Maverick's World

Trump attempts to escape Russia probe

Per the rumors doing rounds in the Trumper world, Trump is going to get a "clean chit" from SCO Mueller. Apparently Trumpers believe the GOP has agreed to get SCO Mueller to back off on arresting members of Trump family (i.e. Jared, Donald Jr, and Ivanka) in exchange for Trump giving their tax bill a free pass in law. The GOP will use its majority in the House and Senate to draw attention away from Trump by sacrificing Jill Stein on the altar of Russian' interference.

It seems the Russians are okay with this because they are able to sluice enough money out of their US real estate holdings into some Panama corporations and then transfer that money to digital currencies. The big gains are not so much in BTC but rather in other coins which can then be moved from Panama to RU backed client states in places like Cyprus, Hungary and Bulgaria. Once the alt-coins are put into these places, they are exchanged for Rubles and other currencies which can be moved around freely over the Russia EU border and used to shift loyalties inside the Grand Duchy of Moscow and ensure Putin's re-election. Once Putin is re-elected, whatever happens in DC - will all play out to his advantage regardless of whether Trump or Stein are put to the sword - or so Moscow seems to believe. 

Apparently the GOP Tax cut act still has numerous problems inside it. Most of these problems are due to the fact that the GOP wrote it up in a few days without letting any of the real local stakeholders have a look at it. An army of lobbyists wrote up the tax cuts and no one - not even the GOP senators are really sure what is in the bill and what its true legal and tax implications are. They need to have this bill passed because otherwise they not be able to keep their looted money in their own pockets. Without a chunk of cash in the pockets it is unlikely that the GOP will survive the political winters that lie ahead. As long as Trump signs off on the GOP bill and doesn't try to independently cut deals with stakeholders kicked outside the process, the GOP can keep slipping in edited versions with no one being the wiser. This is how the GOP would like to see it work out.

With SCO Mueller hot on is ass and Jared, Ivanka and Trump Jr looking at time behind bars, Trump is frightened he will end up jail too. I doubt he cares if anyone else goes to jail but he thinks he will fare poorly in a place like that. He wants to see this Russia investigation killed before it kills him. He can't handle the stress that comes with this secret investigation burning a hole under him. He knows he is guilty - so his only hope is to kill the OSC-DOJ-FBI itself. Again nothing new in that. We all knew this day would come. I suspect he tried to get OSC Mueller shut down himself via pressure on DAG Rosenstein but the public backlash at that was so intense he had to back off and choose a different approach.

This latest thing spouting from the Trumpers is "new plan".

All I can say is that this is a great plan. When I read it on paper - it looks like it could work. It is way better than all the other stupid plans I have seen come out of the Trump admin so far. All those were really nothing more than media deflections - they would never work against a real investigation.

But see - herein lies the problem - NOTHING works against a real investigation!

This is not some stupid corporate fraud case that you can just shake off. In a corporate fraud investigation no one is really concerned about the outcome, there is always the possibility of an out of court settlement.

This matter goes to the heart of nation's security. This gets to the core of national elections.

This kind of probe cannot be shut off. There is no such thing as an "out of court settlement" in a Nat Sec related investigation.

Trump has a fantastically poor grasp of what it actually means to be in the executive branch.

The instant that Trump signs off on the GOP Tax Bill - he is on the hook for delivering the results he promised to his voters and donors. He will be held to blame even if he quits. Furthermore, once the bill is signed, the GOP will collect their checks and walk out on the whole thing - saying "hey we did our job, its all in Trump's hands now". The GOP will owe him nothing. With the cash in their pockets they will be free to pursue whatever strategy is expedient to secure their re-election in 2018 including cutting deals with Russia that prejudice Trump's ability to act as the ultimate deal broker or including re-opening the investigation into Russia ties as a way of deflecting criticism for Trump's failure to do anything right.

If Trump signs off on the bill - he will be fucked by the GOP. At that point McConnell and Ryan will have won and Trump will have lost.The stalemate will end.

If Trump vetoes the bill, the stalemate  will continue and attrition losses on both sides will continue to mount.

A plan is always a good idea - we should all have a plan, but the reality is that some plans just don't work. And this is one of them. 

posted by maverick @ 5:29 AM