JUST like Benghazi-gate, the controversy around Hillary Clinton's State Department e mails is just a whole lot of nothing but is being promoted as proof of Hillary's "corrupt" politics by those who have nothing of substance on her. The ignorant forward the baseless attacks on Hillary on this issue because they are to stupid or lazy or both and can't be bothered to do a little research for the truth, or just because she is a woman and qualified to be president of the United States ( while their candidate isn't qualified for the presidency). This synopsis of the FBI report on Hillary's State Dept e mails from +Mother Jones followed by their investigation of donald drumpf's (trump) company that does warrant a criminal investigation.
14 Excerpts From the FBI's Report on Hillary Clinton's Email
Have you read the entire FBI report on the agency's investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices? No? Well, I have, because that's the kind of professional I am. And I'm going to provide you with all the most interesting excerpts.
The report starts off with a whole bunch of technical detail about how the Clinton email server was set up and managed, and is basically uninteresting except to nerds. As everyone knows, Hillary's email was originally hosted on a 
personal server in her home (referred to as the "Pagliano Server") and was later transferred to a commercial hosting service, Platte River Networks (the "PRN Server"). We'll pick up the action on page 7:
personal server in her home (referred to as the "Pagliano Server") and was later transferred to a commercial hosting service, Platte River Networks (the "PRN Server"). We'll pick up the action on page 7:
Page 7: At the time of the FBI's acquisition of the Pagliano Server, Williams & Connolly did not advise the US Government [...] that Clinton's clintonemail.com e-mails had been migrated to the successor PRN Server remaining at Equinix. The FBI's subsequent investigation identified this additional equipment and revealed the e-mail migration.
This strikes me as bad. Hillary's lawyers gave the FBI the old Pagliano Server when they asked for it, but didn't tell them that everything had been migrated to PRN. Why not?
Page 8: [Huma] Abedin recalled that at the start of Clinton's tenure, State advised personal e-mail accounts could not be linked to State mobile devices and, as a result, Clinton decided to use a personal device in order to avoid carrying multiple devices.
In other words, Hillary could get a State-approved device but couldn't receive her personal email on it. Likewise, she could use a personal device, but couldn't get State email on it. The only way to get both was to carry two physical devices. She considered this inconvenient, and decided to keep on using her personal BlackBerry for everything. This is exactly what she's been saying all along.
Page 8: FBI investigation identified 13 total mobile devices [...] which potentially were used to send e-mails [...] eight of which she used during her tenure as Secretary of State.
This has become a big talking point on the right for some reason. Hillary didn't have one device for convenience, she had 13! This is ridiculous. Over time, she had 13 devices, but the report makes it clear that she always had just one device at a time.
Page 9: According to Abedin, it was not uncommon for Clinton to use a new BlackBerry for a few days and then immediately switch it out for an older version with which she was more familiar. Clinton states that when her BlackBerry device malfunctioned, her aides would assist her in obtaining a new BlackBerry, and, after moving to a new device, her old SIM cards were disposed of by her aides.
I'm only including this because, WTF? How often did Hillary's BlackBerries malfunction? If she had eight in four years, it means they each lasted about six months. Why were they so fragile? Did they just buy a new BlackBerry every time there was some kind of bug they couldn't figure out how to resolve?
Page 11: On January 23, 2009, Clinton contacted former Secretary of State Colin Powell via e-mail to inquire about his use of a BlackBerry while he was Secretary of State (January 2001 to January 2005). In his e-mail reply, Powell warned Clinton that if it became "public" that Clinton had a BlackBerry, and she used it to "do business," her e-mails could become "official record[s] and subject to the law." Powell further advised Clinton, "Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data."
This is important. First, it makes clear that Hillary conversed with Colin Powell two days after becoming secretary of state, not "a year later," as Powell has claimed. Second, Powell essentially told her that he had just gone ahead and broken the law by "not using systems that captured the data." Hillary, by contrast, chose instead to retain everything as the law required.
Page 11: While State policy during Clinton's tenure required that "day-to-day operations [at State] be conducted on [an authorized information system]," according to the REDACTED the Bureau of Information Security Management, REDACTED there was no restriction on the use of personal e-mail accounts for official business. [...] In 2011, a notice to all State employees was sent on Clinton's behalf, which recommended employees avoid conducting State business from personal e-mail accounts due to information security concerns.
This makes it clear that although State "recommended" that employees not use personal accounts, there was no rule prohibiting it. And apparently personal accounts were very widely used.
Page 12: State Diplomatic Security Service (DS) instructed Clinton that because her office was in a SCIF, the use of mobile devices in her office was prohibited. Interviews of three former DS agents revealed Clinton stored her personal BlackBerry in a desk drawer in DS "Post 1," which was located within 
the SCIF on Mahogany Row. State personnel were not authorized to bring their mobile devices into Post 1, as it was located within the SCIF.
the SCIF on Mahogany Row. State personnel were not authorized to bring their mobile devices into Post 1, as it was located within the SCIF.I'm only including this because it's gotten some attention on the right. This paragraph says Hillary always checked in her BlackBerry when she came into the office, as she was required to do, but checked it into Post 1. Apparently this was the wrong thing to do. But if it was, surely this is the fault of DS, not Hillary, who plainly had no incentive to store her BlackBerry in the wrong place.
Page 13: Thirteen individuals, consisting of State senior-level employees, work-related advisors, and State executive administrative staff, maintained direct e-mail contact with Clinton.
That's not very many. It's not as if potentially sensitive information was flying around to hundreds of people.
Page 14: Heather Samuelson, an attorney working with [Cheryl] Mills, undertook a review to identify work-related e-mails, while Kendall and Mills oversaw the process. [...] Clinton was not consulted on specific e-mails in order to determine if they were work-related.
This is how Hillary's work-related emails were separated from her personal emails after State asked for them. It's only relevant because it makes clear that Hillary herself had no input into the selection process. She just gave the order to produce the emails requested by State. Apparently she wasn't very concerned that there would be anything embarrassing in there.This is nothing new. FBI Director James Comey said as much months ago about emails the FBI had recovered: "We found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account—or even a commercial account like Gmail—there was no archiving at all of her e-mails, so it is not surprising that we discovered e-mails that were not on Secretary Clinton's system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 e-mails to the State Department."
Pages 18-19: According to Mills, in December 2014, Clinton decided she no longer needed access to any of her e-mails older than 60 days. [...] On March 2, 2015, The New York Times (NYT) published an article titled "Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules." [...] In his interviews with the FBI, REDACTED [a PRN techie] indicated that sometime between March 25-31, 2015, he realized he did not make the e-mail retention policy changes to Clinton's clintonemail.com e-mail account that Mills had requested in December 2014. [...] He believed he had an "oh shit" moment and sometime between March 25-31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server and used BleachBit to delete the exported .PST files he had created on the server system containing Clinton's e-mails.
This explains why data was removed from the PRN server after the New York Times article and after the Benghazi committee had subpoenaed Hillary's emails. It had nothing to do with anyone around Hillary Clinton. An IT guy at PRN realized one day that he'd forgotten about the retention order and went ahead and implemented it.The report makes clear that Cheryl Mills sent an email, which the PRN techie received, telling PRN about the preservation request from the Benghazi committee. The techie said he knew it meant he shouldn't disturb the Clinton server but apparently got confused and didn't realize this meant he shouldn't touch the old archives or the backups.
Page 20: When asked of her knowledge regarding TOP SECRET, SECRET, and CONFIDENTIAL classification levels of USG information, Clinton responded that she did not pay attention to the "level" of classification and took all classified information seriously.
For some reason there are people guffawing at this, but I don't know why. The plainest reading is not that Hillary had no idea what various classification levels meant, but that she treated all classified information seriously no matter what level it was at.
Page 22: The FBI interviewed multiple officials who authored and/or contributed to e-mails, the content of which has since been determined to contain classified information. USG employees responsible for initiating classified e-mail chains include State Civil Service employees, Foreign Service employees, Senior Executive Service employees, Presidential employees, and non-State elected officials.
I can't quite tell if the report suggests that every classified email they recovered was initiated by someone else, but it seems like it. Basically, other people sent stuff to Hillary, and she trusted that these folks knew what they were doing. She didn't initiate any email exchanges herself that included classified information.
Page 23: During FBI interviews, State employees explained the context for why classified material REDACTED was sent and provided reasons to explain why they did not believe information in the e-mails was classified. [...] Authors of the e-mails stated that they used their best judgment in drafting the messages and that it was common 
practice at State to carefully word e-mails on UNCLASSIFIED networks so as to avoid sensitive details or "talk around" REDACTED classified information.
practice at State to carefully word e-mails on UNCLASSIFIED networks so as to avoid sensitive details or "talk around" REDACTED classified information.This whole section is a description of common practices at State. Basically, most people the FBI talked to used private email accounts all the time; did their best to keep classified information out of these channels; and didn't believe that any of the emails they sent included classified information. Other classification authorities have disagreed, as we all know by now, and the entire discussion gives you a taste of how subjective the classification process is. Basically, we have lots of experienced people who disagree about whether various things really ought to be classified.
Page 25: On the morning of June 17, 2011, Clinton asked [Jake] Sullivan to check on the status of talking points she was supposed to have received. Sullivan responded that the secure fax was malfunctioning but was in the process of being fixed. Clinton instructed Sullivan that if the secure fax could not be fixed, he should "turn [the talking points] into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure." State uses the term "non-paper" to refer to a document which is authorized for distribution to a foreign government wihout explicit attribution to the U.S. government and without classified information.
This provides an explanation for the "nonpaper" thing that got so much attention on Fox News a while back. It's nothing nefarious. It's standard jargon at the State Department for turning a classified document into an unclassified document and removing all the headers. This incident shows not negligence, but a rather strict adherence to the rules.
Page 27: FBI investigation and forensic analysis did not find evidence confirming that Clinton e-mail server systems were compromised by cyber means.
This section goes on for pages and pages, but this is really the only sentence you need. It could be that Hillary's email server was hacked. Anything is possible. But despite tons of forensic analysis, the FBI found no evidence of it. This doesn't mean that Hillary should have used a private server, and it doesn't mean her server used best security practices. She shouldn't have, and it didn't. Nonetheless, there's no reason to think her server was ever hacked other than "don't be an idiot, of course it was."
Oddly, the FBI never really addresses the issue of whether Hillary violated federal record retention rules. They obviously believe that she should have used a State email account for work-related business, but that's about it. I suppose they decided it was a non-issue because Hillary did, in fact, retain all her emails and did, in fact, turn them over quickly when State requested them.
There's also virtually no discussion of FOIA. What little there is suggests that Hillary's only concern was that her personal emails not be subjected to FOIA simply because they were held on the same server as her work emails.
If you read the entire report, you'll find bits and pieces that might show poor judgment on Hillary's part. The initial decision to use one email device is the obvious one, something that Hillary has acknowledged repeatedly. Another—maybe—is her staff's view of what was safe to send over unclassified email. But this is very fuzzy. It could be that her staff knew exactly what it was doing, and it's the subsequent classification authorities who are wrong. This is something that it's impossible to judge since none of us will ever see the emails in question.
That said, this report is pretty much an almost complete exoneration of Hillary Clinton. She wasn't prohibited from using a personal device or a personal email account, and others at state did it routinely. She's told the truth all along about why she did it. Colin Powell did indeed advise her about using personal email shortly after she took office, but she chose to follow the rules rather than skirt them, as Powell did. She didn't take her BlackBerry into her office. She communicated with only a very select group of 13 people. She took no part in deciding which emails were personal before handing them over to State. She had nothing to do with erasing information on the PRN server. That was a screw-up on PRN's end. She and her staff all believed at the time that they were careful not to conduct sensitive conversations over unclassified email systems. And there's no evidence that her server was ever hacked.
There's remarkably little here. If you nonetheless believe that it's enough to disqualify Hillary from the presidency, that's fine. I have no quarrel with you. But if the FBI is to be believed, it's all pretty small beer.
FORMER MODELS FOR DONALD TRUMP'S AGENCY SAY THEY VIOLATED IMMIGRATION RULES AND WORKED ILLEGALLY
"It's like modern-day slavery."
Republican nominee Donald Trump has placed immigration at the core of his presidential campaign. He has claimed that undocumented immigrants are "taking our jobs" and "taking our money," pledged to deport them en masse, and vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border. At one point he demanded a ban on Muslims entering the country. Speaking to supporters in Iowa on Saturday, Trump said he would crack down on visitors to the United States who overstay their visas and declared that when any American citizen "loses their job to an illegal immigrant, the rights of that American citizen have been violated." And he is scheduled to give a major address on immigration in Arizona on Wednesday night.
But the mogul's New York modeling agency, Trump Model Management, has profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work here, according to three former Trump models, all noncitizens, who shared their stories with Mother Jones. Financialand immigration records included in a recent lawsuit filed by a fourth former Trump model show that she, too, worked for Trump's agency in the United States without a proper visa.
Foreigners who visit the United States as tourists are generally not permitted to engage in any sort of employment unless they obtain a special visa, a process that typically entails an employer applying for approval on behalf of a prospective employee. Employers risk fines and possible criminal charges for using undocumented labor.
Founded in 1999, Trump Model Management "has risen to the top of the fashion market," boasts the Trump Organization's website, and has a name "that symbolizes success." According to a financial disclosure filed by his campaign in May, Donald Trump earned nearly $2 million from the company, in which he holds an 85 percent stake. Meanwhile, some former Trump models say they barely made any money working for the agency because of the high fees for rent and other expenses that were charged by the company.
Canadian-born Rachel Blais spent nearly three years working for Trump Model Management. After first signing with the agency in March 2004, she said, she performed a series of modeling gigs for Trump's company in the United States without a work visa. At Mother Jones' request, Blais provided a detailed financial statement from Trump Model Management and a letter from an immigration lawyer who, in the fall of 2004, eventually secured a visa that would permit her to work legally in the United States. These records show a six-month gap between when she began working in the United States and when she was granted a work visa. During that time, Blais appeared on Trump's hit reality TV show, The Apprentice, modeling outfits designed by his business protégés. As Blais walked the runway, Donald Trump looked on from the front row.
Former Trump model Rachel Blais appeared in a 2004 episode of Donald Trump's hit NBC reality show, The Apprentice. Trump Model Management had yet to secure her work visa. NBC
Two other former Trump models—who requested anonymity to speak freely about their experiences, and who we are giving the pseudonyms Anna and Kate—said the agency never obtained work visas on their behalf, even as they performed modeling assignments in the United States. (They provided photographs from some of these jobs, and Mother Jones confirmed with the photographers or stylists that these shoots occurred in the United States.)
Each of the three former Trump models said she arrived in New York with dreams of making it big in one of the world's most competitive fashion markets. But without work visas, they lived in constant fear of getting caught. "I was pretty on edge most of the time I was there," Anna said of the three months in 2009 she spent in New York working for Trump's agency.
"I was there illegally," she said. "A sitting duck."
According to three immigration lawyers consulted by Mother Jones, even unpaid employment is against the law for foreign nationals who do not have a work visa. "If the US company is benefiting from that person, that's work," explainedAnastasia Tonello, global head of the US immigration team at Laura Devine Attorneys in New York. These rules for immigrants are in place to "protect them from being exploited," she said. "That US company shouldn't be making money off you."
Two of the former Trump models said Trump's agency encouraged them to deceive customs officials about why they were visiting the United States and told them to lie on customs forms about where they intended to live. Anna said she received a specific instruction from a Trump agency representative: "If they ask you any questions, you're just here for meetings."
Trump's campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined to answer questions about Trump Model Management's use of foreign labor. "That has nothing to do with me or the campaign," she said, adding that she had referred Mother Jones' queries to Trump's modeling agency. Mother Jones also sent detailed questions to Trump Model Management. The company did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.
Fashion industry sources say that skirting immigration law in the manner that the three former Trump models described was once commonplace in the modeling world. In fact, Politico recently raised questions about the immigration status of Donald Trump's current wife, Melania, during her days as a young model in New York in the 1990s. (In response to the Politico story, Melania Trump said she has "at all times been in compliance with the immigration laws of this country.")
Kate, who worked for Trump Model Management in 2004, marveled at how her former boss has recently branded himself as an anti-illegal-immigration crusader on the campaign trail. "He doesn't want to let anyone into the US anymore," she said. "Meanwhile, behind everyone's back, he's bringing in all of these girls from all over the world and they're working illegally."
Now 31 years old and out of the modeling business, Blais once appeared in various publications, including Vogue, Elle, and Harpers Bazaar, and she posed wearing the designs of such fashion luminaries as Gianfranco Ferré, Dolce & Gabbana, and Jean Paul Gaultier. Her modeling career began when she was 16 and spanned numerous top-name agencies across four continents. She became a vocal advocate for models and appeared in a 2011 documentary, Girl Model, that explored the darker side of the industry. In a recent interview, she said her experience with Trump's firm stood out: "Honestly, they are the most crooked agency I've ever worked for, and I've worked for quite a few."
Rachel Blais appeared in this Elle fashion spread, published in September 2004, while working for Trump's agency without a proper visa. Elle
Freshly signed to Trump Model Management, the Montreal native traveled to New York City by bus in April 2004. Just like "the majority of models who are young, [have] never been to NYC, and don't have papers, I was just put in Trump's models' apartment," she said. Kate and Anna also said they had lived in this apartment.
Models' apartments, as they're known in the industry, are dormitory-style quarters where agencies pack their talent into bunks, in some cases charging the models sky-high rent and pocketing a profit. According to the three former models, Trump Model Management housed its models in a two-floor, three-bedroom apartment in the East Village, near Tompkins Square Park. Mother Jones is withholding the address of the building, which is known in the neighborhood for its model tenants, to protect the privacy of the current residents.
When Blais lived in the apartment, she recalled, a Trump agency representative who served as a chaperone had a bedroom to herself on the ground floor of the building. A narrow flight of stairs led down to the basement, where the models lived in two small bedrooms that were crammed with bunk beds—two in one room, three in the other. An additional mattress was located in a common area near the stairs. At times, the apartment could be occupied by 11 or more people.
"We're herded into these small spaces," Kate said. "The apartment was like a sweatshop."
Trump Model Management recruited models as young as 14. "I was by far the oldest in the house at the ripe old age of 18," Anna said. "The bathroom always smelled like burned hair. I will never forget the place!" She added, "I taught myself how to write, 'Please clean up after yourself' in Russian."
Living in the apartment during a sweltering New York summer, Kate picked a top bunk near a street-level window in the hopes of getting a little fresh air. She awoke one morning to something splashing her face. "Oh, maybe it's raining today," she recalled thinking. But when she peered out the window, "I saw the one-eyed monster pissing on me," she said. "There was a bum pissing on my window, splashing me in my Trump Model bed."
"Such a glamorous industry," she said.
Blais, who previously discussed some of her experiences in an interview withPublic Radio International, said the models weren't in a position to complain about their living arrangements. "You're young," she remarked, "and you know that if you ask too many questions, you're not going to get the work."
A detailed financial statement provided by Blais shows that Trump's agency charged her as much as $1,600 a month for a bunk in a room she shared with five others. Kate said she paid about $1,200 a month—"highway robbery," she called it. For comparison, in the summer of 2004, an entire studio apartment nearby was advertised at $1,375 a month.
From April to October 2004, Blais traveled between the United States and Europe, picking up a string of high-profile fashion assignments for Trump Model Management and making a name for herself in the modeling world. During the months she spent living and working in New York, Blais said, she only had a tourist visa. "Most of the girls in the apartment that were not American didn't have a work visa," she recalled.
Anna and Kate also said they each worked for Trump's agency while holding tourist visas. "I started out doing test-shoots but ended up doing a couple of lookbooks," Anna said. (A lookbook is a modeling portfolio.) "Nothing huge, but definitely shoots that classified as 'work.'"
Employers caught hiring noncitizens without proper visas can be fined up to $16,000 per employee and, in some cases, face up to six months in prison.
The three former Trump models said Trump's agency was aware of the complications posed by their foreign status. Anna and Kate said the company coached them on how to circumvent immigration laws. Kate recalled being told, "When you're stuck at immigration, say that you're coming as a tourist. If they go through your luggage and they find your portfolio, tell them that you're going there to look for an agent."
Anna recalled that prior to her arrival, Trump agency staffers were "dodging around" her questions about her immigration status and how she could work legally in the United States. "Until finally," she said, "it came to two days before I left, and they told me my only option was to get a tourist visa and we could work the rest out when I got there. We never sorted the rest out."
Arriving in the United States, Anna grew terrified. "Going through customs for this trip was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life," she added. "It's hard enough when you're there perfectly innocently, but when you know you've lied on what is essentially a federal document, it's a whole new world."
"Am I sweaty? Am I red? Am I giving this away?" Anna remembered thinking as she finally faced a customs officer. After making it through immigration, she burst into tears.
Industry experts say that violating immigration rules has been the status quo in the fashion world for years. "It's been common, almost standard, for modeling agencies to encourage girls to come into the country illegally," said Sara Ziff, the founder of the Model Alliance, an advocacy group that claimed a major success in 2014 after lobbying the New York State legislature to pass a bill increasing protections for child models.
Bringing models into the United States on tourist visas was "very common," said Susan Scafidi, the director of Fordham University's Fashion Law Institute. "I've had tons of agencies tell me this, that this used to happen all the time, and that the cover story might be something like 'I'm coming in for a friend's birthday,' or 'I'm coming in to visit my aunt,' that sort of thing."
For their part, modeling agencies have complained about the time and resources required to bring a foreign model into the country and have insisted that US immigration laws are out of step with their fast-paced industry. "If there are girls that we can't get into the United States, the client is going to take that business elsewhere," Corinne Nicolas, the president of Trump Model Management, told the New York Daily News in 2008. "The market is calling for foreign girls."
In 2007, a few years before his career imploded in a sexting scandal, former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) sponsored a bill that would give models the same kind of work visas that international entertainers and athletes receive. The tabloids had a field day—"Give me your torrid, your pure, your totally smokin' foreign babes," screamed a Daily News headline—and the effort ultimately failed.
Trump Model Management sponsored only its most successful models for work visas, the three former models said. Those who didn't cut it were sent home, as was the case, Blais noted, with many of her roommates.
"It was very much the case of you earn your visa," Anna said. "Essentially, if you got enough work and they liked you enough, they'd pay for a visa, but you weren't about to see a dime before you could prove your worth."
The company eventually secured an H-1B visa for Blais. Such visas allow US companies to employ workers in specialized fields. According to financial records provided by Blais, the company deducted the costs of obtaining a work visa from her earnings. (The agency did not obtain work visas for Anna and Kate, who each left the United States after their stints with Trump Model Management.)
H-1B visas have been increasingly popular in the high-tech field, and Trump's companies, including Trump Model Management, have used this program extensively in the past. But on the campaign trail, Trump has railed against the H-1B program and those who he says abuse it. "I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program," Trump said in March. "No exceptions."
Nearly three years after signing with Trump's agency, Blais had little to show for it—and it wasn't for lack of modeling jobs. Under the contracts that she and other Trump models had signed, the company advanced money for rent and various other expenses (such as trainers, beauty treatments, travel, and administrative costs), deducting these charges from its clients' modeling fees. But these charges—including the pricey rent that Blais and her roommates paid—consumed nearly all her modeling earnings. "I only got one check from Trump Models, and that's when I left them," she said. "I got $8,000 at most after having worked there for three years and having made tens of thousands of dollars." (The check Blais received was for $8,427.35.)
"This is a system where they actually end up making money on the back of these foreign workers," Blais added. She noted that models can end up in debt to their agencies, once rent and numerous other fees are extracted.
This is known in the industry as "agency debt." Kate said her bookings never covered the cost of living in New York. After two months, she returned home. "I left indebted to them," she said, "and I never went back, and I never paid them back."
The experiences the former Trump models related to Mother Jones echo allegations in an ongoing class-action lawsuit against six major modeling agencies by nine former models who have claimed their agencies charged them exorbitant fees for rent and other expenses. One plaintiff, Marcelle Almonte, has alleged that her agency charged her $1,850 per month to live in a two-bedroom Miami Beach apartment with eight other models. The market rate for apartments in the same building ran no more than $3,300 per month, according to the complaint. (Trump Model Management, which was initially named in an earlier version of this lawsuit, was dropped from the case in 2013, after the judge narrowed the number of defendants.) Models "were largely trapped by these circumstances if they wanted to continue to pursue a career in modeling," the complaint alleges.
"It is like modern-day slavery" Blais said of working for Trump Model Management—and she is not alone in describing her time with Trump's company in those terms. Former Trump model Alexia Palmer, who filed a lawsuit against Trump Model Management for fraud and wage theft in 2014, has said she "felt like a slave."
Palmer has alleged that she was forced to pay hefty—sometimes mysterious—fees to Trump's agency. These were fees on top of the 20 percent commission she paid for each job the company booked. Palmer charged that during three years of modeling for Trump's company, she earned only $3,880.75. A New York judge dismissed Palmer's claim in March because, among other reasons, she had not taken her case first to the Department of Labor. Lawyers for Trump Model Management called Palmer's lawsuit "frivolous" and "without merit."
Palmer filed a complaint with the Department of Labor this spring, and in August the agency dismissed the case. Palmer's lawyer, Naresh Gehi, said he is appealing the decision. Since he began representing Palmer, he said, fashion models who worked for other agencies have approached him with similar stories. "These are people that are coming out of the closet and explaining to the world how they are being exploited," he said. "They are the most vulnerable."
Documents filed in Palmer's case indicate that she worked in the United States without a work visa after being recruited by Trump's agency from her native Jamaica. Gehi declined to discuss his client's immigration status.
Former Trump model Alexia Palmer posed for this Teen Vogue shoot in January 2011. She secured a work visa in October 2011. Teen Vogue
A Caribbean model contest launched Palmer's career in 2010, and at age 17 she signed an exclusive contract with Trump Model Management in January 2011. Department of Labor records show she received approval to work in the United States beginning in October 2011. Yet according to a financial statement filed as evidence in her case, Palmer started working in the United States nine months before this authorization was granted. Her financial records list a January 22, 2011, job for Condé Nast, when she posed for a Teen Vogue spread featuring the cast of Glee. (The shoot took place at Milk Studios in Los Angeles.)
"That whole period, from January to September, was not authorized," said Pankaj Malik, a partner at New York-based Ballon, Stoll, Bader & Nadler who has worked on immigration issues for over two decades and who reviewed Palmer's case for Mother Jones. "You can't do any of that. It's so not allowed."
Trump has taken an active role at Trump Model Management from its founding. He has personally signed models who have participated in his Miss Universe and Miss USA competitions, where his agency staff appeared as judges. Melania Trump was a Trump model for a brief period after meeting her future husband in the late 1990s.
The agency is a particular point of pride for Trump, who has built his brand around glitz and glamour. "True Trumpologists know the model agency is only a tiny part of Trumpland financially," the New York Sun wrote in 2004. "But his agency best evokes a big Trump theme—sex sells." Trump has often cross-pollinated his other business ventures with fashion models and has used them as veritable set pieces when he rolls out new products. Trump models, including Blais, appeared on The Apprentice—and they flanked him at the 2004 launch of his Parker Brothers board game, TRUMP.
Part of Blais' job, she said, was to serve as eye candy at Trump-branded events. Recalling the first time she met the mogul, she said, "I had to go to the Trump Vodka opening." It was a glitzy 2006 gala at Trump Tower where Busta Rhymes performed, and Trump unveiled his (soon-to-be-defunct) line of vodka. "It was part of my duty to go and be seen and to be photographed and meet Donald Trump and shake his hand," she remembered.
Trump made a strong impression on her that night. "I knew that I was a model and there was objectification in the job, but this was another level," she said. Blais left Trump Model Management the year after the Trump Vodka gala, feeling that she had been exploited and shortchanged by the agency.
Kate, who went on to have a successful career with another agency, also parted ways with Trump's company in disgust. "My overall experience was not a very good one," she said. "I left with a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't like the agency. I didn't like where they had us living. Honestly, I felt ripped off."
These days, Kate said, she believes that Trump has been fooling American voters with his anti-immigrant rhetoric, given that his own agency had engaged in the practices he has denounced. "He doesn't like the face of a Mexican or a Muslim," she said, "but because these [models] are beautiful girls, it's okay? He's such a hypocrite."
Former Trump model Rachel Blais appeared in a 2004 episode of Donald Trump's hit NBC reality show, The Apprentice. Trump Model Management had yet to secure her work visa. NBC
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"Honestly, they are the moSenator Calls for Homeland Security to Investigate Trump's Model Agency
"I am extremely concerned by theclaims levied against Trump Model Management."
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Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is calling on federal authorities to investigate Trump Model Management for alleged labor and immigration violations, in the wake of aMother Jones investigation of the company.
Three former Trump models, all non-US citizens, told Mother Jones they worked for the GOP nominee's agency while on tourist visas. Immigration laws require employers to seek work authorization for any foreigner they hire. Financial and immigration records included in a recent lawsuit filed by a fourth former Trump model indicate that she also worked for Trump's agency without a proper visa.
"I am extremely concerned by the claims levied against Trump Model Management and ask that you open an investigation into the company's employment practices," Boxer wrote in a Wednesday letter to León Rodríguez, the director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), a part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Boxer wrote that the allegations in Mother Jones' exposé were "disturbing," and she called on the agency to "make clear that immigration and labor violations like these will not be tolerated." The letter was also sent to Labor Secretary Tom Perez.
Read the full letter here:
The letter from Sen. Barbara Boxer sent Wednesday morning requesting that the US Immigration and Customs Service investigate employment practices at Trump Model Management. Click to enlarge. Sen. Barbara Boxer
Two of the former models told Mother Jones that they were coached on how to evade the scrutiny of immigration and customs officers by using fake pretenses for entering the country and even writing false addresses on customs forms.
While working for Trump's agency, the models said, they were charged exorbitant rent to bunk with other Trump models in cramped, dormitory-style quarters while competing for coveted work visas. Those who didn't make the cut were sent home—but not until after rent and other fees were deducted from their Trump Model Management earnings.
Trump Model Management has yet to comment publicly on the allegations, and Donald Trump's campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined to answer detailed questions about the story. "That has nothing to do with me or the campaign," she toldMother Jones last week.
Gov. Mike Pence, Trump's vice presidential running mate, told CNN's Alisyn Camerota last Wednesday, "These sidebar issues that come up, his business enterprise can address those and I'm confident they'll address them forthrightly."
Boxer has been a prominent critic of Donald Trump, and last week, as Trump traveled to Mexico for a surprise meeting with President Peña Nieto, she took to Twitter to blast the nominee:
Apparently Trump never built a wall to keep foreign models from working illegally in this country for low pay.twitter.com/MotherJones/st…
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