“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”
Abraham Lincoln
There is little doubt the greatest blessing bestowed on the United States is geography. Two oceans assure our national security. Of course, nuclear proliferation being what it is, coupled with ghoulish biological technology now available, we have become far more vulnerable to foreign danger than anyone should be comfortable with. Yet and still, no foreign tanks will be parading up Pennsylvania Avenue anytime soon… unless we invite them. At the end of the day we the people are what we have been since just past the turn of the 19th century, potentially our own worst enemy.
It’s now as clear as a bottle of Stoli that Russia engaged the Trump campaign and incoming Administration on numerous fronts with multiple people. Russian interests joined an army of social media trolls to both get Trump elected and discredit charges of collusion and overt corruption once he was sworn in. The evidence is mounting that it is reasonable to suspect this White House actively collaborated and may still be cooperating with the Kremlin. While the President rails daily about witch hunts and deep state cabals, more and more pieces of the collusion puzzle are coming together, and they present a chilling picture of foreign influence that becomes harder by the day to refute.
From probes aimed to feel out an enthusiastic Donald Jr. to an actual spy working with NRA staff and the GOP donor network to meetings in Russia with Carter Paige and now a Moscow building project Trump himself was involved with deep into the campaign, revelations are emerging one after the other, and they now connect a narrative that points to an ambitious effort by Moscow to help Trump gain and stay in power. However, the smoking gun that most clarifies Trump’s treachery won’t be found in any efforts to aid in his election, or spin his corruption, it’s going to be found in what motivated him to become a candidate in the first place. That is where the unprecedented sedition will be discovered; perhaps it already has been. To do so will require exploring the full extent of Trump’s business failures, and how financially compromised they left him.
Allen Weisselberg’s relationship with Donald Trump goes back 30 years, to a time when Fred Trump, Donald’s father, underwrote most everything his reckless son pursued. In fact, Weisselberg began his career as an accountant for elder Trump, eventually working his way up to CFO of the entire Trump Organization. Nobody, including the careless and disinterested other trustee of the Trump Organization, Donald Jr., knows more about the forensics of the Donald’s smoke and mirrors “fortune” than Weisselberg. That he testified this summer before a grand jury after being granted full immunity and has been stashed away for safe keeping surely portends damaging revelations are on the way.
You don’t have to be Columbo to recognize Trump was vulnerable to compromise. Only those without interest in the facts don’t appreciate how truly awful his business performance was through the decades. It’s now understood by all but his wretched core that the fable of young Donald building an empire from a quickly refunded $1 million loan from his father couldn’t have been further from the truth. In fact, the New York Times exhaustively exhumed more than $400 million Fred provided to cover the costs of one failure after another by a son more interested in nightlife and fame than the toil necessary to succeed. His father joined every other investor in the sad fraternity of those who lost millions supporting a plethora of belly up Trump schemes. That Fred Trump found tax fraud as a way to profit from his son’s incompetence only enhances any theories about unsavory doings.
Weisselberg seems the only one who knows where all the bodies lie, and if he accepted full immunity, Mueller’s team received a complete map. It’s a good bet that map points east, where Trump was forced to go for liquidity after fully wearing out his welcome here. After all, you can only stiff so many vendors, renege on so many agreements, default on so much debt before you become a pariah. Trump became persona non grata in American financial circles, dismissed as far more trouble than he was worth….the Roy Cohn of business.
Germany’s Duetche Bank inexplicably extended him a line of credit in the late 90s, when no US institution would let him in the lobby. Subsequent revelations of sketchy connections between Duetche Bank and Russian oligarchs provides the landscape to place Trump as a vehicle for laundering kleptocratic gains. That Trump eventually showed up with hundreds of millions in mystery cash to purchase in full at top dollar – a previously unimaginable prospect – golf properties with no profitability in sight seems more than suspicious; it’s a red flag atop a blaring siren. All of which meant nothing more than the craven criminality of a grifter bent on maintaining both his ultra-opulent lifestyle and the lie it bolstered… until somebody in Russian Intelligence sold Putin on having their very own US Presidential candidate.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has tolerated the obfuscation of his GOP counterpart Devin Nunes for just about two years now. Nunes, perhaps Trump’s most overt facilitator in Congress, has done everything in his office’s power to derail and misguide the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign. Things will change dramatically in the next session.
Schiff made clear yesterday his desire to examine Duetche Bank’s relationship with Trump as well as the head scratching all cash purchase of Turnberry Golf Club in Scotland. The increasingly unhinged tone of Trump toward the enhanced scrutiny heading his way betrays growing desperation. He appears content to pursue yet another diversion by shutting down the government and hightailing it down to Palm Beach for the holidays. It’s a safe bet the Mar-A-Lago crowd, which always seems to reinforce his worst inclinations, will have him ready for battle when he returns to the White House. That, coupled with increasing signs Mueller may be prepared to lay out all his cards on the table, means things may finally come to a head, and America may have to face the specter that it elected a Manchurian President.
More than 80 percent of Iowa Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance, and two-thirds make clear they will vote for him again. Whatever facts come forward, no matter how devastating, it’s not likely to impress millions of Americans who view anything deleterious to Trump as, not only lies manufactured to harm their champion, but sedition meant to destroy their country. They are informed by only one narrative and are unapologetic about the select number of news and information sources they trust. In other words, we are about to experience just how prescient old Abe Lincoln was, and confront what has always been our nation’s most ominous threat, a danger even our geographical blessings are powerless to stop…. Us! BC