Fascinating Esquire/GQ articles: All of Trump's Problems Seem to Perpetually Come Down to Money

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All of Trump's Problems Seem to Perpetually Come Down to Money
And Mueller knows it.

This is a story from GQ that got by me during the holidays but now that I’m temporarily living in Hothworld, I’ve had a chance to catch up with it. It seems that Ivanka Trump once owned a jewelry company that may well have been involved in an international conspiracy to fluff and fold.

In late June, the Commercial Bank of Dubai sought—and later received—permission to subpoena Ivanka Trump’s now-defunct fine jewelry line, claiming its diamonds were used in a massive scheme to hide roughly $100 million that was owed to the bank, according to filings at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The story is complicated, as most alleged money-laundering schemes are. Among other principals, It involves various emirs and their banks. But, as Tim O’Brien points out in Bloomberg, it certainly falls neatly into the way the Trump Organization has been doing business as an alleged laundromat for dubious money from around the world, especially Russia.

The Trump family has had longstanding real estate and licensing dealings with questionable business associates, some of them Russian and some of them not, as I and reporters like the late Wayne Barrett have written about for years. The family's recent departure from its ill-fated Trump SoHo hotel project, and its partnership with career criminals like Felix Sater, are reminders of how problematic some of those deals will be in the context of Mueller's investigation. While Trump allies have recently targeted Mueller's probe as ill-founded, tainted with prosecutorial bias, and the work of a conspiracy orchestrated with Democratic partisans and the "deep state," the reality is that Mueller — a well-regarded, veteran prosecutor — has been running a by-the-books investigation. It's an investigation that is likely to continue examining matters beyond political collusion — which Mueller's original mandate allows for — and will continue to involve explorations of financial dealings by the Trump family and members of the Trump campaign (particularly those involving Russia).

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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14751577/trump-russia-all-about-money/
https://www.gq.com/story/ivanka-trump-jewelry-business
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This Icarus Presidency is about to crash to earth--and not a moment too soon.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Trumps were in the money laundering business for criminals.

Just jaw dropping.

I never knew there was so much money to be made from money laundering.
And how do all these criminal connections not influence public policy now?

[smirkymonkey]

2. Looks like Ivanka and Jared are going to get matching orange jumpsuits!

How cute!

[Jim Lane]

4. Does the Bureau of Prisons buy jumpsuits made in China?

I'd want the happy couple to feel right at home.

[Scurrilous]

3. K&R