Commander-in-Thief

There’s no other way to say it… I’m worn down and disheartened by what’s happening in Washington. I still believe that fairness, goodness, generosity, cooperation, and compassion are core values to most Americans, but when the President and his surrogates lie to us, when reporters are jailed (W. VA), body slammed (MT), or referred to as “enemies of the state” (POTUS) for simply asking questions, when Russia is praised and courted and NATO snubbed and denigrated, when legislation is crafted to harm the poor and enrich the wealthy it’s obvious that our core values are under siege. But keep reading… I have a theory.

Congress is deaf, dumb, and mute (as confused as we are), while the only three honorable men in the cabinet – McMaster, Mattis, and Kelly – are endangering their own reputations by defending the President’s boorish behavior at the NATO and G7 conferences in Europe.

You couldn’t make up the unfolding scenarios; there are elements of House of Cards, Scandal, The Americans and Homeland blended into the actions in Washington. Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright have both said that, try as they might, the imaginative writers at House of Cards can’t stay ahead of the real life plotlines at the White House. Russian interference in the election. Secret meetings with Russian intelligence officers. Clandestine meetings in the Seychelles. A meeting with the KGB-trained president of a sanctioned Russian bank. Group amnesia. Suspicions of money laundering in Cyprus. Racist leadership at the Department of Justice. A climate denier heading the Environmental Protection Agency. A rich woman with no public school experience in charge of the Department of Education. A doctor/Congressman linked to insider trading in healthcare stocks heading Health and Human Services. Connecting the dots is not a problem, they’ve bled together and become a stain. The strands of the rope are weaving themselves together. The noose is tightening, but we are still waiting for those tax returns from the Commander-in-Thief.

Inside the White House, chaos is the modus operandi. Nobody can keep Grumpy happy. Reince Priebus is trapped in the middle of the Kushner Bannon turf war. Kushner hates Bannon. Bannon thinks Kushner is a Democrat. Bannon is losing influence while his little toady, Stephen Miller, becomes a rising star. Sean Spicer is under siege because he can’t explain away The Donald’s gaffes, and Corey Lewandowski is on his way back to take on the role of attack dog.

I ask myself on a daily basis what I can do to raise awareness and redirect the vector back to American core values. The good news is that I think it will happen. Whether you call it a pendulum swing or return to sanity, change will happen and balance restored. Pundits are calling for impeachment. Treason is being mentioned. I think Trump is scared and Kushner has been outed for trying to create a back channel directly to Putin.

In the end we’re back at the beginning. This is about money. This is about a vast criminal enterprise designed to enrich the Trump and Kushner families. Follow the money. After the four Trump casino bankruptcies in the ‘90s, no one would loan Trump money. Enter the Russians. Don Jr. has bragged about the extent of Russian investment, but because Trump Sr. has withheld his tax returns we don’t have the details. Even if we had the returns it is likely that the source of funds would be hidden in shell companies, LLC’s, and other offshore entities. These investors will be unmasked by the FBI and Special Counsel but it will take time. It always does.

Jared Kushner is at the heart of the Trump/Russia scandal, and like his father-in-law before him, his greed has put him in financial hot water. The President’s 36-year-old son-in-law is no choir boy though he looks like one. His father, convicted of 18 felonies including tax evasion, tax fraud, and witness tampering spent two years in federal prison but built a successful family real estate empire that his son runs. Nevertheless, Jared’s 2007 purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion and the financial crisis of 2008 left him with a mountain of debt and constantly on the lookout for new money. Earlier this year a Chinese investor pulled out of a deal that would have made him whole. Kushner’s 666 problem is still there and he needs a bailout.

My theory is that Jared’s reckless approach to the Russian Ambassador and his attempt to open a secret encrypted “back channel” to President Putin was part of a plan to exchange sanctions for money. If the back channel had succeeded, the Trump and Kushner companies would have found a limitless source of capital in exchange for the lifting of Russian sanctions. The Trump/Kushner real estate empires would have the financing potential for worldwide expansion and Russian intrusion into former Soviet states would have gone unopposed. This is treason; a straight up quid pro quo – unlimited capital for the Trump/Kushner families and the release of sanctions for Vladimir Putin and his gang of thieves.

It isn’t clear whether a sitting president can be indicted, but it is clear that once removed from office criminal prosecution is possible. First comes impeachment, then comes the criminal prosecution. My best guess is that if the Special Counsel uncovers the truth and a successful Bill of Impeachment is brought, Trump, Kushner and their associates (Manafort, Flynn, Page, etc.) might end up on the pointy end of a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) prosecution. Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General has mentioned the possibility, and Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York that Trump fired was also working on a similar case against the Trump organization. Have you noticed that Trump has not returned to New York since the inauguration? Is he avoiding a confrontation with Schneiderman?