5/15/18: What have we learned about the Trump administration lately? We have learned (again) that foreign policy can be a bitch. You move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and Palestinians blow up.
It doesn’t help when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes it clear Israel always has and always will want to keep all of Jerusalem.
Also, Israel would like to keep the West Bank for – who knows – maybe another thousand years.
Or till the Rapture.
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“We may
be a pipsqueak nation, but we are a BIG tax haven.”
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IN OTHER NEWS, Trump & Co. continue to holler about the “witch hunt.” According to Vice President Jesus, the Russian investigation has gone on long enough! Special Counsel Mueller has been at it a year.
Since this humble blogger has a brain and can conjure up actual memories, let’s turn back in time to when conservatives loved the Benghazi investigation. That one lasted two years, four months.
We can go back farther for perspective. Remember when the Whitewater investigation morphed into an examination of Bill Clinton’s sexual misdeeds? How long did that last? Seven years. Or: four years, one month and six days, if you count only the part after Ken Starr took over.
Remember how Fox News stood up for the right of President Clinton not to testify under oath, how it was a “perjury trap!”
No, you do not.
Fox loved that investigation. Sean Hannity wishes it
was still going on to this day.
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Viktor Vekselberg - estimated worth $10 billion. |
You can fairly argue about politics. You can’t fairly argue about the calendar. June 14 is always followed by June 15. The Mueller team continues to go about its work quietly and deliberately. Viktor Vekselberg, yet another Russian oligarch, was recently stopped at a New York-area airport and questioned about payments to Trump’s personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen.
We know that a surprising number of Russians attended Trump’s Inauguration. Vekselberg was there. Federal campaign filings indicate two of his American partners donated $1.2 million to festivities. Russian pharmaceutical executive Alexey Repik and his wife showed up. So did Natalia Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, two of the Russians who participated in the secret June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. Russian banker Alexander Torshin also showed.
Torshin is famous for:
A) Joining the National Rifle Association.
B) Attending five N.R.A. national conventions, including the one in 2016, where he met Don Jr.
C) Possibly funneling money to the N.R.A. to be used in the campaign.
D) Reportedly
holding the dual posts of banker and “godfather” of a Russian crime syndicate,
and specializing in both roles as a money launderer.
The Mueller team has also interviewed Thomas Barrack, a close friend of the president. Barrack was chairman of the Trump Inaugural Committee. Anything interesting about Barrack? He was investigated by the Italian government. Prosecutors wanted to know about a complex scheme to funnel money through Luxembourg (motto: “We may be a pipsqueak nation, but we are a BIG tax haven.”). In the process, Italian authorities believe Barrack and his pals evaded $190 million in taxes. It might also be worth noting that Rick Gates (now cooperating with the Mueller probe) worked for Barrack up until the day he was indicted. (See: 6/29/18.)
BLOGGER’S NOTE (6/7/2022): In an effort to clean up my blog and make it more manageable, I edit all my posts. With very rare exceptions, they hold up well. Barrack is rich enough to stall justice; but in July 2021, along with two others, he is indicted and charged with a variety of financial misdeeds.
On July 23, he strikes a deal and is released on bail – which is set at $250 million.
In January 2022, a judge allows Barrack to fund the defense of Matthew Grimes, a co-defendant in the indictment, to the tune of $2 million. I think we can all agree this is nothing more than a friendly gesture – and in no way designed to ensure that Grimes doesn’t start cooperating with federal authorities.
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