I don't know what Trump is covering up, but if he's not covering anything up he's an even bigger imbecile than I think he is. Given his behavior, it's hard for me to believe that there's nothing for a special counsel to find.
Everyone focuses on collusion with the Rooskies in their assault on our election, and maybe there's something there, at least among Trump's slimier aparatchiks like Michael Flynn, Paul Mannafort, and Carter Page. But I think Trump's real problem has to do with the sleazy financial world he's inhabited since his catastrophic 1990s bankruptcies cut him off from much of the legitimate financial sector. Josh Marshall has been all over this:
But again, it's hard for me to believe that Tump's obvious coverup isn't intended to cover anything up. I think there's something there, even if it isn't the something that's publicly identified. Pretty much everything he's said and done would make sense if he were financially compromised by Russian business partners he couldn't afford to acknowledge -- and therefore he had to shut down investigations that were dangerously adjacent to his secret dealings.
Admittedly I'm way out over my skis here. This is inferences and speculation from scattered stories that really aren't making news. I can't claim this is solidly sourced or well grounded. But it's what I suspect may be true, given Trump's history and current behavior.
In any event, I'd encourage those who scoff at the appointment of a special counsel to take a pause. Mueller can investigate virtually anything that arises out of what's known, and the history of independent counsel investigations runs far afield of here they begin. Trump should be worried if there's anything troublesome in the vicinity of these investigations -- and Trump looks for all the world like a deeply troubled man. I suspect there's a reason for that.
Everyone focuses on collusion with the Rooskies in their assault on our election, and maybe there's something there, at least among Trump's slimier aparatchiks like Michael Flynn, Paul Mannafort, and Carter Page. But I think Trump's real problem has to do with the sleazy financial world he's inhabited since his catastrophic 1990s bankruptcies cut him off from much of the legitimate financial sector. Josh Marshall has been all over this:
As you’ve seen, what I’ve been focused on in recent months are a series of business ventures over the last couple decades – either involving President Trump or his close associates – which seemed to rely on capital from people from the former Soviet Union or recent emigres from those countries. Trump himself, Felix Sater, Michael Cohen and many others figure into this as well as Manafort, Trump’s children, the Kushners and still others. My interest of course is to understand the roots of Trump’s affinity with the post-Soviet oligarch world and whatever financial ties or dependence he has on it. But even if you take the Russia/former Soviet Union connection with its geopolitical dynamics out of the equation, you simply can’t read over these deals and not see that Trump and his crew just play way out on the outer fringe of legality at best. At best. People who have done or subsequently did time in the US or other countries repeatedly appear in the picture. So do people from organized crime. A lot.
One thing you find looking through Trump’s history is that after his fall from financial grace a quarter century ago this pattern seemed to become part of the business model. Cut off from capital from the big banks and most people interested in not losing their money, he had to do business with people with decidedly sketchier reputations. Those people, often looking for places to park wealth in real estate, had to accept much higher levels of risk than people with clean reputations. That seemed to lead them to Trump.
Then there’s another level of it. Even apart from big bad acts and corrupt deals, look at the stuff David Fahrenthold dug up on the Trump Foundation and his Potemkin charitable giving. Beyond issues of possible illegality, the big takeaway there was that Trump operates with a seemingly almost total disregard for rule-following or even a lot of elementary record keeping. So on top of substantively shady deals things are executed in really slapdash and hazard ways. In other words, the Trump Organization sounds a lot like the Trump White House. Only it’s a private company, surrounded by a moat of NDAs, all examined by little more than the thin scrutiny of the New York tabloids.
Here are just a couple examples of some color from the kinds of associations and business dealings I’m talking about: one and two.
A forensic accountant would obviously be able to make more sense of the details and, in an investigative context, have access to a vastly greater number of those details. But even with a basic investigative reporting background, you can’t work through even part of Trump’s business history without finding numerous ventures that look like they would not survive first contact with real prosecutorial scrutiny. A key element, perhaps the key element, of the counter-intelligence probe is examining the financial ties between Trump, members of his entourage and people from the Russian business and intelligence worlds. So a close examination of those ventures isn’t some fishing expedition. It’s at the heart of the investigation. A close look at what is available in public records, court filings and news reporting makes me think that that kind of scrutiny would not end well for any of the people involved.
I suspect that Trump is deeply compromised by heavy reliance on dirty money, in large part from Russian oligarchs. I suspect that his dodgy financial dealings with shady counter parties would be deeply problematic if they were ever exposed. Admittedly, there are only sketchy news reports to confirm any parts of this. I'm mostly speculating here.One thing you find looking through Trump’s history is that after his fall from financial grace a quarter century ago this pattern seemed to become part of the business model. Cut off from capital from the big banks and most people interested in not losing their money, he had to do business with people with decidedly sketchier reputations. Those people, often looking for places to park wealth in real estate, had to accept much higher levels of risk than people with clean reputations. That seemed to lead them to Trump.
Then there’s another level of it. Even apart from big bad acts and corrupt deals, look at the stuff David Fahrenthold dug up on the Trump Foundation and his Potemkin charitable giving. Beyond issues of possible illegality, the big takeaway there was that Trump operates with a seemingly almost total disregard for rule-following or even a lot of elementary record keeping. So on top of substantively shady deals things are executed in really slapdash and hazard ways. In other words, the Trump Organization sounds a lot like the Trump White House. Only it’s a private company, surrounded by a moat of NDAs, all examined by little more than the thin scrutiny of the New York tabloids.
Here are just a couple examples of some color from the kinds of associations and business dealings I’m talking about: one and two.
A forensic accountant would obviously be able to make more sense of the details and, in an investigative context, have access to a vastly greater number of those details. But even with a basic investigative reporting background, you can’t work through even part of Trump’s business history without finding numerous ventures that look like they would not survive first contact with real prosecutorial scrutiny. A key element, perhaps the key element, of the counter-intelligence probe is examining the financial ties between Trump, members of his entourage and people from the Russian business and intelligence worlds. So a close examination of those ventures isn’t some fishing expedition. It’s at the heart of the investigation. A close look at what is available in public records, court filings and news reporting makes me think that that kind of scrutiny would not end well for any of the people involved.
But again, it's hard for me to believe that Tump's obvious coverup isn't intended to cover anything up. I think there's something there, even if it isn't the something that's publicly identified. Pretty much everything he's said and done would make sense if he were financially compromised by Russian business partners he couldn't afford to acknowledge -- and therefore he had to shut down investigations that were dangerously adjacent to his secret dealings.
Admittedly I'm way out over my skis here. This is inferences and speculation from scattered stories that really aren't making news. I can't claim this is solidly sourced or well grounded. But it's what I suspect may be true, given Trump's history and current behavior.
In any event, I'd encourage those who scoff at the appointment of a special counsel to take a pause. Mueller can investigate virtually anything that arises out of what's known, and the history of independent counsel investigations runs far afield of here they begin. Trump should be worried if there's anything troublesome in the vicinity of these investigations -- and Trump looks for all the world like a deeply troubled man. I suspect there's a reason for that.
