General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFound elsewhere... a slow walk to an ironclad impeachment case?
Seems to make sense but the urgency necessary needs to accelerate
And now I need to check out Craig Ungers House of tRump
From Thomas Clay Jr.:
House Democrats have a strategy for removing Trump from office. Not only is it a good strategy, its the very best strategy available in terms of both substance and timing. This thread will explain what the House is doing and why.
First, House Dems know they can vote to impeach Trump right now on multiple bases, including obstruction of justice, violations of the Emoluments Clause, gross unfitness for office, and more. They also know the Senate will NOT convict for any of that. Rather than rushing to impeach and failing to get a conviction, House Dems are working hard to put together an ironclad (using Pelosis words) case against Trump. The centerpiece of the ironclad case is that Trump is compromised by money laundering for Russian oligarchs.
House Dems are betting it all that Trump is compromised by Russian money laundering. They already know its true and they know where to get the evidence needed to prove it: from Trumps bankers (Deutsche Bank) and his tax advisors (Mazars).
Getting evidence from Deutsche Bank/Mazars has been the primary focus of House General Counsel (Douglas Letter) ever since he was hired by Pelosi in January. Subpoenas were issued to Deutsche Bank/Mazars back in April and the cases have been working their way through the courts.
The strategy is sound and the House should get the documents from DB/Mazars by November of this year, a full year before the election:
Once House Dems get the DB/Mazars documents, they have a team in place to analyze them, namely Daniel Goldman (former SDNY deputy chief of organized-crime unit) and Daniel Noble (former SDNY co-chief of the complex frauds and cybercrime unit).
Goldman and Noble will put together a killer case showing Trump to be a career money launderer for the Russians. This not only makes him a criminal, but it also means hes compromised and beholden to Russia. This is way beyond any of the other evidence against Trump; this is nuclear.
Once the case is built, Pelosi will take the podium and announce formal impeachment hearings, complete with the smoking gun. Pelosi will detail the evidence House Dems have gathered and the electorate will suddenly awaken from a long, gaslit slumber.
Dont worry, all the other goodies will be in the Articles of Impeachment: the emoluments violations, the obstruction, the racism, the lying, the rapes, all of it. But the nuclear bomb is the money laundering. And its not just a little bit of money laundering, its massive.
If you want to know more about the money laundering, read
@craigunger's #HouseofTrump, listen to episode 4 of
@AssetPodcast, and read up on what Deutsche Bank already has admitted to in terms of money laundering. Its vast and it will blow your hair back.
And we know all that just from whats public. Imagine what we will find when we get the receipts. You can bet Goldman/Noble are licking their chops. And its not just Russia: Letter said during oral argument on 8/23 they are looking at money laundering for Russia AND the Saudis.
Now that we know that the money laundering evidence is the centerpiece of the case and is on a November 2019 timeline, we can see that everything else is being timed to coincide with November. Can you hear the steady drumbeat of Dems supporting impeachment? Thats on purpose!
And how about the obstruction case? Why isnt that moving faster? Well, it seems to be on pace to reach a crescendo right around November. And keeping the powder dry until November has a side benefit: the bombs start exploding right as Trumps re-election campaign takes flight.
My guess is impeachment hearings run 3 months, with impeachment referred to the Senate around March 20. Thats not going to be fun for GOP Senators up for reelection in November 20. Are they really going to acquit in the face of all that evidence right before the election?
My guess is that #MoscowMitch tries to become the hero at that point by trying to get Trump to step down and not run for re-election. If you think #MoscowMitch wont throw Trump under the bus to save his own ass, you dont know #MoscowMitch!
Any way you slice it, the House Dem strategy is VERY bad for Trump. He definitely will be impeached for truly explosive crimes. He may very well be convicted in the Senate. And even if hes not convicted, his re-election campaign will be besieged. Bottom Line: Trump is DOOMED....
mwooldri
(10,301 posts)Not just a single gun.
NCLefty
(3,678 posts)elleng
(130,768 posts)dweller
(23,617 posts)is the early initial FBI eyes on the prize, the taps on trump tower Russians, and the name trump showing up, and investigating further...
then 2016, and look where we are now?
they knew he was criminal early on
✌🏼
triron
(21,984 posts)Moral Compass
(1,513 posts)marble falls
(57,014 posts)argument.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)DemocracyMouse
(2,275 posts)Funny how I forgot about that money laundering thing! Trump has churned out so many AWFUL actions that certifiable crime got lost...
Your November D-Day, plus this amazing recap, give me hope:
https://democraticunderground.com/100212485698
Kid Berwyn
(14,808 posts)How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.
By CRAIG UNGER
The New Republic, July 13, 2017
Excerpt...
But even without an investigation by Congress or a special prosecutor, there is much we already know about the presidents debt to Russia. A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money. Some ran a worldwide high-stakes gambling ring out of Trump Towerin a unit directly below one owned by Trump. Others provided Trump with lucrative branding deals that required no investment on his part. Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics. They saved his bacon, says Kenneth McCallion, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration who investigated ties between organized crime and Trumps developments in the 1980s.
Its entirely possible that Trump was never more than a convenient patsy for Russian oligarchs and mobsters, with his casinos and condos providing easy pass-throughs for their illicit riches. At the very least, with his constant need for new infusions of cash and his well-documented troubles with creditors, Trump made an easy mark for anyone looking to launder money. But whatever his knowledge about the source of his wealth, the public record makes clear that Trump built his business empire in no small part with a lot of dirty money from a lot of dirty Russiansincluding the dirtiest and most feared of them all.
Trump made his first trip to Russia in 1987, only a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Invited by Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin, Trump was flown to Moscow and Leningradall expenses paidto talk business with high-ups in the Soviet command. In The Art of the Deal, Trump recounted the lunch meeting with Dubinin that led to the trip. One thing led to another, he wrote, and now Im talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government.
The money, illicit and otherwise, began to rain in earnest after the Soviet Union fell in 1991. President Boris Yeltsins shift to a market economy was so abrupt that cash-rich gangsters and corrupt government officials were able to privatize and loot state-held assets in oil, coal, minerals, and banking. Yeltsin himself, in fact, would later describe Russia as the biggest mafia state in the world. After Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin as president, Russian intelligence effectively joined forces with the countrys mobsters and oligarchs, allowing them to operate freely as long as they strengthen Putins power and serve his personal financial interests. According to James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey & Company who consulted on the Panama Papers, some $1.3 trillion in illicit capital has poured out of Russia since the 1990s.
Continues...
https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)But, how do we know it won't be a Trump assigned judge who hears these cases? That would put an end to it all, wouldn't it?
czarjak
(11,254 posts)It took time to get us here, itll take time to get us out.
Midnight Writer
(21,719 posts)If you think it's bad now, think how it will be if we impeach and lose (which are the current odds).
eShirl
(18,480 posts)if we try then at least we have a chance
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,264 posts)
The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet
-- David A. Graham
Jan 23, 2017
The Atlantic
[ ... ]
The breadth of Trumps controversies is truly yuge, ranging from allegations of mafia ties to unscrupulous business dealings, and from racial discrimination to alleged marital rape. They stretch over more than four decades, from the mid-1970s to the present day. To catalogue the full sweep of allegations would require thousands of words and lump together the trivial with the truly scandalous. Including business deals that have simply failed, without any hint of impropriety, would require thousands more. This is a snapshot of some of the most interesting and largest of those scandals.
[ ... ]