Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

We still have time to mess this up!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Russiagate / No Russians! No Russians! Open Thread

No Russians! No Russians! Open Thread

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We know that Donald Trump lies constantly, but the “no Russians” thing may be the biggest lie of all. I’ve long thought that the thing he will be caught on is money laundering. Here’s an enormous article about money laundering associated with Trump Tower and other Trump properties.

Unfortunately, an article like this isn’t enough for proof in court, but Robert Mueller has brought experts in money laundering and financial fraud onto his team. You can bet he’s looking at these transactions.

Some excerpts:

If the transaction [in 1984] seemed suspicious—multiple apartments for a single buyer who appeared to have no legitimate way to put his hands on that much money—there may have been a reason. At the time, Russian mobsters were beginning to invest in high-end real estate, which offered an ideal vehicle to launder money from their criminal enterprises. “During the ’80s and ’90s, we in the U.S. government repeatedly saw a pattern by which criminals would use condos and high-rises to launder money,” says Jonathan Winer, a deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement in the Clinton administration.

In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin pleaded guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased them to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.”

1987 was Trump’s first trip to Russia.

Trump had found his market. After Trump World Tower opened, Sotheby’s International Realty teamed up with a Russian real estate company to make a big sales push for the property in Russia. The “tower full of oligarchs,” as Bloomberg called it, became a model for Trump’s projects going forward. All he needed to do, it seemed, was slap the Trump name on a big building, and high-dollar customers from Russia and the former Soviet republics were guaranteed to come rushing in.

There are many cautions in the article about no way to connect Trump directly to the money laundering. That’s the whole point of money laundering – to keep your hands clean. Smoke, so far, but no fire yet.

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    Now is the time to turn the screws on Trump on social media. What better way to spoil his ill-earned 17-day vacation!

  3. 3.

    smintheus

    At least one of Trump’s casinos was fined for money laundering practices in the ’90s.

  7. 7.

    FlipYrWhig

    Do you think Trump _actually_ thinks the accusation is that Russian goons were running his campaign offices, and that’s why he’s acting indignant, or is he playing dumb to get people whipped into a stupid-nado?

  8. 8.

    japa21

    After he fled the country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased them to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.”

    Good old asset forfeiture in action. I understand that Sessions wants to increase the concept of asset forfeiture. My understanding is that only suspicion of a crime would be necessary. Does this mean the State of New York (we know the feds wouldn’t) could seize all of Trump’s properties in NY because they suspect him of some criminal activity?

  12. 12.

    feebog

    A lot of folks are speculating that Mueller is concentrating on the money laundering aspect opposed to collusion with Russian intelligence to influence the election. I don’t see why it couldn’t be both. Again, Manafort is the key player here. If he gets indicted and flips, it’s all over for Dolt45.

  13. 13.

    smintheus

    @japa21: Good question. The answer is, yes they will…all of them, everything. And they’ll wipe the smirk off Kushner’s face as well.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @smintheus:
    The filter is sensitive to the word “casino”* because spammers apparently use it.

    *I cheated and inserted a zero-length italic section into the middle of the word, which keeps it from tripping the spam filter.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    @feebog:

    A lot of folks are speculating that Mueller is concentrating on the money laundering aspect opposed to collusion with Russian intelligence to influence the election. I don’t see why it couldn’t be both.

    I have heard that it is because Mueller is much more likely to nail the Cheeto himself on the money laundering or other financial crimes rather than the Russian influence. I would imagine that it would be very difficult to prove Russian collusion. Whatever. Get him for anything. Don’t care.

  26. 26.

    Yarrow

    We know that Donald Trump lies constantly, but the “no Russians” thing may be the biggest lie of all.

    It’s projection. Trump always tells us what he’s guilty of.

  27. 27.

    grandpa john

    @Luthe: Maybe he knew that he wasn’t there to prosecute. he knew that he was just a gun hired to take down Clinton by any means legal or not. If justice was really blind, the bastard would be rotting in a jail cell himself

  28. 28.

    Another Scott

    Related – Adam Davidson in the New Yorker (from March):

    The timing of the project was also curious. By 2014, when the Trump Organization publicly announced that it was helping to turn the tower into a hotel, a construction boom in Baku had ended, and the occupancy rate for luxury hotels in the city hovered around thirty-five per cent. Jan deRoos, of Cornell University, who is an expert in hotel finance, told me that the developer of a five-star hotel typically must demonstrate that the project will maintain an average occupancy rate of at least sixty per cent for ten years. There is a long-term master plan to develop the area around the Trump Tower Baku, but if it is implemented the hotel will be surrounded for years by noisy construction projects, making it even less appealing to travellers desiring a luxurious experience—especially considering that there are many established hotels on the city’s seaside promenade. There, an executive from ExxonMobil or the Israeli cell-phone industry can stay at the Four Seasons, which occupies a limestone building that evokes a French colonial palace, or at the J. W. Marriott Absheron Baku, which has an outdoor terrace overlooking the water. Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, and Armani are among the dozens of companies that have boutiques along the promenade.

    A former top official in Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Tourism says that, when he learned of the Trump hotel project, he asked himself, “Why would someone put a luxury hotel there? Nobody who can afford to stay there would want to be in that neighborhood.”

    The Azerbaijanis behind the project were close relatives of Ziya Mammadov, the Transportation Minister and one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful oligarchs. According to the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, Azerbaijan is among the most corrupt nations in the world. Its President, Ilham Aliyev, the son of the former President Heydar Aliyev, recently appointed his wife to be Vice-President. Ziya Mammadov became the Transportation Minister in 2002, around the time that the regime began receiving enormous profits from government-owned oil reserves in the Caspian Sea. At the time of the hotel deal, Mammadov, a career government official, had a salary of about twelve thousand dollars, but he was a billionaire.

    The Trump Tower Baku originally had a construction budget of a hundred and ninety-five million dollars, but it went through multiple revisions, and the cost ended up being much higher. The tower was designed by a local architect, and in its original incarnation it had an ungainly roof that suggested the spikes of a crown. A London-based architecture firm, Mixity, redesigned the building, softening its edges and eliminating the ornamental roof. By the time the Trump team officially joined the project, in May, 2012, many condominium residences had already been completed; at the insistence of Trump Organization staffers, most of the building’s interior was gutted and rebuilt, and several elevators were added.

    After Donald Trump became a candidate for President, in 2015, Mother Jones, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and other publications ran articles that raised questions about his involvement in the Baku project. These reports cited a series of cables sent from the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan in 2009 and 2010, which were made public by WikiLeaks. In one of the cables, a U.S. diplomat described Ziya Mammadov as “notoriously corrupt even for Azerbaijan.” The Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, Alan Garten, told reporters that the Baku hotel project raised no ethical issues for Donald Trump, because his company had never engaged directly with Mammadov.

    Oh, it was a hands-off relationship. Ok.

    What’s that you say?

    Ivanka Trump was the most senior Trump Organization official on the Baku project. In October, 2014, she visited the city to tour the site and offer advice. An executive at Mace, the London-based construction firm that oversaw the tower’s conversion to a hotel, met with Ivanka in Baku and New York. He told me, “She had very strong feelings, not just about the design but about the back of the hotel—landscaping, everything.” The Azerbaijani lawyer said, “Ivanka personally approved everything.” A subcontractor noted that Ivanka’s team was particular about wood panelling: it chose an expensive Macassar ebony, from Indonesia, for the ceiling of the lobby. The ballroom doors were to be made of book-matched panels of walnut. On her Web site, Ivanka posted a photograph of herself wearing a hard hat inside the half-completed hotel. A caption reads, “Ivanka has overseen the development of Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku since its inception, and she recently returned from a trip to the fascinating city in Azerbaijan to check in on the project’s progress.” (Ivanka Trump declined requests to discuss the Baku project.)

    Jan deRoos, the Cornell professor, developed branded-hotel properties before entering academia. He told me that the degree of the Trump Organization’s involvement in the Baku property was atypical. “That’s very, very intense,” he said.

    Nothing to see there, I’m sure.

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  29. 29.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: If we ever get to the bottom of this, I suspect they’ll find the Trump campaign’s digital operation used stolen data received from Russian hackers to target key districts in swing states. After all, at least one House GOP operative admitted doing just that to win a seat for Brian Mast (R-FL).

  31. 31.

    Thoughtful David

    The money-laundering thing is definitely criminal, and they should nail them all on it, but that’s just plain old criminality. The story in the Dallas Morning News about almost all of the Republican presidential candidates getting Russian money, plus a bunch of senators and congressmen, is way bigger. That’s not just plain old corruption. It brings the t-word up again, attached to yet more evidence.

  32. 32.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: The only thing that would surprise me about that would be that the Trump campaign had a competent enough organization to know what to do with stolen data from Russian hackers. Maybe the RNC did the targeting?

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    @Another Scott:

    A subcontractor noted that Ivanka’s team was particular about wood panelling: it chose an expensive Macassar ebony, from Indonesia, for the ceiling of the lobby. The ballroom doors were to be made of book-matched panels of walnut.

    I know it is minor compared to all their other real crimes, but these people have just repulsive taste, and it is disproportionately upsetting to me.

  35. 35.

    Yarrow

    @Betty Cracker: @sdhays: Cambridge Analytica was smart enough to do that if they had the data. Watch what Brad Parscale does – he was Trump’s digital media director. He’s been called to testify in front of the House committee. He issued a statement saying he did nothing wrong. Uh huh. We’ll see how that goes.

  37. 37.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: McClatchyDC:

    As Donald Trump was locking up the Republican presidential nomination in May 2016, a U.S. intelligence intercept picked up Russians discussing ways to spread news damaging to Clinton, two people familiar with the matter said.

    No one has proved that Russia’s attack influenced the vote count in the Nov. 8 general election., but it wouldn’t have taken much to tip the results and change the course of history.

    Clinton lost the decisive states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by a combined 77,744 votes out of 13.9 million ballots cast. She could have won Michigan if 5,353 Trump voters had gone for her instead, Wisconsin if 11,375 votes had flipped to her and Pennsylvania if 22,147 Trump voters had instead picked her.

    Kushner’s pivotal role in the Trump cyber effort was underscored by his hiring in 2015 of Brad Parscale, a Texas-based digital guru who previously had done work for the Trump Organization, said two GOP operatives familiar with the campaign.

    Parscale’s company raked in about $90 million for work targeting many states with paid advertisements, social media messages and other cyber tools.

    As the Trump campaign’s top digital director, Parscale ran much of the operation from his San Antonio offices. He is expected to appear before at least one of several congressional committees investigating aspects of Russia’s interference in the election.

    It seems clear, from what little we know now, that the collusion was at the top of Trump’s organization, from the beginning.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  39. 39.

    Lurking Canadian

    @japa21: They could, but asset forfeiture laws appear not to apply to white collar criminals. They’re fine for taking the fifteen year old Honda Accord away from some single mother you suspect of being a drug mule, but taking away the Hampton’s estate of some banker you’ve caught laundering money for terrorists is Just Not Done.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    @zhena gogolia: Indonesian ebony and (probably) American walnut in an interior in Azerbaijan.

    Why not just put some fucking sequins all over the place? Maybe a disco ball?

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    @Thoughtful David: Yup, and it was entirely predictable when McCain-Feingold was gutted and no timely disclosure of donations was required. There’s nothing to prevent foreign donations any more, so of course millions in untraceable foreign donations would pour in.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  42. 42.

    Gelfling 545

    @FlipYrWhig: The mind of Trump is a strange and wonderful place! It is entirely possible that he believes it’s about Boris and Natasha answering the phones in campaign hq.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    @Suzanne: It’s a reflection of who they are. They make it easy for people to see their character, if they open their eyes…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Another Scott: I’m convinced the entire “Trump data operation” was just a front for using stolen data provided by hackers. Kushner was in charge of the Trump data operation. There may be some genuine data scientists in the Cambridge Analytica orbit, but Jared Kushner is not one of them.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    He’s certainly upset about anyone looking at the Trump Company books.

    It still blows me away that we know next to nothing about the Trumps and the family is running the country. We have no idea what Donald Trump owns and who and what he owes. I’m like an expert on the Obama family home mortgage and there’s this whole extended family in power and we got NOTHING. How did this happen? We have the most expensive political campaigns in the world- thousands of people cover them- and the Trump Company is a black box.

    I got more due diligence when a local slum lord ran for county commissioner than I got on the Trumps.

  46. 46.

    sdhays

    @Lurking Canadian: Asset forfeiture only works if the target of your asset seizure doesn’t have the resources to fight for their rights or the asset really is compromised and appearing in court could be a real problem for the target. If everyone who had their stuff seized could afford to have a lawyer camp out in the sheriff’s office until the asset is released, the police wouldn’t dare to use it.

    It’s such a disgusting practice. I can’t believe it actually is considered Constitutional.

  47. 47.

    Nora

    I wonder if there’s a way to make the whole asset forfeiture thing apply to EVERYBODY, not just poor people accused (or suspected) of drug crimes. I bet Sessions would back off in a second if there were any possibility that rich white people might lose their Hampton estates because of suspicions of money laundering or the like.

  48. 48.

    Thoughtful David

    @Another Scott:
    I guess my point is just that the stuff in the Dallas Morning News story is way more significant to our elections than just money laundering.

  49. 49.

    grandpa john

    @Betty Cracker: So the republican party is corrupt from top to bottom. To those of us who pay attention, this is all ready known and it has been this way from Nixon on. Nixon, Reagan,Bushes 1 &2. and now we have reached the apex of corruptness and evil Trump himself. I have lived through all these reigns of vileness and and evil and it has always seemed to be the same lies,same tactics,same evil behaviors. The repubicans are at least consistent .So by now,why haven’the Democrats been able to develop strategies to combat this war on democracies ?

  50. 50.

    Ladyraxterinok

    The religious right/Biblical prophecy people are going absolutely crazy over the solar eclipse. If interested, check out Gary Stearman and Prophecy Watchers on youtube.

    The same groups/people are very upset about CERN and its director’s supposed plan to open a ‘portal to another demension.’ Anyone here know what might be behind this claim about CERN?

  51. 51.

    Yarrow

    @Cheryl Rofer: From people that have looked at this issue, there was a significant starting point where, I think, Kushner came aboard the campaign and Cambridge Analytica got involved. I can’t remember the details but read a timeline. It’s clear from that point on, the digital media campaign and targeting really took off.

    Flynn was definitely part of that. he had a relationship of some sort with a Russian woman in Cambridge and signed his emails to her “General Misha.” The Guardian had an article about it.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    I saw Trump retweeted some Fox hack about how we better not indict any members of his family.

    Why is the President so worried? If the Trumps have been running a clean business no one will get indicted.

    The NYTimes spent like 5 years investigating Whitewater. One month looking at the Trump family holdings and the whole family are somehow at risk for indictment? Should be FINE. He has nothing to worry about.

  54. 54.

    Gelfling 545

    @smintheus: To the term for places where games of chance are available. There used to be a great deal of spam sent out by sponsors of such online.

  55. 55.

    Yarrow

    @Lurking Canadian:

    I’m convinced the entire “Trump data operation” was just a front for using stolen data provided by hackers.

    Yep. And Facebook has plenty to answer for with it too. Zuckerberg’s responses have so far been quite tepid.

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    @Yarrow:

    It’s projection. Trump always tells us what he’s guilty of.

    No kidding. About a femto-second after he tweet-whined some bullshit about Mueller better not be looking into “unrelated” business transactions of the Shitgibbon Disorganization, Mueller was on it.

    I’m waiting for Shitgibbon to whine about how Mueller better not be looking into those “totally false and mean” rumors about certain business rivals of his disappearing mysteriously.

  58. 58.

    JMG

    So Politico has another article today in which “Democratic consultants,” none of whom I ever heard of but who were willing to be quoted by name, say voters are tired of hearing about Russia and Dems shouldn’t mention it. These dudes apparently slept through the health care debate.

  59. 59.

    MattF

    Yeah, since I read that article, I’ve been expecting ‘Russian money laundering’ to become a key phrase. Not as much fun as ‘Russian pi$$ tapes’, but the deep state has its reasons. The thing about investigating suspicion about money laundering is that it invites a comprehensive forensic accounting inquiry– and I’m absolutely certain that Trump doesn’t want that.

  60. 60.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @SFAW:
    @father pussbucket:

    But unfortunately nothing will likely come of it. Too much controversy. The NRA is too high profile and has a lot of money. I imagine any prosecutor and grand jury that tried to bring charges would be at great personal risk from any one of millions of crazed gun nuts.

  61. 61.

    grandpa john

    @Kay: It happened because a too large number of voters don;t give a crap and are too fucking ignorant and lazy to inform themselves about,or demand transparency from the candidates

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    Why is the President so worried? If the Trumps have been running a clean business no one will get indicted.

    Well, it’s certainly “clean” in the sense that they don’t normally have all those filthy profits coming in.

  65. 65.

    Monala

    @Another Scott: I seem to recall a lot of Republican wailing in 2008 about Barack Obama buying a piece of land that was adjacent to his house from a Chicago gangster. Now that’s real corruption! /snark

  66. 66.

    Yarrow

    @SFAW: I think it’s the other way around. Mueller and his team have been looking into Trump’s business dealings for a long while now, as has NY AG Schneiderman. Trump got wind of it and thought if he threatened them by tweet that might scare them off. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. All it did is confirm to Mueller he’s on the right track and inform everyone else that Trump has sketchy business dealings. Trump is so easy to read it’s ridiculous.

  67. 67.

    Baud

    @Ladyraxterinok:

    The same groups/people are very upset about CERN and its director’s supposed plan to open a ‘portal to another demension.’

    A dimension where Hillary is president? Sign me up for the maiden voyage.

  68. 68.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @FlipYrWhig:
    It’s just a six year old’s goal-post shifting. It’s not a strategy, just knee-jerk defensiveness.

    @Yarrow:
    I disagree with this usage. He’s not accusing, he’s just so defensive and such an idiot he blurts out his guilty conscience. The man is a sitcom character. He’s Homer Simpson, but dumber and more ridiculous.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    @JMG:

    So Politico has another article today in which “Democratic consultants,” none of whom I ever heard of but who were willing to be quoted by name, say voters are tired of hearing about Russia and Dems shouldn’t mention it.

    Meanwhile, David Atkins at WaMo is trying to “both sides” Bro-ism.

  71. 71.

    Nora

    @Frankensteinbeck: ” He’s Homer Simpson, but dumber and more ridiculous.”
    And with worse family values. Homer, for all his faults, has only been married to one woman, and is involved in the lives of his children as they’re growing up.

  72. 72.

    Yarrow

    @Cheryl Rofer: Flynn is key to the whole thing. Rumors are he flipped months ago and they’re using his info flip people up the chain as they go. We’ll see if that’s what happened but it makes sense to me looking at how things are playing out.

  73. 73.

    MattF

    @JMG: Well, y’know, excuse me, but we’re talking about criminal activity. I realize it’s considered quaint to point that out.

  74. 74.

    germy

    @Baud:

    “Democratic consultants,” say voters are tired of hearing about Russia and Dems shouldn’t mention it.

    Tad Devine by any chance?

  76. 76.

    grandpa john

    @Ladyraxterinok: Well they could look back at the many eclipses that have occurred just in the time of recorded history and determine if any strange happenings happened, or maybe they were just events that just happened because of the cyclic nature of the universe. Why would then this eclipse be any different than the thousands or more previous eclipses.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @germy: Wouldn’t surprise me. Lefties are the only ones I’ve seen downplaying Russia (with the exception of a “Fox News Dem” I say once).

  78. 78.

    DavidTC

    A lot of folks are speculating that Mueller is concentrating on the money laundering aspect opposed to collusion with Russian intelligence to influence the election. I don’t see why it couldn’t be both.

    I don’t see how could even be just one or the other.

    The Russians didn’t decide to help Trump for no reason. They helped Trump because he had been operating money laundering for them for decades, in fact, it was really the only reason he was even above water, once the banks stopped letting him steal from them.

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @feebog:

    A lot of folks are speculating that Mueller is concentrating on the money laundering aspect opposed to collusion with Russian intelligence to influence the election. I don’t see why it couldn’t be both.

    This sounds like fairly standard prosecutorial tactics. You start out by going after whatever is easiest to prove and do it against peripheral figures who have less capable lawyers. Once you can prove something that will send the bit players away for a good long while, you can cut a deal where they give you evidence on the higher-ups. That’s how cases against organized crime are generally done.

  81. 81.

    germy

    @Baud: Tad Devine and Paul Manafort did some work together. That’s what made me curious.

    Is Tad a lefty or an opportunist?

  84. 84.

    smintheus

    @JMG: I wrote to the dude and said, dude, you’ve got to be really young because you obviously don’t know that voters were sick of hearing about Watergate until the pieces clicked into place and they suddenly weren’t sick of hearing about it.

  85. 85.

    MattF

    @grandpa john: There actually is a somewhat subtle statistical issue here. One has to bear in mind that rare events do happen– that as a class rather than individually, they are not so rare– and that typical probabilistic analysis tends to underestimate their likelihood. So, ‘rare events’ tend to be not-so rare in-real-life.

  86. 86.

    GregB

    Dinesh D’Souza was kind enough to take his felonious ass to the White House and get a photo op with Trump’s chief propagandist Bannon holding his book called The Big Lie. Trump was known to have been a fan of Hitler’s skills of oration and manipulation.

    The biggest of Trump’s lies was that he was a pro-American anti globalist. In reality he’s an anti American pro globalist. His globalist cronies are the worst of the worst autocrats and dictators who have leveraged the power of democracy to create a global elite that is immune to the application of democracy by the people. He’s the point of the spear for a global elite that wants to abolish human rights in favor of mineral, banking and corporate rights. The ultimate unaccountable plutocracy. Corporations are people and the people are Soylent Green.

  88. 88.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Yarrow: Manafort too. Paul Fucking Manafort is not going to take a fall for *anybody.* He has no conscience whatsoever, and if there’s a deal to be had, he’s getting in on the ground floor.

  89. 89.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @zhena gogolia: I agree.

    Also they were well aware they were and would be criticized for anything and everything. They doubtless made a point of avoiding doing anything that racists could further scream about.

    Btw, I never understood why Bill was dumb enough to play it up with Monica in the WH. He had to know he was under the microscope and had been since his days in Arkansas.

    Also, after it all became public, how was he able to be in the same room with Allbright and Janet Reno?? They are such strong-minded, straight-arrow, uncompromising women.

  92. 92.

    MattF

    @feebog: I suspect Mueller is doing a little bureaucratic positioning– a money laundering investigation requires a bigger staff and is less perilous than a political investigation, so if you’re looking to build up your organization and finesse opposition, money laundering is the way to go.

  96. 96.

    Roger Moore

    @Lurking Canadian:

    They could, but asset forfeiture laws appear not to apply to white collar criminals.

    There’s a good, practical reason for that: the whole process depends on the victim not being able to fight back. It’s easy to seize the property of somebody who has trouble affording a lawyer for their personal defense, especially when the amount you’re seizing would barely cover the lawyer needed to fight the procedure. But when you’re dealing with a rich criminal who has other assets you can’t justify seizing, you’re going to have to fight every step of the way. It’s way easier to get the conviction and then go after the assets, or to cut a deal where they surrender some of what you’re trying to seize as part of the bargain.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    @JMG: you don’t recognize them?
    Then, they are not important.
    Edited to say- not being snarky towards you..
    But, either they are not important, or they are bought off.
    The actual BASE of the Democratic Party is VERY interested in Russia and is waiting for the investigation.

  100. 100.

    Yarrow

    @Cheryl Rofer: Oh, yeah. There are so many of them. Flynn has the ties to the Russian connections and the data theft and usage. Not as sure what he knows about the money-laundering, at least stuff that goes back decades.

    @Gin & Tonic: Manafort may want a deal but he may not get one. Depends what they need and what Manafort can offer. If they don’t need what he knows, then he may not get a deal.

    @Cheryl Rofer: Not just flipping the low level guys…

  102. 102.

    grandpa john

    @MattF: In this case, it seems most likely that they are attempting to say this is the only eclipse that has ever happened in the USA. the reason to say this is they are planning on some kind of huge scam. Gotta make money off of any unusual event

  104. 104.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Ladyraxterinok: WRT Clinton, there are two competing explanations.

    First is that getting twenty-year-old tail is viewed as just a perk of the job. This is a genuine case of “both sides do it”, and the old rules were to look the other way. At the same time that he was leading a campaign against Clinton for adultery, Gingrich was cheating on his wife. Clinton didn’t realize the rules had changed to IOKIYAR until it was too late.

    Second possibility is that in Clinton’s case, it might be pathological. Youthful Clinton has such a “horndog” reputation that he might genuinely not have been able to resist temptation.

  107. 107.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Roger Moore: That’s a practical reason for sure. I wouldn’t call it a good reason. It just makes obvious the extent to which there are two sets of laws in America: rich people laws and everybody else laws. (I should add that I don’t think you, Roger Moore, are expressing support for this state of affairs.)

  108. 108.

    Lurking Canadian

    @daWreck: Oh come on! Who’s writing this shit, seriously? Are we living in the first draft of a book Stephen King wrote during a coke binge?

  109. 109.

    Suzanne

    @Lurking Canadian: Many people—and in my experience, especially horny dudes—are able to convince themselves that the negative consequences of whatever they want to do are simply just not going to happen.

    Contrast that with me, who sneezes and immediately self-diagnoses with some fatal disease.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    I think that there is part of the Democratic political professionals that simply don’t understand that the Democrats on the ground have no intention of turning the other cheek. Have no intention of letting things go. And, any muthaphucka who suggests that must be shown the door.

  112. 112.

    Roger Moore

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Among Mueller’s team of experts, one has experience in flipping the low-level guys.

    That one may be the federal government’s greatest expert, but I sincerely doubt there’s just one person on the team with experience in that area. It’s the kind of thing they teach baby prosecutors straight out of the bar exam.

  113. 113.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Lurking Canadian:
    I think both are true. He does have a reputation and public image of the emotionally needy sex addict. At the same time, both for women and men, taking advantage of power, wealth, and fame is historically the norm. Even in loving marriages. It’s class acts like the Obamas who are the exception.

  115. 115.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:
    I think it’s nutpicking. The media, mainstream and grassroots, goes out of its way to find the Democrat who makes the Democratic Party look bad. They will sift through a mountain of liberal awesomeness to find the quote that out of context suggests we’re false to our values. They will dredge the ocean for that one congressman who makes Republican policies sound ‘bipartisan.’

  118. 118.

    feebog

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Paul Fucking Manafort is not going to take a fall for *anybody.* He has no conscience whatsoever, and if there’s a deal to be had, he’s getting in on the ground floor.

    This. Manafort is a human weasel and will turn on Trump in an instant if it means staying out of prison, or even a reduced sentence. Manafort is up to his neck in money laundering schemes and it is all recent enough to be within the statute of limitations. I see Flynn as someone who will take a bullet if necessary. But of course I hope I’m wrong and they flip him as well.

  119. 119.

    Chris

    @GregB:

    The biggest of Trump’s lies was that he was a pro-American anti globalist. In reality he’s an anti American pro globalist.

    Yeah, this tends to be how fascism and those xenophobic movements work. I remember reading the book “McMafia” about the rise of international organized crime, and one of the points it stressed when it got to the Balkans was that at the same time the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian populations were in a genocidal war with each other, the organized crime and shady business networks in all three nations – which were usually attached at the hip with the militant leaderships – were all in bed together and business was better than ever.

    Then there’s Middle Eastern jihadists and American right-wingers, both of whom are attached at the hip with the conservative elites in Riyadh and Washington, which are, in turn, attached at the hip with each other. And of course there’s World War Two itself, during which every fascist who wasn’t German, if they didn’t begin as a useful idiot for Germany, had certainly become that by the end.

    During the Cold War, those kinds of people even had their own internationale, the World Anti-Communist League. Ex-Nazis, neo-Nazis, Ustashis, monarchists, colonialists, apartheiders, Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, Latin American and East Asian military dictators and death squads and their assorted drug dealers, you name it. All people who got along a lot better with each other than with most of their fellow countrymen.

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @Monala:

    Like you have a lot of choice about who you buy the vacant lot next to your home from: THE PERSON WHO OWNS IT~!!!

    That’s the only person you can buy it from. No matter who that is. AND the worse the reputation of that owner, the more important it is for the typical home owner to buy that lot!

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