (per Witt's LinkedIn page link) and First Liberty Building and Loan failed and later turned out to be a Ponzi scheme.

There is no evidence that Witt knew his employer ran a Ponzi scheme, yet he was charged with growing that financial institution through new ventures and strategic expansion.

Working for two failures and a shady operation does not seem a strong hand to renew the Defense Department or pioneer Digital Assets (which has legions of shady operators).

Patrick Witt appears to be a person who can fill many roles, like James Fishback.  They seem to be able to get past the orientation but appear not to be long term players in specific fields of expertise.

It's good to be a PEU generalist nowadays.  To many that's a plus.  For me, it's a Red Flag.

Trump II Tries to "Liquidity Recap" Voters to Pick Red in November

Trump II dressed down Senate candidate Ken Paxton at his midterm convention.  Even in "favored" Trump world there are punching bags.  The President dinged Paxton in his home state and the crowd laughed mightily.

Trump II could add, "he may not be ethical" or "he may be a criminal, like me."  Paxton was charged with securities fraud in 2015 but reached a settlement in 2024 where he performed community service and paid restitution to his victims.

That was not Ken's only brush with financial crime.  Texas Attorney General Paxton was turned in by his staff for accepting money and home renovation services from Nate Paul, an Austin private equity underwriter (PEU).  

Last night Trump offered a bounty of $5,000 per adult for electing Ken and other Red Team Congressional candidates such that they retain their majorities in each chamber.  That alone sounds unethical and possibly worthy of criminal charges.

His performance based "dividend" would need to be financed and add over $1 trillion to the national debt.  That echoes private equity's "liquidity recaps," where an affiliate takes out even more debt in order to pay a huge chunk of it to the sponsor as a special dividend/distribution.

Trump II and Ken Paxton are the Joe McCarthy (crazed politician) and Roy Cohn (dirty lawyer) of our time.  However, the White House is full of similar, unsavory characters.

Corey Lewandowski allegedly approached officials from two Middle Eastern countries seeking work “on the side” while serving as a special government employee — and effective “shadow secretary” of the Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem, with massive influence over contracts worth billions, according to a bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal.

 Red Team, Red Ink, Red Line, Red Notice....

Sorry PEU boys and your sponsored politicians, my vote is not for sale.

(This was cross posted on Ari'sFreedomSwitch for its freedom/voting/unethical politician content)

LIV Golf Imploding

LIV Golf declared bankruptcy and golfers are the largest unsecured creditors listed in the filing.

Jon Rahm is owed nearly $7.5 million, and Bryson DeChambeau is owed more than $5.7 million.

Phil Mickelson predicted he'd be on the winning side with his LIV Golf choice.  It's nearly four years after Mickelson said golfers needed to pick a side.  How many will stay with the bankrupt entity and how many will return to the PGA?  

As for its business structure USA Today reported:

LIV Golf New Jersey LLC and roughly 50 affiliated entities filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Creditors may soon be owners under the new LIV operating model:

LIV said Tuesday in a statement it wants to turn player debt into player equity. The tour signed a restructuring support agreements with BC Partners Credit built around what it calls a player-first ownership model, under which the reorganized company would be majority owned by the players themselves.

Who knew "pick a side" would refer to holding debt or equity in your own tour?   Jon Rahm appears to want neither in the case of LIV.

Multiple existing players have told me they are finished with the league.

Pro golfers picked "scary mother fu_kers" in 2022.  Will they pick BC Partners in 2026?   I'm not sure going from sovereign wealth fund to private equity underwriter (PEU) will leave a better taste in their mouth.  

It's a buyout gone bad.  Many U.S. workers know it well.

PIF's Big Week for PEUs

Semafor reported:

Public Investment Fund’s senior management, along with representatives of some of its biggest portfolio companies, will meet with Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, Carlyle, KKR, and Stonepeak, as well as the US Export-Import Bank, in a swing through New York this week. 

Investment bankers from Lazard are brokering the meetings, which aren’t fundraising for a specific project but rather laying the groundwork for future cash raises, people familiar with the matter said. Saudi Arabia needs billions of dollars to remake its oil-centric economy, and heavy spending by PIF and other entities hasn’t catalyzed the $100 billion in annual foreign investment the kingdom is targeting.

The Saudis will meet with storied private equity underwriters (PEU) like Carlyle, Blackstone, KKR & Apollo.  The U.S. Export-Import Bank is headed by a former PEU who happens to be married to Dr. Oz's daughter.  Oz is Trump II's head of Medicare/Medicaid.

Lazard is headed by Peter Orszag, former OMB Chief under Obama.  Lazard helped the Saudis with Masar, a massive development project in Mecca.

PIF will undertake more PEU strategies in the near future:

PIF is preparing to make a more aggressive push to sell mature assets, pursue listings and divestments, and finance more of its operations and investments with external capital

As most PEU affiliates are sold to other PEUs, these upcoming meetings could be a shuffling of sponsor cards.  I'll trade you for this, loan you "x amount" for that.  Deal or No Deal?

And where will Jared Kushner be when these PIF-PEU meetings occur?  His Affinity Partners has billions of PIF money.  Let's hope Affinity's holdings do better than LIV Golf.  

The Saudi government has no obligation to share information with citizens or the media.  The U.S. has legal requirements that increasingly are optional or ignored under Trump II's Department of "Just Us."

The public is waiting to see Jared's financial disclosure, which is months overdue.  I'll be shocked if they ever show up.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod brethren.  Increasingly, more are one and they look out after their own.

John Hussman wrote on Seeking Alpha:

An economy that prospers at the top, struggles at the bottom, and runs massive government deficits to bridge the gap is the predicable outcome of deliberate policy choices.

Thus endeth the PEU lesson.

Trump-Rubenstein Feud Continues

Trump II's compliant Kennedy Center board (with him as Chair) ordered art work removed from the plaza in front of the Kennedy Center.  

Carlyle Group co-founder and former Kennedy Center Chair David Rubenstein purchased that work of art.  It will be installed at the National Gallery of Art and reside in its Sculpture Garden.

The (Kennedy Center) board also voted to name the grounds where the building stands after Trump. Under the resolution, that space will be called “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

I hope they put a wingman sculpture in its place.  If so, I will forever call it the Trump-Epstein Plaza.  

Meanwhile Trump's war on our nation's friends continues evermore.  

The Great Usurper is not done sucking money, property and souls.  

The Kennedy Center board may wish to recall Trump Plaza's prior bankruptcy as they continue their renaming Trump-a-pallooza.

There is no such thing as a free buffet or an independent board appointment under Trump II and his ilk.  

People who play ball with Trump become pawns.  Those who don't become enemies.  It helps to have a few billion in assets and serious political connections to ride out Trump's savage whims.  Most of us aren't in such a position.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod brethren.  Increasingly, more are one and Trump II is far and away above them all.

Data Hating Trump Wants AI to Reign

 Trump II recently wrote "Let data reign" on Truth Social.

"If you want to pay lower taxes, if you want to create tremendous wealth, if you want your house to be more valuable and everything else, you're going to want a data center," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "If you want to go through poverty, crime and squalor, I would say don't approve data centers." 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick chalked up opposition to "propaganda by our adversaries" and said the benefits to communities are "obvious." 

Trump's former AI czar, David Sacks, asserted that "misinformation" was to blame for the  backlash and said "no one is trying to force these data centers down anyone's throats."

Actually a collection of someones is trying to just that, Mr. Sacks.  It's a combination of elected and unelected government officials, various TechGods and their financiers (private equity underwriters (PEU)),  Sacks knows them well. 

Surely data exists on home valuations in close proximity to data centers.  I can't imagine it supports Trump II's assertions (which often are not fact based).  That said, if homes across from data centers become unsellable then that data could be missing.  Abandoned homes often become magnets for poverty, crime and squalor.  

The benefits of data centers to billionaires Trump II, Howard Lutnick and David Sacks are obvious.  The investor class has multiple ways to profit from data center proliferation.  They can front run government policy and federal budget priorities.  Annual financial disclosures will indicate how these "public servants" are profiting from their private holdings.

Also, Mr. Lutnick's getting a multimillion dollar house from Jeffrey Epstein for $10 is not available to common folk.

Trump II and his kingly court want data to reign.

 

Data cannot be a sovereign power.  It should not be chief of state or have the authority of a monarch.

TechGods' social media usurped children's brains, their physical/emotional safety, social development and individual autonomy.  With AI they are shooting to distort whole societies.  

Data is incapable of reigning.  It's purveyors have shown their ability to feign to maximize their financial position and personal power.  "Everyone can have a penthouse" and "AI will cure cancer."  

Trump II, Lutnick and Sacks are selling something.  It's called their own book.  Normally, those come with disclosures but we are in a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) world.  Leon Black is telling us that very thing with his non-testimony.

The only data that rains is what they want us to see and that is very little in regard to their personal affairs.  AI cannot explore what isn't there, cannot mine areas where it lacks access.  

--cross posted at StateoftheDivision as three data centers may locate in the author's community

Two Flavors, One System

SHFT Holdings website states:

"Federal Bureau of Prisons purchasers: New users must register before ordering. If you have already registered, log in to place your order."

SHFT Holdings was formed in May 2026, one week after the Bureau of Prisons sought a supplier for nicotine pouches for federal prison commissaries.  The supplier was required to provide FDA approved products but SHFT's products currently lack that approval.  

A whistleblower raised concerns within the Justice Department and the contract is currently on hold.  

SHFT is part of a holding company, Ameribrands which is an affiliate of Little River Partners.  

It has a Trump I "slim suit crowd" feel to it as it echoes popup companies to provide masks and other personal protective equipment during the COVID outbreak.

But this is Trump II in the era of the fat shot and the ever ballooning waist of our Chief Executive.  So far there is no Trump offspring tie to this arrangement.  Time will reveal if SHFT Holdings accepts payment in USD1, WLFI token or $TRUMP.  

Investors love recurring revenue streams and nicotine addiction provides just that.  

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU (private equity underwriters) and their new TechGod brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  Two flavors, one system...