Posted on 12/05/2017 7:01:53 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The probe into Russian collusion is about to get a lot more personal. Bloomberg reports that the main lender for the Trump family’s financial empire has begun cooperating with Robert Mueller’s investigation after the special counsel got a subpoena for their records. Democrats in Congress have long demanded to know whether Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank had any connections with Russia, but Trump warned early on that he’d act if Mueller attempted to go that far outside his mandate:
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller zeroed in on President Donald Trump’s business dealings with Deutsche Bank AG as his investigation into alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections widens.
Mueller issued a subpoena to Germany’s largest lender several weeks ago, forcing the bank to submit documents on its relationship with Trump and his family, according to a person briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified because the action has not been announced. …
Deutsche Bank for months has rebuffed calls by Democratic lawmakers to provide more transparency over the roughly $300 million Trump owed to the bank for his real estate dealings prior to becoming president. Representative Maxine Waters of California and other Democrats have asked whether the bank’s loans to Trump, made years before he ran for president, were in any way connected to Russia. The bank previously rejected those demands, saying sharing client data would be illegal unless it received a formal request to do so. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Five months ago, Trump called any move by Mueller into unrelated financial issues a “red line” that could prompt him to exercise his executive authority in regard to the special counsel. That depended on whether the inquiry had a relation to the Russian question:
SCHMIDT: Last thing, if Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?…
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?…
TRUMP: No, I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia.
That’s the $64,000 question, right? What does Deutsche Bank’s loans to Trump have to do with Russian influence on the election? The bank has worked with Trump since the 1990s, long before the tycoon decided to enter politics as a candidate. The special counsel’s mission — or at least its original mandate — was supposed to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian intelligence to hack the DNC and John Podesta, as well as coordinate a propaganda campaign during the election. Deutsche Bank seems like a target far afield from that mission, and more like Mueller has taken on a far broader role as a shadow Department of Justice.
In fact, this is rather curious. Democrats may have wanted to depose Deutsche Bank but Russia was only an excuse. They wanted to get to Trump’s financial records to dig up any tax evasion or other financial crimes to use against him. Without any clear connection to Russian collusion in 2015-16, why exactly does Mueller want to see those records? Has this become a tax evasion case? If so, what dirt could Mueller get that the IRS couldn’t make stick in tax audits every year for the last two decades, the last eight of which took place during the Obama administration’s politicization of the IRS?
However, that is the unfortunate history of special counsels under any name over the last few decades. The nature of their authority lends itself to ever-expanding scopes as they attempt to gain leverage over material witnesses. We’ve already seen that with the indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates for money laundering and rarely-charged FARA violations, none of which had to do with the theory of Russian collusion that started the investigation. This is why appointing special counsels is a very bad idea; one should only make that choice when all of the other options are so bad that they make a special counsel look good, and it’s arguable as to whether that was the case in May.
The other $64,000 question is what Trump does now. He has the authority to fire Robert Mueller, or more accurately to order Rod Rosenstein to do so, but that puts Trump in position for an impeachment — especially if Rosenstein refuses. Trump likely didn’t commit obstruction in the legal sense in firing Comey, but he’d be clearly committing obstruction in the political sense if he fired Mueller now. Trump’s supporters would be delighted, but so would Democrats in Congress who might get enough Republicans to wonder just what Trump has to hide after all. This could be the briar-patch toss for which Democrats have salivated since Mueller got appointed seven months ago.
Very possible, unfortunately. His way around that would be to loudly support Nunes and the Intelligence oversight committee in Congress holding Sessions and the DoJ in contempt.
If he wants to fire somebody right now, he should be looking at his lawyer Ty Cobb, who has instituted this rope a dope plan of taking punch after punch from Mueller, without ever actually retaliating in some manner as Bannon has repeatedly advised.
May I recommend that the President fire Mueller, Rosenstein and Sessions?
McCabe too.
5.56mm
The Witch Hunt continues . It’s insane when you let the Losers investigate you to see if they can remove you
Hard to argue otherwise. The only other way of seeing it would be if some secret deal had already been reached, but if I was Trump, I wouldn't trust any "secret deal" with anyone in DoJ right now.
If the Clinton Minions couldn’t find anything during the Election then there’s nothing , also the reason they made up the Dossier
Um, Mr. President. No, it isn't. The establishment charter made it a fishing expedition for wherever the prosecutor (The Swamp) wanted to go.
Sir, you need to shut this down, now!
I agree. I left off the sarcasim tag. Sorry about that
“Let things play out. Muellers’ got nothing.”
You’re missing the point of the SC. It’s to embroil the Trump admin with scandal and indictment. To cast a pall of illegitimacy over his presidency. They don’t need ‘anything’ to continue doing that.
Hire private detectives through cutouts to find dirt on Mueller and leak it to the press. Undercut his “moral authority” and get him to step down. As my late mother used to say, “ Two can play that game.”
Having found nothing, it would be the smart tactic.
Either mine and leak his financial records or get the opposition all lathered up over a firing.
This is the reason there should never be all this time after an election for the change of power.
The Secretary's itinerary is top secret---for safety reasons.
Having the itinerary gave conniving Billybooboo an opportunity to figure out the next global insider deals to pursue to make the Clintons richer.
Hillary is a calculating pathological liar .....a criminal covering up one crime after another.
In effect, Hillary sent State Secrets (those protecting Americans' safety and security) to a criminal organization....the nefarious Clinton Foundation.
In Dinesh D’Sousa’s "Hillary’s America," he talks about his conversations with criminals in jail....and of the practiced criminal’s tactic of deny, deny, deny.
Seems like this has worked very well for Clinton criminal team. It explains why she comes out with a book that blames everyone but herself for her loss.
Methinks the Clinton Foundation used the hate-filled uber-liberal Southern Poverty Law Center as their model for hiding money and pretending to do good.
But the Clintons surpassed the SPLC in the depth and cunningness of their corruption and criminal success.
The Clinton Foundation is set-up in Canada to avoid any financial disclosure of who their donors are. Young Billy found out all about Canadian secrecy while he was up there dodging the draft.
As Secretary of State Hillary sat at the pivot point to push the “charity” by trading State Dept favor money from foreign governments. The take down of the Libyan government increase those “charitable” donations by extorting dictators as they did in Morocco.
Then there was the uranium deal to enable the Russians to own a corner on America’s uranium supply.
Where the devilish Clintons shine is exploiting natural disasters to get rich quick. Cleverest trick of all (and aided by Barkie Mau Mau Boobamba) was to hijack relief efforts in that nation's catastrophic earthquake..... to use relief money to buttress crony companies like mobile operator Digicel while throwing peanuts to the starving people of Haiti.
Add it up and there’s no contest. The Clinton Foundation is the world's number one criminal “fake-do-gooder” foundation in existence.
Trump cannot fire him until he signs the tax bill. After that....fire away!
The republicans could take away the unconstitutionally, non-appropriated funding for the special prosecutor and his bloated staff. I seriously doubt that Mueller and his minions would continue their coup d’état working pro bono.
If he messes too deeply with Russian finances he get a polonium milkshake.
Yep. More cheese in the maze brilliance from Trump.
This week Mueller just gave Trump all the reason he needs to get his ass fired. The whole lot of ‘em; including Rosenstein who appointed him.
Legally and judiciarilly you’re correct.
But as Rush explained yesterday, it is political.
The Congress has always had the power to impeach the president for any reason. Just as the president can pardon anyone accused or convicted of federal crimes—for any reason.
Now, no where in the Constitution is there ANY definition as to what “high crimes and misdemeanors” are in reference to the president. Up to this point, the president would had to have done something beyond politics to get an impeachment going. So here we are, and it the Congress, not Trump, that has to decide whether they cross this Rubicon.
The glorious thing about the past 225 years of this Republic is no one in either party has tried to use impeachment to undo an election choice made the voters.
Until now.
Trump should fire Mueller. Just do it.
If the Congress decides to impeach him for that, then we’ll all have to deal with the outcome of how THEY—the Congress—killed the American Republic.
Mueller doesn’t only need to be fire, he needs to be arrested as well. He’s a swamp dwelling dirtbag, who has no business being in the government in any form or fashion.
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