BREAKING! Robert Mueller Would Be Fucking Stupid If He DIDN’T Subpoena Trump Organization
The NYT has everyone all huffing and puffing about their scoop that Robert Mueller has subpoenaed documents from the Trump Organization.
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization to turn over documents, including some related to Russia, according to two people briefed on the matter. The order is the first known time that the special counsel demanded documents directly related to President Trump’s businesses, bringing the investigation closer to the president.
The breadth of the subpoena was not clear, nor was it clear why Mr. Mueller issued it instead of simply asking for the documents from the company, an umbrella organization that oversees Mr. Trump’s business ventures. In the subpoena, delivered in recent weeks, Mr. Mueller ordered the Trump Organization to hand over all documents related to Russia and other topics he is investigating, the people said.
The NYT then goes on to suggest this tells us anything new about how long this investigation will take.
The subpoena is the latest indication that the investigation, which Mr. Trump’s lawyers once regularly assured him would be completed by now, will drag on for at least several more months. Word of the subpoena comes as Mr. Mueller appears to be broadening his investigation to examine the role foreign money may have played in funding Mr. Trump’s political activities.
It further speculates this might cross a “red line” they put there themselves back in July, a red line commentators routinely report incorrectly as pertaining to any business interests of his.
Mr. Mueller could run afoul of a line the president has warned him not to cross. Though it is not clear how much of the subpoena is related to Mr. Trump’s business beyond ties to Russia, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times in July that the special counsel would be crossing a “red line” if he looked into his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia.
BREAKING: Robert Mueller would be fucking stupid if he weren’t subpoenaing this information.
First, of all, we know that in the late part of last year, Mueller was locking in testimony from everyone involved in the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, and he subsequently recalled at least one of the participants back for seconds. We know there’s good reason to believe the public story the participants are telling about the meeting doesn’t make sense, and that they may be hiding a second part of the meeting. We know Mueller is examining Trump’s relationship with the Agalarovs, in particular. We know from what Sam Nunberg has told us he was asked about the Miss Universe contest. From his subpoena, we know that Mueller is dating his investigative scope from the time, in 2015, when Trump was considering yet another Moscow Trump Tower deal. Several key witnesses, notably Don Jr and Rhona Graff were interviewed [by Congress] as Trump Organization employees, represented by Abe Futerfas.
All of this pertains to Trump’s business! And it is common practice among prosecutors, especially prosecutors dealing with shifty types, to first ask for voluntary production, and then subpoena it. It would be stupid of Mueller to not do the same here.
Robert Mueller is not stupid. Therefore it is not BREAKING news that he is subpoenaing this information, and it may even mean he’s doing that just so he can finalize presentations to the grand jury, particularly given the “recent weeks” timing — the most interesting detail about this report.
One more thing. As I said, while the NYT got their own reporting right, most people quoting from it misquote what Trump actually said about any red line. Here’s the exchange.
SCHMIDT: Last thing, if Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?
HABERMAN: Would that be a breach of what his actual charge is?
TRUMP: I would say yeah. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t — I don’t — I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows? I don’t make money from Russia. In fact, I put out a letter saying that I don’t make — from one of the most highly respected law firms, accounting firms. I don’t have buildings in Russia. They said I own buildings in Russia. I don’t. They said I made money from Russia. I don’t. It’s not my thing. I don’t, I don’t do that. Over the years, I’ve looked at maybe doing a deal in Russia, but I never did one. Other than I held the Miss Universe pageant there eight, nine years [crosstalk].
SCHMIDT: But if he was outside that lane, would that mean he’d have to go?
[crosstalk]
HABERMAN: Would you consider——
TRUMP: No, I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia. So I think if he wants to go, my finances are extremely good, my company is an unbelievably successful company. And actually, when I do my filings, peoples say, “Man.” People have no idea how successful this is. It’s a great company. But I don’t even think about the company anymore. I think about this. ’Cause one thing, when you do this, companies seem very trivial. O.K.? I really mean that. They seem very trivial. But I have no income from Russia. I don’t do business with Russia. The gentleman that you mentioned, with his son, two nice people. But basically, they brought the Miss Universe pageant to Russia to open up, you know, one of their jobs. Perhaps the convention center where it was held. It was a nice evening, and I left. I left, you know, I left Moscow. It wasn’t Moscow, it was outside of Moscow.
Aside from the prompted feel of the question (as if Trump or Chris Ruddy set these reporters up to pose the questions so Trump could “warn” Mueller), it pertains only to business unrelated to Russia. Trump seems to admit that the mobbed up Russians buying his condos would be pertinent, his Miss Universe contest, and his serial efforts to get a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Even the example the NYT points to today — the involvement of UAE in some pre-inauguration meetings — pertains to Russia, as one of the points of the meetings were to set up a back channel with … Russia.
I think Jared Kushner’s business ties … that’s a different issue. But as to the substance of Trump’s purported red line, nothing in today’s report says Mueller has crossed that (even if he cared about such things).
So let’s sum up:
- Robert Mueller would be fucking stupid not to subpoena stuff he had already received
- Robert Mueller is not fucking stupid
- Therefore, that Robert Mueller has subpoenaed this stuff is not BREAKING news
Shew. Glad I got that off my chest.
Update: I realized in reading CNN’s version of this BREAKING news that they reported in January that Mueller had already obtained documents from Trump Org voluntarily.
ITYM Alan Futerfas.
The main detail of interest here would be the timing, but HaberSchmidt didn’t get that from their sources — presumably Family Business or its lawyers? — which is, I suppose, interesting to the extent that those sources don’t want it made public.
It would be very interesting to know the precise timing of the delivery…
One wonders exactly when it was delivered and what causal effect, if any, it had on all the recent cabinet shuffles, general panic and reports of firing noises that have been coming from the administration of late.
That, I think, is the only news — that the subpoena was delivered in recent weeks.
I’m surprised Trump Org docs weren’t locked down a lot sooner given the Moscow beauty pageant in 2013 and the October 2015 letter of intent wrt Trump Tower-Moscow.
LOL. I had merged Futerfas and Fortas.
Now why did I think of the far more illustrious corrupt lawyer?
Alan Futerfas, the trombone player? (Julliard grad, I believe, turned mob lawyer.) I always knew those trombone players were slippery and slide-y.
Futerfas: Mr. President, I trust you’ve seen the report in the NYT about the subpoena we have received.
Trump: Yes, you idiot – of course I’ve seen it. You’re going to squash it, right? Mueller has no right to go after those things, right? It’s gonna get tossed by the courts, right?
Futerfas: Well, . . . it’s like this.
Mueller may not be . . . what you said . . . but years of evidence makes it clear that Trump certainly is, and he has likely filled his organization with similar people.
It’s not breaking news as in, “Holy crap, I’m shocked, get me to the fainting couch or pass the laudanum at once!”. But it is interesting that these type of stories always follow the “Trump is looking to fire Sessions and then Mueller” rumblings that keep rearing their heads. Or as of late, the petty vindictive nature of contemplating firing McCabe days before his retirement. Killing off Tillerson after his harsh words on Russia, etc. It’s as if whenever Trump gets too full of himself, knocking down pins and feeling invincible, these stories remind everyone, THE PRESIDENT IS UNDER INVESTIGATION. For people rolling along and not paying much attention, it’s a big headline (it made it to the top of the local NY stations, for example).
Ask Peter Carr if it is breaking news?
Thought I’d repeat that. Mueller would not only be stupid, he would be incompetent and grossly negiligent. He’s not.
The data from those sources is precisly where a criminal would hide information from his campaign, hide it from law enforcement, and allow himself the ability to say categorically he, she or it did not do something – when it was some other guy or it that he controlled that acted illegally.
Reminds me of a lawyer who defended discovery at a company by saying that she’d have to check with her client. She owned the company, she was the client.
Good to remember that Donald Trump thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room and that his first and best lawyer was Roy Cohn. Time for Bob Mueller to let Don know that school’s out and that the playground has different rules.
Actually, Robert Mueller has a good bit of baggage of his own, when it comes to the subject of “negligence”.
His countenance of the criminality of 9-11 should not be forgotten in any effort to cast him as a paragon of virtue in the defense of our democratic way.
There may be a ‘line’, but what the media portrays it as, is not the reality.
Parse the Potus comments closely. He paused, he did not want to inadvertently reveal something.
I believe Mueller knows what it is, and he has not even come close to crossing it.
I believe Sessions knows what the ‘line’ is too.
Pence probably knows also. At least most of it.
Likely very few others know. Very few.
I left out Rosenstein. He knows the ‘line’.
I am sure Obama knows what is going on too. He also knows what the ‘line’ is. Biden would also have a clue too.
If one were to ask Obama or Biden about this,
I am sure they will say ‘no comment’.
Anyone in media, prove me wrong.
McCabe, Comey, and Wray also would know.
McCabe, how odd to me that the one alleged beneficiary of McCabe’s green light to talk about Clinton Foundation investigation, well thought of Devlin Barrett, only a few days later broke the 650,000 emails on Weiner’s laptop story. https://www.wsj.com/articles/laptop-may-include-thousands-of-emails-linked-to-hillary-clintons-private-server-1477854957. Just saying if Barrett’s sources burned him, he knows who they are. If the IG is calling for firing employees for leaking there are some more holes in SS FBI.
Lots of holes across IC. Not just FBI.
But, you must give some credit to Mueller for trying to minimize leaks.
Though in recent weeks, things seem funny.
Like, FBI IT systems are hacked. Call me surprised.
Weaponized media, one reason to only communicate with the media in writing and promptly publish the entire communication. The McCabe shitfire is just a preamble for Comey’s. Repeating that one of the things Comey will be attacked on is his 2017 testimony on Weiner’s laptop and the shortly thereafter correction letter from the FBI neither of which are copacetic with the “leak” to Barrett.
And that is about it, the few that *should* know.
Others should *not* know.
I think it is breaking news, because, first of all, it’s news, and second of all, it’s a potential flashpoint for the unstable president.
McMaster out.
*Cue up Queen* And another one gone and another one gone…
I wish I could echo Freddie and say it doesn’t really matter much to me.
Trump is having fun, playing Apprentice, with no chair for his soon-to-be former NatSec Adviser. It’s a game, it makes him feel powerful when he knows he’s not, it distracts from Mueller closing in. Pity neither his Cabinet nor Congress feels it necessary to put Donny in time out and hire a real president. Nobody wants to take the heat for it, like not wanting to fess up for having torching the principal’s car on bonfire night.
I don’t think the dumpster fire is even at full throttle yet. It’s just warming up. Which is terrifying, really.
From your link:
So the maniac has gone mad with power? Aw Fuck.
I truly don’t need this additional stress. I’ve been on “tilt” for more than a year. But, perhaps this grotesque brute will initiate the destruction of humanity by the time my daughter dies and I can quit giving a shit.
I’m very sorry about your daughter. Take care of yourself and family. Recognizing that Trump is out of your control, or more generally out of control, make your moments together poignant and special. Then you can come back in fighting shape when you’re ready.
I am so sorry to read this. Nothing else to say. Do what is good for you. And helps you.
@Trip, off-topic from other thread, as I was traveling – RT claimed Skripal might have committed suicide badly or just overdosed (not Putin directly) – like everyone takes radioactive poison as a “drug”. Nasty bastards. Hope UK pulls their broadcast license.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/jeremy-corbyn/news/93510/jeremy-corbyn-rejects-john-mcdonnell
@Desider, maybe I’m out of it, I think that article alludes to RT’s statement, but doesn’t run the quote in context. Are we sure that their (RT’s) tone and comment was in earnest, or was it perhaps deadpan Russian sarcasm?
On the other hand, Putin’s election is here, and I could never imagine RT having a critical eye cast in his direction. They may be spot on with the sins of the west, but they really never cast their gaze inward at their leader.
The Russian people aren’t stupid. They may wish to suspend disbelief, like we do in the US, but no one can really buy that this would be a chosen method of suicide. The logistics of getting this agent coupled with the suffering involved makes zero rational sense.
‘Kremlin TV’ faces Commons ban after claims Skripals overdosed
Andrew Gilligan and Caroline Wheeler
March 11 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
The Kremlin’s English-language TV channel could be removed from parliament. For almost a day, it covered the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal by suggesting they might have overdosed on recreational drugs. Now the Kremlin’s English-language TV channel, RT, faces removal from parliament after the leader of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, told The Sunday Times she would ask for a review of whether it should be screened at Westminster. RT, formerly known as Russia Today, says the British media have “gone mad” in the quest to find a “Russia link [to the Skripal attack] despite no evidence”. The channel prides itself on “reporting what the mainstream media doesn’t” and last week gave substantial airtime to a claim that the Skripals were potential drug abusers who had fallen ill after taking fentanyl, an opioid “responsible for 60 deaths in the UK last year”. A former MI5 officer, Annie Machon, was interviewed to lend credence to the story, saying that “there seems to be little motivation [for Russia] to do anything against him. This might just be some sort of drug incident.” Polly Boiko, a reporter for the station, described the prominence given in Britain to the Skripal affair as “remarkable” and said “outraged commentators” were “banging their fists on tables”.
They definitely were seeking whatever “plausible” explanation they could come up with. Thanks Desider. Throwing spaghetti at the wall.
That’s just Haberman normalizing Trump’s behavior into what’s recognizable to the over-ambitious lot living inside the Beltway and on the Upper East Side. Nothing to see. Move along.
@earl, the most frightening aspect of this is the consideration and prospect of Bolton as a replacement:
Oct. 16, 2009
Bolton Backs Israeli Nuke Strike on Iran?
Listen to a recording of Bush’s UN ambassador appearing to endorse a nuclear attack.
John Bolton suggested a way to resolve the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program: Israel should launch a nuclear attack on Iran. Speaking to the University Republicans and the Chicago Friends of Israel, Bolton, George W. Bush’s hawkish ambassador to the United Nations, said, “Unless Israel is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran’s program, Iran will have nuclear weapons in the very near future.” Bolton has repeatedly declared that Iran’s nuclear program is unacceptable. Given that he holds this position, his contention that the only way to prevent a nuclear Iran is with a nuclear attack appears to be a backdoor endorsement of just such a strike.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/10/tape-bolton-israel-should-nuke-iran/
Bolton Nomination Another Affront to Sanity
by Jude Wanniski Posted on March 08, 2005
In recent weeks, Bolton pulled out every stop to try to block Mohammed ElBaradei from getting a third term as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Why? Because ElBaradei had refused to play ball with the neocons in their scheme to persuade the White House that Iran should be dealt with harshly for having nuclear weapons programs. Bolton spread the word that maybe even Israel should bomb Iran the way it bombed Iraq’s nuclear power plant in 1981. As I told the NATO workshop, ElBaradei is the probably the most respected official of the world’s international agencies, the most honest and effective, which is why the neocons wanted him out. Bolton thought he could buy off the votes he needed to drive a stake through ElBaradei’s heart, but a survey of the IAEA board showed he could only get one or two votes of the 35 he needed, the U.S. being one of them…When President Bush chose Colin Powell to be secretary of state in 2001, the neocons who control the veep made it a condition that Bolton be given the #3 post at State, the “arms control” post. An arms-control chief at Foggy Bottom would normally be expected to support all efforts to support the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to contain the spread of nuclear weapons. Not Bolton. If diplomacy would have worked to keep North Korea and Iran from threatening the U.S. with nukes, what would there be for the warriors to do? So Bolton’s instructions were to irritate Pyongyang and Tehran, both signatories to the NPT, so they would become mean and ugly.
https://original.antiwar.com/jude-wanniski/2005/03/08/bolton-nomination-another-affront-to-sanity/
John Bolton and the United States’ Retreat from International Law
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0964663905057591#
March 14, 2005
John Bolton’s Baggage
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 1997, Bolton articulated his dismissive view of international treaties. “Treaties are law only for U.S. domestic purposes,” he wrote, “In their international operation, treaties are simply political obligations.” In other words, international treaties signed by the United States should not be considered as a body of law that the United States should respect in its international engagement but rather just political considerations that can be ignored at will.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/03/14/john-bolton-s-baggage/
wait until john bolton get in, chops off every (or any) sane head sitting on the national security council, and gets cranked up on war – with iran, with russia or chins (limited, proxy of course), with kim j. un.
exciting times ahead.
trump, it turns out to my surprise, is just another extremely rich, profoundly ignorant, lemming-like guy raised in the cloistered, rightwing, agreed-upon-behavior worshipping social confines of the very rich.
*Cue Queen*, again:
Vanessa Trump, Donald Trump Jr.’s Wife, Files for Divorce
A onetime model with the Wilhelmina agency, Ms. Trump was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and once dated the actor Leonardo DiCaprio. At the time of their engagement, Mr. Trump accepted a ring from the Bailey Banks & Biddle jewelry store in Short Hills, N.J., in exchange for publicity, recreating his proposal in a New Jersey mall.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/us/trump-jr-divorce-vanessa.html
Some people are speculating that Junior is playing hide and shift the assets. I’m not on this team. What goes to Vanessa would not be safe from government confiscation should things go in that direction. As an aside, Junior, supposedly part of this rich and successful family, was so greedy or cheap that he accepted a free engagement ring bartered for publicity in a NJ Mall. The ‘not wanting to pay for things’ and willing to be a spectacle seems to have been passed on through DNA.
Anyway…
How do you think I’m going to get along
Without you, when you’re gone
You took me for everything that I had
And kicked me out on my own
Are you happy, are you satisfied?
How long can you stand the heat?
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat
Look out…
What if Stupid is Donald Trump and Fucking is a verb. Symbolically of course.
Red Line! Red Line! Red Line!
In a pre-Donald world, a president-elect would have divested his business interests and put his funds into a blind trust. (He would also have released his tax returns.) Trustees would have made investments on his behalf, but would not have disclosed to him individual investments or, possibly, the industries or foreign markets involved. That would be to avoid conflicts of interest that could influence his decisions regarding national policy and national security.
Donald’s businesses were apparently too sprawling and messy, possibly poorly documented, too dependent on his outsized personality for value, and too risky to divest. Donald chose not to divest and Congress let him. Divestiture would have involved the sale of his businesses. That involves documentation, identifying the ownership or other interests being transferred, dsisclosure of material facts about market value and risk. It involves recognition of gain or loss and tax liability associated with it. Avoiding all of the above seems to have been more important to Donald Trump than performing competently and legally his obligations as president.
A fallback position, itself still aggressive, might have been for the president to keep his businesses, but to be more transparent about them and to recuse himself from making decisions as president that might affect them. Adequate transparency would have required, among other things, releasing his tax returns. An unusual option, but defensible within limits – depending on the adequacy of the transparency and the associated recusal. Trump did neither of those things.
Donald Trump, his campaign, and his businesses are now the targets of official FBI investigations, owing to credible allegations that his campaign was illegally assisted by foreign, Russian-linked interests. Other crimes discovered in the course of that investigation can also be pursued.
The president, prompted by protective reporters, asserts that he can redline information about his business and personal finances. He claims he can draw a line in the sand and declare that information off limits and out of bounds to the FBI. That’s nonsense. It’s like Harvey Weinstein declaring his sexual life to be personal and off-limits to investigators. Donald Trump’s imaginary red line looks a lot like obstruction. And the press is helping him do it.
NYT is acting like this doesn’t exist:
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave Mueller broad authority not only to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated” with Trump’s campaign, but also to examine “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation”, and to to investigate “any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a)”.*
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3726381/Robert-Mueller-Special-Counsel-Russia.pdf
*The reference to 28 C.F.R. Section 600.4(a) authorizes Special Counsel Mueller to investigate and prosecute “federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel’s investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses.”
Why are they egging on a fight or further action by Trump against Mueller and pretending that Mueller doesn’t have authority? They aren’t reporting news, they are creating it, by stirring drama.
Far from recusing himself, Donald is making money off the presidency, through his retained ownership in his businesses. He directs federal expenditures to them, such as by his oddly frequent visits. Corporations and foreign states spend money at them, too, in attempts to curry favor with el presidente. Congress and the press are letting him get away with that, too.
The obstruction can be readily facilitated if Trump replaces Sessions with someone who needn’t recuse herself from overseeing Mueller’s investigation. If that new AG fires Mueller or terminates his investigation, will this Congress react with more than a yawn?
It goes without saying, but the Family Business cannot operate transparently because it is a giant check-kiting and racketeering operation. The opacity of its structure is how and why it functions — “the purpose of a system is what it does” — and we only get glimpses of it thanks to jurisdictions that require companies to file reports, e.g. the Scottish golf properties.
The complexity makes it hard to report in a way that’s digestible to the public, but it’s also not helped by large companies operating in similar ways. (Just think of the GOP tax bill proponents talking about “ordinary families” with two or three pass-through LLCs.)
I wonder the extent to which the Manafort charges are a kind of high-profile introduction to this world of money sluicing through different countries and corporate vehicles.
There is that possibility. I imagine Mr. Mueller is considering whether the Trump Organization has been profitable because it used its properties around the world to facilitate money laundering.
The desperate attempt to shred documents at Trump’s nominally failing name-only property in Panama suggests that something besides payroll, maintenance and marketing records were being hidden from view by owners and government officials.
The MSM has widely adopted the idea that Trump has “redlined” information about his personal and business finances, in an attempt to keep it away from a top federal prosecutor. Its obsession with redlining threatens to bait Trump, to goad him into overreacting.
Its top reporters and organizations have covered Trump for years and know him well. They know he is obsessed with appearing hyper-masculine. He is hyper-sensitive to challenges to his authority. That’s especially true when he hasn’t a clue about what he’s doing or is intentionally ignoring rational political and legal advice.
Trump has reason enough to fear Mueller’s review of detailed Trump Organization records. But privacy isn’t a legitimate issue under these circumstances. Nor is the scope of Mueller’s authority a legitimate issue. The most likely thing Trump is afraid of is that a federal prosecutor will find acts that merit prosecution. That’s cause for Congress and the press to support the process Mueller, the FBI and DoJ are engaged in. It is not reason to goad this all too goadable president to overreact and generate one more constitutional crisis.
The Trump Company is cracking
“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen
Cohen had some brilliant lyrics.
I think this Tom Waits’ song hits the nail on the head with who we’re dealing with:
(intentionally broken link):
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9mhsW5aWJM
There’s leak, there’s a leak, in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers…
God’s away, God’s away,
God’s away on Business. Business, (repeat)…
God damn there’s always such a big temptation
To be good, To be good
There’s always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby
It’s a deal, it’s a deal
This is a viral comment on Reddit and wanted to hear your feedback on it Marcy. The comment was generated under a post regarding a Guardian article entitled, “Trump Organization ‘negotiated with sanctioned Russian bank in 2016”:
“Keep in mind we have learned about numerous communications between Jared Kushner (who can’t obtain a security clearance) and VEB, the Russian development bank. That bank is also under sanctions and is distinct from the bank at issue in this article.
Some backstory on VEB? The New York branch office was used as a front to host Russian spies as recently as 2013. It led to the prosecution and conviction of Buryakov and charges against several other Russian spies who fled the country. And who did those spies working under the cover of being VEB bankers try to recruit? None other than Carter Page.
And guess what? Donald Trump’s partners in the development of the Trump Tower Moscow project negotiated a loan with yet another sanctioned Russian Bank, Sberbank. This development was first reported by Scott Stedman a student journalist who has uncovered a number of these financial connections through document searches.
So now we are up to, what, three separate sanctioned Russian banks that Donald Trump or his organization were negotiating with during the election? You want to talk about dirt and blackmail? Say what you will about possible salacious videos, but this is criminal activity and Russia has known about it the whole time. They have leverage.”
Articles linked too in comment:
1) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/15/trump-organization-negotiated-with-sanctioned-russian-bank-in-2016
2) http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-veb-putin-bank-that-jared-kushner-met-2017-6
3) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/us/politics/carter-page-trump-russia.html
4) https://twitter.com/EricBowser/status/974097784012976128