June 17, 2017: Another Member of the Trump Campaign Under Investigation

 

6/17/17: The New York Times reports another member of the Trump campaign is under investigation. 

__________

Rick Gates now under investigation.

__________

 

Rick Gates, a close ally of Paul Manafort, survived Manafort’s demise after his mentor was accused of taking millions from Ukrainian leaders with ties to Russia. In April, amid fresh accusations of Russian influence, Gates was forced to cut ties with the president. According to the Times a lawyer for the campaign has ordered five individuals to preserve all documents and records. 

Gates joins Manafort and Kushner in the cross hairs of investigators. 

During the time Manafort worked in the Ukraine, Gates would fly to Moscow to conduct business in his name. He would sign documents, including those related to shell companies in Cyprus, and funnel payments to Manafort and into secret bank accounts. One client was Oleg Deripaska, who had been denied a visa to the United States, because of ties to organized crime. 

“Everybody has tried to take these instances of anyone in the Trump orbit doing something in Russia,” Gates tells reporters, “and then fast-forwarding however many years, and then saying it is evidence of collusion with Russia over the election. It’s totally ridiculous and without merit.”

Deripaska, left, Putin, right.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: Fast forward to February 2108, when Gates pleads guilty to conspiracy and perjury and begins to cooperate with prosecutors. 

Then fast forward to May 2019, when Paul Manafort gets convicted on multiple felony counts and is sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. 

The throw in when Gates cooperates with investigators, and Manafort doesn’t, and just before leaving office, President Trump grants a pardon to…Manafort.

April 6, 2018: How Russians Launder Money - and How the Trump EPA Doesn't Protect the Environment

 

4/6/18: The stock market begins the day by plunging 700 points on growing fear of a trade war with China. 

It ends the day down 572. 

____________________ 

Russians looking to do some laundry.

____________________ 

 

Shortly after the market closes, the Treasury Department announces sanctions on 17 Russian officials, 12 companies, 7 Russian oligarchs and 6 Lords-a-Leaping. Among the sanctioned: Oleg Deripaska and eight of his companies. 

Can we find any connection to anyone in the Trump 2016 campaign? Yes, we can! But not, “Yes, we can,” in the Obama sense. 

Deripaska and campaign manager Paul Manafort were in business together for years, prior to Trump’s run for the money…uh…presidency. Alexander Torshin, also among the sanctioned, worked through the N.R.A. to set up a meeting with Don Jr. during the campaign. A third gentleman on the list is Suleiman Kerimov, accused of smuggling cash into France in suitcases, $20 million at a time. Then he laundered it all by buying fancy villas. 

Why might that ring alarm bells in Trumpistan? NPR explains: 

The Treasury Department’s singling out of Kerimov for allegedly smuggling cash out of Russia followed a report this week by CNN that said Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has been interdicting wealthy Russians as they fly into the United States [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted] in order to interview them about potentially transporting cash.

 

If Russia funneled money to American political campaigns or organizations as part of its attack on the 2016 election, one way it might have done so is by simply smuggling paper dollars in order to avoid electronic transfer records.

 

Foreign contributions are barred in U.S. elections…

 

One way in which illicit money allegedly moves out of Russia is via real estate. A rich person buys property in the West (in London, New York or South Florida) without living in it. Instead, hot real estate markets in those places make it simple to resell a condo or a mansion and free up legitimate cash. In Kerimov’s case, he was allegedly using this scheme in the south of France when he was arrested in Nice last year.

 

In 2008, Donald Trump sold an estate he had purchased for around $42 million in Palm Beach, Fla., to Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million.

 

Who else was on a January 2018 Treasury Department list for possible sanction? Yes, Rybolovlev! Aras Agalarov, who helped broker the secret meeting with Don Jr. in Trump Tower, was another. Sergei Gorkov, a Russian banker who met with Jared Kushner during the transition period, before Trump took office, was a third. Gazprom, a Russian oil company and Rosneft Oil, tied to Carter Page, the Trump aide who became a target of the FISA court, would make four and five. 

There are so many potentially corrupt links and conflicts of interest in this story it takes Politico seven charts to include them all.

 

* 

AT 9:44 P.M., I SETTLE in front of the TV for a little channel surfing. I catch Sean Hannity bitching about how the left hates Trump and never gives him a fair shake. 

It makes Hannity sick, he tells three guests, knowing “this president” has created “3,000,000 jobs.” 

Once again, being a fact-based liberal, I check the Bureau of Labor Statistics Monthly Jobs Report. Trump is enjoying a solid start to 2018. I may look at news with a left-of-center slant. But the math is the math is the math. 

Gertrude Stein said that. She was a real math afficionado. 

The March jobs report is relatively weak: 103,000 jobs added to the economy. The first official report for a month is “preliminary” and can change, up or down, but usually not by much. 

Let’s see how Trump has done so far, starting January 20, 2017, when he took office. We’ll give him 11/31^st’s of that month’s job gains. Then we’ll total up jobs added from February 2017 through March 2018. Not bad, President Buffoon. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in just under fourteen-and-a-half months Trump has added 2,625,903 jobs. 

Not quite Hannity’s “3,000,000.” 

Still, not bad.

 

We now look to see how Obama fared when it came to adding jobs. For simplicity’s sake we’ll work backward from January 2017. We’ll give Obama 19/31^st’s of that month’s job gains, the same as Trump. (I’m not splitting January 20, since Trump took over at noon. We’ll just ignore that day and call it a tie.) Next, we can work backward, fourteen months: December 2016 to November 2015. 

We pull out the calculator and the total is – 2,933,903 jobs created in the last fourteen and 19/31^st’s months, under Trump’s predecessor. 

Now, let’s Google: “Sean Hannity credits President Obama with creating jobs” and see what we find. 

Okay: Nothing. 

I did find this, however, which I definitely found amusing:

 

* 

ONE GUY we can say is definitely adding jobs, is E.P.A. head and Swamp Creature Scott Pruitt. Pruitt who protects our air and water, at least in theory, has had to hire a twenty-person security team to protect him from…what, air pollution? That’s twenty jobs right off the bat; and a twenty-first goes to Samantha Dravis, who serves as associate administrator at the agency. 

Sadly, that job ends Wednesday when Dravis resigns under a cloud. But what fun while it lasted! Dravis got to fly first class, all over God’s creation, at taxpayer expense, just like her boss. 

 

Flexible hours at taxpayer expense. 

Dravis was always safely by Pruitt’s side, what with twenty security personnel keeping angry taxpayers at a distance. Also, the hours were flexible, to say the least. One Democratic congressman recently sent a letter to the Inspector General of the E.P.A, alleging that Dravis had not come to the office “for much if not all of the months of November 2017-January 2018.”  

 

POSTSCRIPT: Did you know Pruitt also wanted to design a special “challenge coin” or souvenir coin representing the E.P.A.? 

Did you even know the government was wasting tax dollars designing and handing out “challenge coins?” 

I admit I did not, until I noticed a story some months back about the coin Trump designed for himself. Naturally, it was bigger than any of the coins of his presidential predecessors. And it had the word “Trump” slapped on one side and his fat mug appeared on the other. 

Now we know Pruitt wanted a coin he could call his own. First, he would make his bigger than all the E.P.A. coins that came before. Second, he would remove the E.P.A. logo. Who needed that! Other possibilities included adding a buffalo, indicative of Pruitt’s Oklahoma roots (and maybe, since the buffalo almost ended up extinct, indicative of Pruitt’s less than aggressive efforts to protect the environment), a Bible verse to reflect his own religious tastes, and, naturally, his name in big bold letters. Finally, there was some thought of adding an oil company lobbyist to the inverse… 

Ha, ha, I made that one up. If you knew anything about Pruitt, and most of you don’t, you might believe it was no joke.

Under Pruitt, oil spills are no big deal.

May 12, 2018: A Swamp Filled with Russians

 

5/12/18: When it comes to draining the swamp the Trump administration may not be any worse than previous administrations. It’s definitely no better. And there seems to be a predisposition to help Russian individuals and entities whenever possible. 

CNN reports: 

A former senior campaign and transition aide to President Donald Trump recently inked a deal to help a Russian oligarch’s conglomerate shed sanctions the Trump administration slapped on them last month.

 

Bryan Lanza, who is in regular contact with White House officials, is lobbying on behalf of the chairman of EN+ Group, an energy and aluminum firm presently controlled by Oleg Deripaska…a billionaire who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was the target of US sanctions imposed last month.

 

(Around the 5:30 mark in the clip, above, Lanza insists the Trump campaign had no contacts with Russians – and says U.S. intelligence agrees with that assessment. He’s either lying, or out of the loop entirely. Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Roger Stone had already had serious contacts – they just hadn’t had to fess up in court yet.)

New alligators swimming in the swamp would include people like Corey Lewandowski, Trump's first campaign manager. He started his own Washington consulting business following the election. “Trump doesn’t make a decision without checking with me,” he has told clients who thirst for access. Brian Ballard, Trump’s longtime Florida fundraiser, has also come to town, as has Susie Wiles, who led his campaign in that state. 

And – we have more Russians! 

Former New York Republican Rep. John Sweeney has made more than $200,000 lobbying on behalf of a European pipeline venture owned by Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian natural gas company, according to federal lobbying disclosures. The New York Republican previously worked on Trump’s campaign and assisted with administration hires during the presidential transition.

 

The swampiest creature of all would be Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. New documents show he began selling his services to the highest bidders almost as soon as Trump finished swearing to uphold the Constitution. Within 24 hours, AT & T had agreed to pay him at least $200,000, in hopes he could smooth a path to an $85 billion merger with Time-Warner. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Novartis, did Cohen better, forking out $1.2 million in return for his aid. Other companies chipped in various sums, bringing the haul to $4.4 million. 

By now, of course, we all know that no story about the Trump administration seems complete unless you sprinkle in some Russians. Cohen took $500,000 from a company called Columbus Nova and other entities controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, a close friend of Vladimir Putin. 

Drain that swamp.

BLOGGER’S NOTE (7/7/21): For an in-depth look at how some of these characters go about their business – selling access to foreigners to the U.S. government – and profiting handsomely, see: “Rudy Giuliani is Being Scrutinized for Foreign Lobbying,” by Open Secrets.

May 23, 2018: The President Piles Up the Lies

 

5/23/18: This may be the day Donald J. Trump proves conclusively that he has no shame, and possibly proves he’s nuts. He wakes from his slumber and launches another Twitter rampage. The gist of his message is this: Everyone else is lying. The only person you can trust is me. 

____________________ 

The Trump Tower of Lies is imploding.

____________________ 

 

Up with the birds, Trump’s first tweet comes at 5:54 a.m.: 

Look how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State. They go after Phony Collusion with Russia, a made up Scam, and end up getting caught in a major SPY scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before! What goes around, comes around!

 

Clearly, we’re off to a bad start, with an unhinged president categorizing critics and federal investigators as “criminals.”

 

This is when you realize that if Trump had the power to lock up enemies without trial he would. Hillary would already be behind bars, no trial required. Trump made that clear during the campaign. John Kasich and Ted Cruz, Trump once complained, were teaming up against him during the campaign. “It’s collusion,” he told Sean Hannity. “In business you go to jail for that, but it’s collusion where they’re coming together because they are getting beaten badly.” 

America has plenty of cells. Trump would fill them. Snoop Dog would end up behind bars as punishment for an insulting video. 

Trump insisted that those who burn the American flag, a form of protected free speech according to the Supreme Court, should be jailed. 

We know the president would be happy to fill entire prisons with journalists who write or speak about him in unflattering terms. 

Comey would already be in jail. Trump said that too.

 

In any case, Trump was steaming to start his day. Next, he tweet-quoted a Fox News story: “‘It’s clear that they had eyes and ears all over the Trump Campaign’ Judge Andrew Napolitano” (See: 5/30/18 for a reversal in the judge’s thinking.) 

At 6:12, the president tweets again: “SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!” 

At 6:33 he bends the words of James Clapper, who had blistered him on television the day before. Trump tweets: “‘Trump should be happy that the FBI was SPYING on his campaign’ No, James Clapper, I am not happy. Spying on a campaign would be illegal, and a scandal to boot!” 

At this point, anyone who bothers to check what Clapper said begins to realize the Trump Tower of Lies is imploding. 

As the day progresses, what do we learn? First, let’s revisit what Clapper said in an earlier appearance on The View. Joy Behar, one of the hosts, put the following questions to him: 

BEHAR: So I ask you, was the FBI spying on Trump’s campaign?

 

CLAPPER: No, they were not. They were spying on, a term I don’t particularly like, but on what the Russians were doing [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted]. Trying to understand were the Russians infiltrating, trying to gain access, trying to gain leverage or influence which is what they do.

 

BEHAR: Well, why doesn’t [Trump] like that? He should be happy.

 

CLAPPER: He should be.

 

The concept is simple. If Russians were infiltrating Trump’s campaign, the good guys (U.S. intelligence agents) would want to stop the bad guys (agents of a hostile foreign power; Russia). 

If Manafort and others were working in the interest of foreign powers, Candidate Trump would surely want to know. And Manafort had neck-deep ties to Russian interests going back years. 

The best possible explanation would be that Trump knew nothing about Manafort’s shady past. But Manafort is dirty beyond question, a money launderer in the pay of Russians, if not worse. We know he was heavily in debt to a Russian oligarch when he took a job in the Trump campaign for free. 

A new report, issued by Bloomberg on the same day Trump is tweet-moaning about the “Criminal Deep State,” indicates Manafort made 17 trips to Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, just before joining Trump’s team. The purpose of all those trips was to perform lobbying work for the Opposition Bloc, a pro-Russia political group.

 

The magnetic pull of crook to crook was strong. Manafort had been advising a corrupt Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, who, when toppled in a popular uprising, fled to…Russia.

 

Bloomberg, noting that Rick Gates, Manafort’s right-hand man, has pled guilty and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller team, explained:

 

Gates worked with Manafort for a decade in Ukraine, serving as a loyal wingman. In his guilty plea, Gates admitted that he helped Manafort set up dozens of undisclosed offshore bank accounts, hide their work as unregistered agents for Ukraine and launder millions of dollars into the U.S. Manafort convinced Gates to help him create false documents for banks, urged his son-in-law [Jeffrey Yohai] to lie to a bank appraiser and misled lenders about the use of loans, prosecutors charged.

 

 

“Greatly benefit the Putin government.”

 

In an in-depth story last November, the Business Insider reported that in 2006 Manafort signed a $10 million annual contract with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and allegedly murderous crime boss. Manafort agreed to perform lobbying work in the U.S. which he promised “would greatly benefit the Putin government.”

 

Nevertheless, money woes soon beset him. Deripaska filed suit in 2014 in The Cayman Islands (where all good money launderers go to shield bank accounts from pesky tax laws and legal oversight), claiming Manafort had disappeared after he gave him $19 million to invest. 

We can therefore assume Manafort was interested in placating a dangerous Russian crime boss. Once Manafort joined the Trump campaign he found time to email one of his many Russian friends. Had Deripaska been made aware of Manafort’s expanding role in Trump’s political operation? If so, maybe a deal could be worked out. Access to Trump for the Russian crime boss and knowledge about Trump’s plans – forgiveness for Manafort for that $19 million gone south? 

His Russian friend responded. Deripaska was paying close attention. Manafort emailed again: “How do we use to get whole. Has OVD [Deripaska’s initials] operation seen?” 

Being an evidence-based kind of guy, this hard-working blogger admits there are as yet no known links to tie the president directly to illegal contacts with Russians. Still, you can see why U.S. intelligence might have wanted to keep tabs on shady members of the Trump campaign team.

Trump's pal: Vlad.

 

The critical question then comes into view. Has the President of the United States been trying to derail an investigation into Russian interference in 2016, simply to cover the Trump rump? 

Later in the day the president pushes for a meeting to get to the bottom of this “spy” business during his campaign. He tells reporters in a quick gathering on the White House South Lawn that he’s all about “total transparency.” He’s not blocking an investigation. “What I’m doing is a service to this great country and I did a great service to this country by firing James Comey.” 

He did a great service to himself, that’s for sure. 

The plan for the meeting is soon set. It will include White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, representatives of the F.B.I., the Department of Justice and U.S. intelligence, and two members of Congress. 

Great! Two branches of government working together in the name of transparency... 

Wait. Two members of Congress? 

Representative Devin Nunes is one. This is the same man whose hometown newspaper labeled him “Trump’s stooge.” 

The second would be Rep. Trey Gowdy, another Republican. No Democrats! That is the president’s idea of “transparency.” 

 

“The truth-tellers.” 

On her 4:00 p.m. MSNBC show host Nicolle Wallace, a former member of the George W. Bush administration, puts up the following quote from former CIA head Michael Hayden’s new book, The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in the Age of Lies. Hayden had a decades-long career in the U.S. military and retired from the U.S. Air Force as a decorated four-star general. 

We have elected someone as president of the United States whose first instincts are to twist and distort truth to his advantage, to generate financial benefit to himself and his family. And in so doing, to demean the values this country has traditionally stood for. He has set a new low bar for ethics and morality. He has caused damage to our societal and political fabric that will be difficult and will require time to repair. And close to my heart, he has besmirched the intelligence community and the FBI, pillars of our country, and deliberately incited Americans to lose faith and confidence in them.

 

Hayden’s comments on camera are equally harsh. Trump, he warns, ignores “objective reality.” The president has attacked what Hayden calls the “truth-tellers.” He has created “friction points.” Hayden ticks them off on his fingers, listing “intelligence, law enforcement, courts, science, scholarship and journalism.” Hayden admits the truth-tellers are imperfect in the stories they tell. 

Yet, he adds, “Their only safe haven is to preserve and pursue truth as they best know it to be.” 

Referring to the “scene” on the South Lawn earlier in the day, where the president attacked reporters for what they had said, Hayden warns that the President of the United States is completely untethered from the truth. His comments represent “a created reality to meet the needs of the moment.” The president “never argues the facts of the case.” He simply attacks those who threaten him, plying truth as their swords. 

Trump’s shield? 

Lies.

 

* 

A cool $400,000 will get you a meeting! 

THE CLOUDS around the Trump administration darken. The BBC reports on another secret meeting involving Michael Cohen. Cohen took a payment of $400,000 from representatives of the president of the Ukraine. In return he set up a meeting with Trump at the White House in June 2017. At the time Cohen was not listed as a representative of the Ukraine as would be required under U.S. law. After the meeting, the government of the Ukraine stopped helping Mueller pursue links between pro-Russian Ukrainian interests and Paul Manafort. 

The BBC reports: “One source in Kiev said [Ukrainian President] Mr Poroshenko had given Trump ‘a gift’ – making sure that Ukraine would find no more evidence to give the US inquiry into whether the Trump campaign ‘colluded’ with Russia.” 

According to the reporter for the BBC, “Last week in Kiev, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Serhiy Horbatyuk, told me: ‘There was never a direct order to stop the Manafort inquiry but from the way our investigation has progressed, it’s clear that our superiors are trying to create obstacles.”

BLOGGER’S NOTE (6/6/2022): It’s always fun to check back on what I wrote and see if my sense of justice was proven correct. Manafort’s former son-in-law turns out to be a scammer and a crook, just like Paul. 

When I look it up, I discover that in November 2019, he was sentenced to nine years and two months in prison, for bilking clients out of $6 million.

September 15, 2018: If Manafort Breaks Trump Is Toast

 

9/15/18: The president wakes to grim reality Saturday. Hurricane Paul is bearing down on Washington D.C. 

 

As innocent as O.J. Simpson in a cutlery factory. 

Friday, with Hurricane Florence lashing the Carolinas, and Trump angrily tweeting about Barack Obama’s twenty-four second slip of the tongue in 2008, Cat 3 winds battered the White House. 

Paul Manafort, a man the president insisted would never “break,” a “brave man,” with a “wonderful family,” finally succumbed. 

For over a year, Manafort insisted that he was as innocent as O.J. Simpson in a cutlery factory. Then a Virginia jury convicted him on eight felony counts. Having been lodged in jail since June 16 (after a judge ruled him a serious flight risk), Manafort, 69, was staring harsh reality between the eyes. If he went to trial again, on a fresh battery of charges, and lost again, he was never going to live in a penthouse bought with laundered Russian money again. 

For three long months, Manafort pined for a pardon from the president. President Twitter Thumbs was busy. Besides, if the president awarded him a pardon before the midterms it would look, even to many Trump fans, as if Donald had something to hide. 

So, the “good man” broke.

Manafort would be one slice, Cohen another.

 

Manafort, who ran the Trump 2016 campaign for several critical months, copped to another pair of felonies, catapulting himself into the lead among Trump campaign operatives with a total of ten. Under a general charge of “conspiracy,” he admitted in court on Friday that ten more felony counts with which he had previously been charged – yeah – he also committed those. 

A jury in his first trial had deadlocked 11-1 for conviction on those charges. But that had been enough of a hook for the president to hang his hat upon. “A large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case,” Trump noted on August 22. That could mean only one thing: “Witch Hunt!” he added. 

Now even that consolation was gone. 

 

Trump knows Manafort knows. 

Hurricane Paul began gaining strength. What might have been a Category 1 storm a month ago is now a Cat 3. Manafort agreed to a plea deal which requires him to cooperate “fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly…in any and all matters” with the Russia investigation. 

So, what would bother the totally innocent, orange-colored man in the White House on a fine September morn? What kept the president tossing and turning and tangling his sheets last night? First, Trump understands that Manafort attended a June 2016 meeting when agents of the Russian government offered campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton. Second, Trump knows Manafort knows if he approved the meeting beforehand or received a briefing after it was over. 

Don Jr. and Dad for sure, and former White House Babe Hicks, have already lied about what went on behind Trump Tower’s closed doors. Immediately after the meeting ended, Don Jr. made an 11-minute call to a blocked number. He forgets who he called. But Don Jr. and Dad must know by now, how thorough the Mueller investigators have been. They have to think that Mueller has Don Jr.’s phone records. 

Now the witch hunters have a witch from that meeting who is willing to reveal a few of the spells.

 

Trump knows plenty for once because this is a subject he cares about – namely himself. He knows the door to a useful pardon, one that shuts Manafort up, is closing. Several charges to which Manafort has pled could, if he were pardoned on federal charges, be revived in state courts. Trump knows Manafort knows he’s going to spend a long time in jail. The question is how long. Three years? Ten? Or the rest of his life? Trump knows Manafort agreed to work for his campaign for free. He can only hope his fans don’t realize how bizarre this was, since Manafort was dealing with spiraling debts at the time. Trump knows that Manafort offered to provide “private briefings” to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, during the 2016 campaign.

____________________ 

“I don’t separate myself from the state. I have no other interests.” 

Oleg Deripaska

____________________ 

 

For purposes of discussion let’s point out that Deripaska is a bosom buddy of Vladimir Putin and himself under sanction by the U.S. government. Why? Deripaska is a money-laundering outlaw. He has ties to the Russian mob and may be complicit in at least one murder. Deripaska once told a reporter that he understood he controlled the aluminum business in Russia only so long as Putin allowed it. “If the state says we need to give it up, we’ll give it up,” the billionaire said. “I don’t separate myself from the state. I have no other interests.” 

How close was Manafort to Deripaska? Close enough to do the oligarch’s bidding for years, to get a $10 million annual contract, and to put in place a secret plan “to greatly benefit the Putin government.” Close enough – and shady enough – to fall millions of dollars into debt to Deripaska. Close enough, once he took over the Trump campaign, to see a way forward, to get out of that debt and maybe cash in big. 

We already know Manafort was cooking up some get-rich-quick scheme with a Russian friend, Konstantin Kilimnik. “I assume you have shown our friends my media coverage, right?” Manafort emailed him that summer. 

“Absolutely,” replied Kilimnik. “Every article.” So, the Russians knew they had an ally inside the Trump camp.

 

Trump now knows that the courts can seize assets if those assets were obtained through illegal means. Manafort has, agreed to forfeit three houses and two apartments, one in Trump Tower. He must also cough up funds he had hidden in several secret bank accounts, investment funds, and even a life insurance policy. His five properties alone are worth an estimated $22 million. 

So, if nothing else, Old Twitter Thumbs can stop tweeting about how much money the Mueller investigation is costing taxpayers. As recently as June 18, Trump said the “scam investigation” had cost $17 million. Now, Mueller’s team has paid all its bills and they’re in the black. 

 

Was the pardon offer an attempt to obstruct justice? 

Finally, due to climate change in Washington, conditions are ripe, and Hurricane Paul may strengthen to a Category 5. This past March, The New York Times reported that John Dowd, then the president’s lawyer, had floated the idea of presidential pardons in front of lawyers for Manafort and another confessed witch, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. 

Trump and Trump fans might call it “Fake News,” but Manafort and Flynn are in perfect position to tell the truth. 

Was this offer really an attempt to obstruct justice? 

The president tossed and turned Friday night, into Saturday morning, because he heard Manafort’s legal team had already made two “proffers” to Special Counsel Mueller. That means they have twice approached investigators with proposed offers: “Here is what our client knows and what he is willing to say.” 

So, Trump knows Manafort has something of value he’d like to share, and Mueller wants him to share it.

 

* 

MICHAEL COHEN, Trump’s former personal lawyer, has also reportedly been in talks with the Special Counsel. According to one reporter, Cohen has expressed a desire to “be on the right side of history.” 

More bad news for Trump.

BLOGGER’S NOTE (5/30/22): If you would liked to see how seriously Trump took the threat of Manafort talking, consider text messages sent from Sean Hannity to Manafort over the course of several months, when it seemed he might break in the face of a long prison sentence. 

If you don’t think Hannity is almost promising a pardon – without saying so, which would be a felony – you probably need reading glasses. (See: 6/22/19.)