Shit’s getting real, fast. Mueller flipped Flynn and is now digging into Trump’s personal finances.
Russ Choma and Andy Kroll at Mother Jones:
Now it’s getting personal. On Tuesday, a German newspaper reported that Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Trump-Russia scandal, has issued a subpoena to Deutsche Bank, which Donald Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars, making this financial behemoth Trump’s largest creditor. This summer, Trump said he considered his family’s personal finances a “red line” that Mueller should not cross. But by targeting Deutsche Bank with a subpoena for more information about Trump’s accounts, Mueller may well be crossing that line. More important perhaps, he is digging into a massive Trump conflict of interest and one of the biggest questions regarding Trump’s business empire: Why would this German bank lend him so much money when US banks wouldn’t?
I wouldn’t say Mueller “may well” be crossing that line; I’d say he definitely is. Deutsche Bank is not a “U.S.” bank, strictly speaking, but it does a lot of business in the U.S. and has a big headquarters in New York City. You know, where Trump used to live.
Deutsche Bank is important to Trump because U.S. banks won’t work with him. He’s a bad risk. If Deutsche Bank hadn’t extended a line of credit to him, he’d be washed up today. And today it’s said that Trump owes Deutsche Bank hundreds of millions of dollars. But the question is, why would Deutsche Bank lend him money? What’s in it for them?
Why Deutsche Bank still works with Trump (they financed most of the DC Trump hotel project, for instance) is a basic question running through the Russia story. I’ve had a couple theories. One is simply this: that years ago Trump realized that he couldn’t be shut out by every major bank. He needed at least one major lender who would still do business with him and thus made sure not to cheat or gouge them as actively as he did the others. (This wasn’t terribly credible since he got in a legal tangle with DB a few years ago demanding that he be released from his debt to the bank and be reimbursed because of the banks role in the 2008 financial crisis. Yes, he sued saying he should be released from repaying a loan.) The other possibility is that there was some extra-economic factor that kept them lending.
Along those lines many have pointed out that lots of Russian money goes through Deutsche Bank and indeed the bank has been repeatedly fined for Russian money laundering. The Deutsche Bank subpoena is certainly about probing the President’s financial ties to Russia, which are as we know extensive.
A hypothesis that explains all of the known facts: Trump is personally in debt to Russians up to his comb-over. Putin could ruin him politically and financially just by giving the word, which means Trump as POTUS must tread carefully to not overly piss off Putin. And of course his power over Trump gave Putin incentive to try to manipulate the election in Trump’s favor.
We may learn eventually that something else is going on, but so far that’s where it all seems to be pointing. Even if my hypothesis is proved wrong, it’s a safe bet that Trump’s finances, including his taxes, won’t stand up to legal scrutiny.
Also, in other news: Now Southern California is on fire.
t-RUMPLE-THIN-sKKKin will NOT let this go unpunished!
I fully expect t-RUMPLE-THIN-sKKKin to fire Mueller.
With the smoke from the fires in CA, tRUMP is also about to provide an international smokescreen – all done to take people's and the media's minds off of what he's about to do.
His international smokescreen?
Despite all plea's from the sensible Jews (which means, of course, no Bibi) and Arabs, t-RUMPLE-THIN-sKKKin is about to move our embassy to Jerusalem.
I'm sure all of our troops in the Middle East will be overjoyed to hear that. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
It seems as if, if this brain damaged, bigoted, sociopath can't start WWIII with North Korea, then the Middle East will do.
IMO – even if he doesn't fire Mueller, and Mueller comes up with some mega crimes, I doubt the Republicans in the House and Senate will have the balls to impeach tRUMP. But if they do, then they'd better impeach Pence, too. Here's the latest article proving that Pence is a Theocratic loon:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/gods-plan-for-mike-pence/546569/
OY!
God (FSM) save us from all of the "Christian" people who want to save all of us in the name of their God!
I guess they think souls are like S&H Green Stamps. The more they have in their "Book of Souls Saved," the nicer and more expensive the prizes they can claim.
Wouldn't it be something if Vlad was the co-signer on Trump's loan. Can the KGB co-sign a loan? I hope that Mueller's investigators who specialize in money laundering and fraud financially disembowel Trump and his spawn.
Maha.. Could you be so kind as to add a dancing banana, or two, to supplement this post. I'd be much obliged.
via GIPHY
Neither rain nor hail or gloom of night shall stay Mueller from issuing his appointed indictments.
Love the banana. Thanks, Maha and Swami.
Putinputschpraesidentdeutschebankherunterbringen?
I am at the point of thinking less of the Republicans than I do of Trump. But then I reconsider, and the next day I reverse myself again. Over and over.
Would it be a safe assumption to think that Mueller has already got a hold of Trump's tax returns? I'm sure his tax returns have a story to tell.
I think Kushner probably has more to fear from Mueller rooting around in Deutsche bank records than Trump has. It's no wonder he was tripping over his feet to establish a back channel connection to Russia. It could be embarrassing to the administration to find out that Vlad and his associates holds the note on Jared's 1.4 billion dollar Manhatan office building. With a street address of 666 maybe the devil "is" in the details.
In America money is power. In Russia power is money. If you lose your power you lose your money.
I think I see what is going on here. Trump gets on Deutsche Bank for a loan. Deutsche Bank gets on their syndicated loan department to see if their is a market for instruments backed by Trump real estate. The syndicated loan department gets on their sales force to see if they can line up investors before taking on the loan. The investors get on Deutsche Bank to see if they can use this paper–the loan that they will own–as collateral for a condominium in a Trump building.
If the answer to the last question is yes, the Russians can put down what is effectively an Asset Backed Security as collateral then the loan syndication can go forward.
This sort of thing referred to in many places as "money laundering" is also "capital flight" and it is a huge business for banks. The banks make money from fees and show their customers' holdings as Assets Under Management. Note that the holders of the loan face the risk if The Donald defaults. The bank has off-loaded the risk to them. And Russian money is safely in America.
Diversions, shiny objects, dancing bananas, perhaps a little stir in the middle east. The attention problems of humans must be exploited as to avoid having them attend to ugly facts concerning the groper in chief aka sold out Republican in chief. His bf in crime and collusion is suffering major embarrassment about the state sponsored doping scandal that got his team disinvited to the next Olympic games. Ylad can use this middle east diversion too, in his time of embarrassment and exposure as a cheat and a conniver. These diversions better work or Vlad may be forced to release the pee tape and the stack of I.O.U.s Mueller is looking for. As the Russians always say, it is good to have puppet strings to pull when times are tough.
Swami, Vlad effectively was a co-signor to Trump's loans. Rachel explained the Deutsche Bank money laundering connection last night. The Russian parties DB worked with were directly connected with Russian state banks, which were run by people from the Russian security apparatus, mostly certainly friends of Vlad. Russia laundered an astounding $10 billion in this manner. Although DB was fined (by NY State, not the Feds – and there's an investigation as to why this hasn't happened, take three guesses), their cut in all of this traffic must have been huge. It's almost as if (my opinion) the loans to Trump – even if he welched – would've been offset by the fantastic income DB derived from being Russia's laundromat. Don't piss off your best customer – Vladimir Putin.
Hopefully, when all is said and done (and tweeted and impeached), people will learn how con artistry works – what it is, how it operates, how to detect them before they screw you…
Bill,
As PT Barnum reportedly said, "There's a sucker born every second."
I think he underestimated the number of them born in that time period.
Shorter, con-artists/grifters will never run out of dupes.
And what's scary, is that the next conservative grifter might be way smarter than t-RUMPLE-THIN-sKKKin.