Crossing the Line

The Red Line:  In July Trump said that probing his finances would constitute crossing a really bigly red line.  Well, it looks like Special Counsel Mueller has already crossed that line.  Several news sources, including a German newspaper, report that Deutsche Bank received a subpoena from Mueller requesting information about its relationship with Trump and his family. This is significant because Deutsche Bank is the only major bank that regularly lends to Trump’s real estate businesses, at the time of the election Trump owed approximately $300 million to the bank.  It’s not just Trump who is a beneficiary of Deutsche Bank’s largesse, son-in-law Kushner’s real estate business closed on a $285 million Deutsche bank loan right before the election.  Deutsche Bank has a history of engaging in sketchy activities, as recently as January they paid $620 million in fines related to a “mirror trades” scandal in which their Moscow operation facilitated trades with Russian entities that allowed for rubles in Russia to be transformed into dollars in London and New York. The process bypassed tax officials, currency regulators, and anti-money-laundering controls. “Coincidentally” a continuing investigation into Deutsche Bank’s activites by the Justice Department, initiated by former US Attorney Preet Bharara has become inactive ever since Bharara was fired.  Mueller is likely examining Trump’s records to see if any of Deutsche Bank’s Russian money laundering activities passed through Trump real estate assets and to determine if any of Trump’s Deutsche loans were sold to Russian banks giving Putin’s oligarchs undue financial leverage over him.  Trump’s legal spokesman Jay Sekulow denies that the subpoena for Trump’s records has even been issued, but then again Sekulow is generally clueless and has already proven that he has no problem issuing misleading statements. For their part Bloomberg, Reuters and the German paper that first published the story all stand by their reporting, the line has been crossed. Trump must be sweating bullets, so far he has responded by attacking individual members of Mueller’s team for their errant texts and emails but it’s hard to believe that he isn’t planning a more robust assault against Mueller. With all the focus on the Deutsche bank records it might have been easy to miss that Ty Cobb, Trump’s in-house lawyer for all things Russian, walked back Trump’s other lawyer John Dowd’s earlier assertion that presidents can’t be found guilty of obstructing justice by saying that “there is no strategy of which I'm aware to rely boldly on the proclamation that obstruction is always impossible with regard to a president." With the exception of Alan Dershowitz, who seems to be making a career out of defending Trump whenever he can get cable air time, most constitutional experts agree with Cobb.     

Spy vs Spy:  According to The Intercept, an online investigative news source, Trump is considering a set of proposals, presented by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, intended to provide the White House and CIA Director Mike Pompeo with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official US intelligence agencies. Prince is the guy who once traveled to the Seychelle Islands on Trump’s behalf to attempt to set up a back channel communication link with Putin.  One of Prince’s advisers for the Spy vs Spy scheme is Oliver North, a key figure from the Iran-Contra scandal who also appears frequently on Fox News. The plan is being pitched to the White House as a means of countering all of those “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community who live to undermine Trump’s presidency.  In addition to pitching the concept to Trump, Prince has also started seeking funding for the plan by pitching it to some of Trump’s major donors possibly including his billionaire sister, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Early Tuesday when asked about this a White House spokesman provided a blanket denial, then during the daily news conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders sidestepped the issue saying that she didn’t know anything about it, by the end of the day the White House conceded to the New York Times that they have been reviewing a proposal to create the shadowy intelligence entity but haven’t made any final decision.  As a continuing cartoon in Mad Magazine, this is funny, in real life it’s scary as shit.

Moore Men Behaving Badly:  Facing multiple harassment claims John Conyers Jr, Detroit’s 88 year old Democratic Congressman resigned yesterday, endorsing his son, John Conyers III to serve as his replacement.  Trump continues to enthusiastically support child molester Roy Moore from afar leaving the heavy lifting to his Mr. Outside Steve Bannon who traveled to Alabama yesterday to join Moore at a campaign rally.  While there, Bannon who was treated like a rock star, lauded Moore’s strength of character, and by strength of character he means Moore’s willingness to support Trump’s priorities and his ability to be a thorn in the side of mainstream Republican leadership.  Bannon attacked Moore’s competitor Doug Jones, but saved some of his harshest words for his newest arch enemy former presidential candidate and possible candidate in waiting Mitt Romney, also throwing some shade at Senator Jeff Flake who earlier in the day had tweeted out a copy of the $100 check that he sent to the Doug Jones campaign fund.   

Financial Concerns:  Tax reform legislation is moving forward but its terms remains in flux.  Facing a possible uprising from California’s Republican delegation, the clueless group that has finally woken up to the reality that supporting the elimination of the state and local tax deduction will likely shorten their careers, House Republicans are considering changing the tax bill to allow for more favorable treatment of state and local taxes. However, to meet the needs of the high tax state crowd they will have to come up with another source of revenue and so far haven’t agreed on what that source should be.  It’s not clear if Senator Collins is feeling any remorse for her foolish decision to support the tax bill in exchange for promises from Majority Leader McConnell that he would support her health care “to do” list.  House Speaker Ryan is now on record saying that he never agreed to any of McConnell’s promises and therefore has no intention of helping with their fulfillment.  While the tax plan stumbles forward, the government shutdown is looming and despite their bluster, the fractious Republicans are unlikely to reach any agreement on their own so the Nancy and Chuck show is back on.  Thursday the two Democrats will try to extract some promises from Trump in exchange for their votes to keep the government running past Friday.  Stay tuned.  

Jerusalem:  Today Trump will formally announce that he is recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel but formal recognition by the US is likely to result in regional violence, several Palestinian factions have already called for three days of rage and the State Department has issued a travel warning to US citizens.  The recognition will most definitely upset all our allies to the extent that we have any left.  Despite the announcement, Trump’s action won’t do much more than stir the pot since he plans to simultaneously sign another one of those six month waivers leaving the embassy in Tel Aviv for now.  It will be years before the US embassy in Tel Aviv is actually moved to Jerusalem and by then another White House resident may decide to leave it in place.  Seems like the worst of all outcomes, violence without a move.  Another example of shrewd Trumpian diplomacy.