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Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent courted Trump for several years before being named to his cabinet, going so far as to start a pro-Trump publishing company called All Seasons Press in 2021. All Seasons Press soon sued two of it own authors – one for violating their contract, and the other for claiming the 2020 election was stolen in their book while telling authorities it was not. Bessent’s other business enterprises have also had mixed results, with his first hedge fund losing ten percent of his investors money within six months, eventually forcing him to convert it into a family office format. As Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, Bessent supported currency swaps and other bailouts for Argentina while American farmers struggled. He used his position to attack Zohran Mamdani, saying the Trump administration would tell New York City to “drop dead” if they asked for a bailout after electing Mamdani. He has also suggested that the U.S. would not support NATO allies in the case of a Russian invasion. Bessent’s private life has been a source of scandals, including an escalatory legal battle with one of his ex-boyfriends and his home-loan filings, which included discrepancies similar to those Trump was using to justify his firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. |
2000: Bessent Left Soros Fund Management And Invested $150 Million Into His Own Hedge Fund. According to The Telegraph, “Scott Bessent, 37, a 10-year Soros veteran who heads Soros Fund Management's European operations and is part of its global strategy team, is to set up a hedge fund with $150m of his own money and a matching sum from Mr Soros. Bessent Capital, based in St James's Street, London, and New York, will staff half its 18-strong workforce with former Soros employees and expects opening capital of $500m-$1 billion.” [The Telegraph, 6/9/00]
2001: Bessent Lost “More Than 10%” Of Their $1 Billion Within Six Months, Investors Pulled Out. According to Business Insider, “However, he ended up losing more than 10% in his European stock fund in the first half of 2001. As a result, his investors started to pull out, so he decided to move back into macro investing.” [Business Insider, 9/19/11]
2005: Bessent Converted His Fund Into “A Family Office Format.” According to Business Insider, “He ended up converting the fund in a family office format in 2005.” [Business Insider, 9/19/11]
2021: All Seasons Press (ASP), A Conservative, Pro-Trump Publishing Company, Was Founded. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Two veteran book-publishing executives have teamed up to launch a conservative publishing house called All Seasons Press LLC as ideological debates roil a book industry increasingly fueled by demand for political titles. Louise Burke, the former president and publisher of Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books Group, and Kate Hartson, whom Hachette Book Group dismissed as editorial director of its Center Street imprint earlier this year, said conservative authors are finding it harder to get published in the post-Trump era.” [Wall Street Journal, 6/15/21]
Bessent Was Behind All Seasons Press. According to Tablet, “The statement went on to address Bessent’s relationship to ASP. ‘Until this case, the Bessent Family preferred to keep their support of ASP guarded—as it does with the nine other operating businesses it owns from agriculture to healthcare. In each instance, the Bessent Family employs professional managers and has little involvement in the day-to-day operations.” [Tablet, 11/7/23]
All Seasons Press Was Involved In Two Lawsuits With Their Own Authors. According to Publishers Weekly, “But it has also made headlines with two high profile lawsuits involving its authors. In one controversy, author Lee Smith suggested that All Seasons Press was concealing that billionaire investor Scott Bessent was bankrolling the press, and, as reported in a Tablet Magazine article last November suggested his book was somehow fraudulently acquired.” [Publishers Weekly, 2/9/24]
October 2022: Lee Smith Sued All Seasons Press Concerning His Book “The Thirty Tyrants” That Would Target George Soros. According to Tablet, “In October of 2022, Smith filed a lawsuit against a publisher called All Seasons Press (ASP), to whom he had sold the rights to a book proposal based on a February 2021 essay he had written for Tablet. ‘The Thirty Tyrants’ argued that Americans at the top of the financial, entertainment, and political industries had sold their country out to communist China. Unsurprisingly, according to an outline Smith submitted to an editor at ASP in July of 2022, one of the book’s targets would be George Soros, who in the 2010s lauded China’s ‘doctrine of harmonious development,’ hailed the Chinese government as ‘better functioning’ than its American counterpart, and advocated ‘partnership with China to avoid world war.’” [Tablet, 11/7/23]
November 2022: All Seasons Press Sued Smith For Breach Of Contract. According to Tablet, “Two weeks later, in early November of 2022, Smith refiled in Sarasota County in Florida, which is one possible venue for potential legal action offered in his contract with ASP. Two days after that, ASP sued Smith for breach of contract, claiming he had failed to honor his manuscript submission deadline.” [Tablet, 11/7/23]
November 2023: ASP Sued Mark Meadows For Breach Of Contract After Meadows Contradicted His Book In Saying That The 2020 Election Was Not Stolen. According to the Associated Press, “Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is being sued by his publisher for contradicting his book's claim about the the [sic] 2020 election. All Seasons Press alleges that sworn testimony by Meadows undermined ‘The Chief's Chief,’ in which he wrote that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. In a breach of contract lawsuit filed Friday in Florida, All Seasons cited media reports from last month alleging that Meadows knew Trump had lost to Democrat Joe Biden. ‘Meadows’ reported statements to the Special Prosecutor and/or his staff and his reported grand jury testimony squarely contradict the statements’ in ‘The Chief's Chief,’ according to the lawsuit, filed in Sarasota, Florida. A central theme of Meadows' book is that ‘President Trump was the true winner of the 2020 Presidential Election and that election was ‘stolen’ and ‘rigged’ with the help from ‘allies in the liberal media,’ the court papers read in part.” [Associated Press, 11/6/23]
June 2010: Bessent Sued Trinkle For Repayment Of A $2 Million Mortgage Agreement. According to The Daily Mail, “In his original suit, filed June 23, 2010, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Bessent, 62, accused Trinkle of defaulting on a $2million mortgage agreement drawn up between the two men in 2008. According to the terms of the agreement Bessent lent Trinkle $2million to purchase a property in East Hampton, New York in August 2008.” [Daily Mail, 12/17/24]
Trinkle Claimed Bessent Hired Private Detectives To Spy On Him, “Failed To Honor A Promise To Pay Half Of The Medical Bills When Their Dogs Became Terminally Ill,” Stole Items From His Mother’s Estate, Withheld Payment Of A Property’s Commission, And Commandeered The Couple’s Wine Collection. According to The Daily Mail, “These included allegations that the openly gay billionaire hedge-fund heavyweight recruited private detectives to spy on Trinkle before and during their seven-year relationship, failed to honor a promise to pay half of the medical bills when their dogs became terminally ill, stiffed him on a large sales commission due from a previous property purchase, and did not return items of Trinkle's mother's estate following their split. Trinkle, a successful real estate developer now living in Virginia, also accused Bessent of holding onto the entirety of their wine collection which was stored in New York, as well as cases of expensive South African wines which belonged to him alone and were housed in a London property they once shared.” [Daily Mail, 12/17/24]
Bessent Received Repayment Of The Mortgage And Trinkle’s Counterclaims Were Dismissed. According to The Daily Mail, “Bessent and Trinkle eventually settled their suit in September, 2010. Trinkle agreed to sell the East Hampton property and repay Bessent the money he owed - which at that time stood at $1,765,888 – in a settlement that included legal fees, brokerage commission and costs and totaled $2,548,389. Property records show that he purchased the home for $2,775,000 in 2008 and that it sold for $2,395,000 in April 2011. The settlement agreement also included the dismissal of Trinkle's counterclaims, 'with prejudice' preventing him from re-filing the same claim in the future.” [Daily Mail, 12/17/24]
September 2025: Scott Bessent Proposed "All Options" To Support Argentina Amid Market Volatility. According to the Financial Times, “US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said ‘all options’ are on the table for the Trump administration to support Argentina through a bout of severe market volatility, throwing a lifeline to libertarian president Javier Milei. In comments on X, Bessent said that financial assistance could include purchases of Argentina’s currency or sovereign debt by a fund controlled by the US Treasury. Milei, a close ally of Donald Trump, is trying to contain a run on the peso and slide in asset prices after a disappointing local election result unnerved markets. Bessent Stated Financial Aid For Argentina “May Include” Currency Purchases And Debt Acquisitions. Bessent called the South American country ‘a systemically important US ally in Latin America’, adding that the US Treasury ‘stands ready to do what is needed within its mandate to support Argentina. All options for stabilization are on the table’. He said that options for a support package ‘may include, but are not limited to, swap lines, direct currency purchases, and purchases of US dollar-denominated government debt from Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund’.” [Financial Times, 9/22/25]
September 2025: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Announced Talks for a $20 Billion Swap Line to Support Argentina. According to the Financial Times, “US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said that Washington was in talks to provide a $20bn swap line to Argentina and was prepared to buy its dollar debt, vowing support for libertarian President Javier Milei in defeating ‘speculators’. Bessent said the White House would be ‘resolute in our support for allies of the US’, as it sought to calm a market crisis engulfing Milei, the only Trump ally leading a major Latin American economy. In a post on X on Wednesday, Bessent said that ‘the Treasury is currently in negotiations with Argentine officials for a $20 billion swap line with the Central Bank’. He added: ‘The US Treasury stands ready to purchase Argentina’s USD bonds and will do so as conditions warrant.’ Referring to a Treasury fund used in 1995 to bail out Mexico, he said: ‘We are also prepared to deliver significant standby credit via the Exchange Stabilization Fund, and we have been in active discussions with President Milei’s team to do so.’ Milei is battling the worst crisis of his presidency ahead of midterm elections next month, when the public will deliver its verdict on economic policies that pulled the country back from the brink of hyperinflation but have weighed on growth in recent months. A heavy defeat for Milei’s party in a regional election this month and a corruption scandal have alarmed investors, sparking a run on the peso last week that has threatened to force a chaotic devaluation of the currency. ‘We’re not going to let a disequilibrium in the market cause a back-up in his substantial economic reforms,’ Bessent told Fox Business on Wednesday, referring to Milei. ‘I don’t think the market has lost confidence with him.’” [Financial Times, 9/24/25]
October 2025: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Supported Argentina’s Milei, Denied Direct US Investment. According to Bloomberg, “US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reiterated support for Argentina’s Javier Milei on Thursday, but warned that the aid doesn’t involve outright US investment, pushing bonds between gains and losses in a roller-coaster morning session. Bessent wrote on X early on Thursday that the US would do ‘what is necessary’ to help Argentina, triggering a surge in the bonds. A little later, he told CNBC that this didn’t mean putting money into the country, a caveat that sent the notes back down again. They are now edging lower. The US had previously outlined at least three possible options to help the South American nation, including a $20 billion swap line, the repurchase of Argentine debt and direct currency purchases. Bessent’s comments on Thursday seem to have narrowed it down. ‘We’re giving them a swap line, we’re not putting money into Argentina,’ he said in the CNBC interview.” [Bloomberg, 10/2/25]
September 2025: Bessent Came Under Scrutiny Over Mortgage-Related Discrepancies That Trump Was Using To Attempt To Fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. According to The Daily Beast, “Secretary Scott Bessent has come under scrutiny over home-loan filings similar to the discrepancies being used by the Trump administration to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Weeks after he reportedly threatened to punch top housing finance official Bill Pulte ‘in the f—---- face’, Bessent has been slugged with a mortgage-related punch of his own, after reportedly agreeing to occupy two different houses as his ‘principal residence’ at the same time. The conflicting agreements, first reported by Bloomberg, are similar to the contradictory pledges that President Donald Trump, with Pulte’s help, has been using to try to oust [Lisa] Cook from her role on the board of the central bank. And while there’s no evidence of wrongdoing, the case nonetheless demonstrates that discrepancies in home-loan filings do not necessarily amount to mortgage fraud. As reports emerged about Bessent’s properties, the memory of his exchange with Pulte at a private dinner earlier this month was not lost on some observers, who noted that the federal housing director now gets the last laugh. ‘PULTE gets his revenge,’ quipped political commentator Sam Stein. […] Mortgage filings are nonetheless a sensitive issue for the administration, given the president’s attempt to fire Cook over unproven allegations that she committed mortgage fraud.” [Daily Beast, 9/17/25]
September 2025: Scott Bessent Suggested The Trump Administration’s Policy Was Against Activating Article 5 In Russia-NATO Conflicts. According to UnHerd, “US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted earlier this week that a Russian incursion into Nato territory would not trigger US intervention, and that America’s role would be confined to selling arms to Europe. Speaking to Fox Business, Bessent described the Trump administration’s foreign policy doctrine with a clarity we have not heard from the President himself. ‘Now Putin has started making incursions into the Nato borders,’ he said. ‘The one thing I can tell you is the US is not going to get involved with troops or any of that. We will sell the Europeans weapons.’ You can often tell a country’s official policy by looking at revealed, not stated, preferences. It is Bessent’s message — not Donald Trump’s wide-ranging, meandering speech at the UN — that is US policy. The Trump administration, then, would not trigger Article 5 in the event of a Russian attack on a Nato ally. While that may sound like a well-calibrated message, this is not how Putin will interpret it. While the Russian leader does not have the capacity to fight two simultaneous land wars, he has the resources to continue his land war in Ukraine, and engage in a hybrid war in western Europe, exposing the political weaknesses of Nato leaders. It is likely Moscow will increase the provocations.” [UnHerd, 9/28/25]
September 2025: Treasury Secretary Bessent Warned New York City Against Expecting A Bailout If Zohran Mamdani Was Elected Mayor. According to Al Jazeera, “United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the federal government will not bail out New York City in the event of a financial crisis if the city elects its Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani. On Wednesday, Bessent reportedly told the nation’s most populous city to ‘drop dead’, citing a phrase he attributed to former President Gerald Ford in 1975, when the city faced near-bankruptcy. ‘It will be the same thing that Gerald Ford said: ‘Drop dead,’’ Bessent told New York-born anchor Maria Bartiromo on Mornings with Maria on Fox Business Network, which is based in New York. Ford never actually made that statement. It originated from a New York tabloid headline at the time. Bessent added, ‘I guarantee you — and there are not a lot of things in life that are sure — that New York City will be coming to the federal government for a bailout if the Mamdani plans are implemented.’ The treasury secretary did not specify which elements of Mamdani’s platform could create financial risk. Mamdani, a 31-year-old Democratic socialist, currently leads by double-digit margins in 18 different polls for mayoral elections due November 4. An Al Jazeera analysis of Mamdani’s proposals found that the campaign includes detailed funding plans for widely popular initiatives, including universal child care, a pilot programme for city-run grocery stores, and free city buses. These plans would be financed by raising the corporate tax rate and increasing taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $1m annually by 2 percent.” [Al Jazeera, 9/24/25]