Трамп: проследить за деньгами! Trump: Follow the Money!
I’ve been pondering what hold Vladimir Putin has over Donald Trump. It’s not the pee tape; that would be a one day wonder if it was released. After all, he’s already done far worse and still got elected.
No, it won’t be the smell of piss that brings the Donald down, it’ll be the smell of money.
Putin owns Trump.
Literally.
Is that the real explanation for the craven display in Helsinki?
Well, Avaaz CEO Ricken Patel certainly thinks so. Patel’s theory that Trump is heavily indebted to Russian banks and businesses, many directly or indirectly linked to the only world leader richer than him, Vladimir Putin.
Patel makes the following claims:
In the 90’s the oft bankrupted Trump couldn’t raise finance at home. He turned instead to the newly wealthy oligarchs of Russia. They wanted a way into the American economy and a way of moving cash out of Russia. Trump was a useful conduit. Patel reckons Trump was to the Russian mafia what pokie machines are to our local crims, a simple, effective way of laundering dirty dosh.
The Trump organisation has apparently stayed loyal to Moscow down the years. Donald Trump Jr said in 2014:
“We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”
Trump Tower Toronto was financed by a Russian bank. That bank’s chair? Vladimir Putin.
Trump sold his Palm Beach, Florida for $95 million to a Russian oligarch. He only paid $41 million to buy it a few years earlier. Patel says that $50 million profit could be simple money laundering (which Trump would presumably return, minus a cash handling fee).
Trump’s financial broker and senior advisor in Moscow was a Russian crook named Felix Sater, Sater organised shell companies and funding for Trump’s projects, including the plans for the now stalled Trump Tower Moscow. Sater’s well connected in the Kremlin, and has a Machiavellian streak, according to an email he sent Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen:
“Michael I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin. I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will.”
Ricken Patel is convinced that Trump has been working for Putin for almost 20 years and if that’s still the case, the President is corrupted beyond redemption. Remember, Trump has refused to fully release his tax details and he has also refused to put his assets in a genuine blind trust. The Don doesn’t like prying eyes.
Patel is not alone in thinking it’s finance that ties Trump to Putin. There are other media outlets suggesting similar financial collusion.
Politico have a handy set of charts that show the Russian links to the Donald.
And NYMag have a ‘what if’ piece on the likelihood that Helsinki was more than just Trump’s yearly job evaluation, it was actually a spy handler calling an agent in.
Mind you, the New Yorker aren’t so sure that Putin is pulling the strings. They reckon Trump’s not even at the asset level where he would be a direct report to the Russian leader.
So what does it all mean?
Well, for one thing, if Donald Trump is financially in thrall to a billionaire former spy who currently leads a country usually regarded as an existential threat to the USA, then he is the greatest American traitor since Benedict Arnold.
I’m seriously starting to believe that Robert Mueller is quietly building the greatest prosecution case in American legal history. If Trump has truly sold out to Moscow, the Watergate burglary will be relegated to mere footnote status.
And how will it end if he is guilty of treason? No American President has ever been successfully impeached and even the obviously guilty Nixon was given a relatively graceful exit. But this, if proven, is criminal behaviour on a scale never previously considered possible, so the outcome could be jail or worse.
Imagine if Trump ends up in a Florida State Penitentiary, and the last words he hears as the warder throws the switch on Ol’ Sparky are …
“YOU’RE FRIED!”
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress