Reports in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and on CNN state that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has convened a grand jury and has already issued subpoenas related to the New York City meeting between Trump's son and campaign officials and Russian contacts with financial ties to Russian government entities. Other reports earlier in the week noted that Mueller hired an additional prosecutor named Greg Andes who served two years in the Justice Department specializing in fraud and foreign bribery casework.
My imagination has utterly failed to keep up with the possibilities of a reality in which Trump won election on November 8, 2016 so I won't attempt to make any predictions about specific charges, future defendants and dates. However, it's worth running through what is already known to understand the threat Trump poses to the United States by continuing to hold office.
First, a few things about grand juries:
- the proceedings are secret
- prosecutors, judges, lawyers and jurors are sworn to secrecy
- witnesses brought in front of a grand jury to testify are NOT sworn to secrecy, they can talk about any answer provided (though some states prevent them from divulging information they learned during proceedings)
- the burden of proof for a grand jury to indict "probable cause" which is lower than "preponderance of the evidence" used to convict in civil cases which is lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for convictions in criminal cases.
It is a safe bet that a large swath of current Trump Administration employees will be subpoenaed exposing them to huge legal bills, enormous pressure, and even greater public embarrassment. (Then again, anyone serving in this Administration would seem to have some unnatural immunity to ethical, moral or intellectual shame.) As lower level players are roped into the morass, more churn followed by more leaks and back biting can be assured which will just feed the investigation and increase pressure on Trump, his Administration officials and staff and his inner circle of business and political contacts. Since few in his political and personal circles seem to be terribly bright and many seem to have a nearly instinctual urge to LIE in any circumstance, the odds of additional charges of perjury and obstruction of justice would seem to be quite high.
Although the new grand jury was first empanelled to review findings related to "the Russia meeting," subsequent reports have confirmed the work of the grand jury has already moved beyond "the meeting" to Trump's larger business dealings. There is virtually no way to AVOID this given Trump's financial history over the last 20 years. If you want the details, watch this Dutch documentary from May 2017:
Part 1 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I (45 mins)
Part 2 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvd7PqI_Lx0 (36 mins)
This is well produced -- it looks and sounds like it could have been produced by WGBH for Frontline. The nutshell narrative boils down to this:
After Trump's multiple bankruptcies in the late 1980s, no US bank would lend money to him or his companies. Nonetheless, he was busy "doing deals" to resurrect his real estate empire. At the same time, the collapse of Yeltsin-era Russia concentrated extreme wealth into the hands of the original generation of oligarchs. Once Putin came to power, he began ruthlessly restructuring the economy to pull that flow of wealth to him and going after the current oligarchs -- financially, politically and personally. This triggered HUGE waves of capital outflows from Russia to destinations around the world with a common modus operandi: string investments through convoluted shell companies and buy up real estate. Given Trump's 100% dependency on non-traditional sources of investment funds, it would seem IMPOSSIBLE for Trump and his firm to NOT have ties to illegally laundered money and next to impossible for him to NOT have understood that at the time of the deals. A LARGE portion of some of Trump's biggest properties were and still are owned by parties from Russia and former Soviet bloc states.
The documentary makes clear that -- as is common with real estate deals -- the structure of the shell companies involved are LLCs which means all of the partners have to sign all of the financial documents related to the deal. Donald Trump was a named partner in deals involving at least three different shell company LLCs who worked out of Trump Tower. One of the companies involved -- Bayrock Group LLC -- is currently under criminal indictment by the State of New York for tax fraud. Another company Bayrock BV set up in the Netherlands by Bayrock LLC was established with paperwork filed by the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani -- yea, THAT Giuliani.
In short, it is probably more likely a short investigation into the attendees of the 2016 meeting in New York City and laughingly incompetent effort to hide that turned up more glaring criminal activity related to actual real estate deals between Trump shell corporations and Russian parties. The attempts to obfuscate campaign-era dealings WITH those parties likely PALE in comparison to the severity of the criminal charges that could stem from the actual real estate deals. To give you an idea of the magnitude of dollars involved, one of the partnership deals involved Bayrock Group LLC and a firm called FL Group BV, an Icelandic firm backed by Russians who are active supporters of Putin. That deal was worth $250 million and officials looking at the deal think it is a gigantic tax fraud.
But here's the thing.
Are any of those possible crimes really material? To the rest of us?
Compared to the ongoing conduct of Trump in office and the operation of his entire Administration? Look at the headlines over the last two weeks:
- he hired a new "communications director" who couldn't last 11 days
- he ad libbed a speech in front of thousands of Boy Scouts alluding to rich billionaires having illicit sex aboard yachts
- he has publicly undermined the authority of his own Attorney General
- that Attorney General still seems motivated to stay on not out of loyalty but to preserve his chance to pursue his own far-right conservative agenda of rolling back civil rights enforcement, fighting affirmative action practices at universities and green-lighting the resumption of asset forfeiture by local police departments
- he stated he would purposely undermine current laws regarding health care funding in order to intentional tank "Obamacare" harming millions of citizens
- he issued a military policy statement via Twitter (???) which was immediately rejected IN PUBLIC by the military leadership
- he denigrated the General commanding troops in Afghanistan because he can't figure out why we haven't won the war after 16 years which was immediately leaked by his own staff
- he is fabricating phone calls from organizations and governments lauding his "bigliness" that never happened
- he is triggering staff to leak transcripts of phone calls and meetings refuting his public claims
While this is going on, we have an insane idiot totally disconnected from reality threatening the country. (I mean Kim Jong Un, not Trump, in case that description wasn't clear enough). Trump has been literally threatening war with North Korea. THAT fact is frightening enough. However, it isn't clear at all if Trump is suitable for command. Think about it.
Half of the appointed senior staff positions in the State Department have been left vacant -- not what you want during or after a war.
It isn't clear if military leaders trust his direction or mental state.
It isn't clear if his own senior staff trust his direction or mental state.
It isn't clear if the complete absence of trust allows him to have any seriously confidential conversation that won't get leaked.
It is pretty clear now the VAST majority of American citizens do not trust him.
How would Donald Trump possibly fulfill his duty as Commander in Chief in this environment, created entirely by his own intellectual / ethical / moral shortcomings and lack of impulse control?
Putting a finer point on the question... Would YOU want to serve or have a family member serve in the military and go to war with Donald Trump calling the shots?
If he can't be trusted to responsibly handle that fundamental duty, he needs to be impeached and removed from office. To those that would say Pence would be worse, note that the impeachment mechanism doesn't have a four-year hold after Congress hits the EJECT button. The only limit on impeachment is the willingness of the House to invoke it. It is also worth mentioning there is some chance that Pence could wind up ensnared in this as well. A member of the House wrote a letter to Pence PRIOR to the beginning of the Trump Administration with concerns about Flynn's prior dealings as a foreign agent. Yet Pence didn't seem to object to Flynn's appointment and provided cover for Flynn on Face the Nation stating Flynn had no campaign-era contacts with Russian officials about sanctions imposed by the US. That was quite a claim to make, given that Pence was not INVOLVED in the campaign until the convention so by making that claim, he was implying he ASKED about the issue, was given an answer of NO and conveyed the party line, despite knowing at the time of the question that Flynn had acted as a foreign agent.
WTH
