Van der Who?

Another Guilty Plea:  Special Counsel Mueller did it again, this time extracting a guilty plea from Alex van der Zwaan, a London based Skadden Arps lawyer who also happens to be the son in law of Russian oligarch German Khan, the co-owner of Russia’s Alfa Bank.  Though van der Zwaan’s crimes relate mostly to Paul Manafort and his Ukraine involvement they touch upon Trump and the Russia story in several ways. For starters Alfa Bank is currently suing Buzzfeed for publishing the infamous Steele Dossier because the dossier references ties between Putin and Alfa Bank, something the bank denies. Alfa Bank is also the entity whose computer servers were picked up having unusual amounts of interaction with the Trump company servers during the campaign.  If all that sounds mysterious and confusing, it’s because it is.  Anyway, back to van der Zwaan, he got himself into trouble by lying about a recorded 2016 conversation that he had with Rick Gates, Manafort’s partner and another unnamed Ukrainian based Manafort associate, referred to as person A, and for destroying emails related to an assignment that they had worked on together for the former president of Ukraine.  Rick Gates is the guy expected to reach a plea and cooperation agreement with Mueller later this week and he is probably the person who ratted out van der Zwaan’s deceptions.  Five years ago Manafort and Gates had arranged for Skadden to prepare what turned out to be a widely disputed report that attempted to justify the unlawful jailing of Julia Tymoshenko, a political rival of Victor Yanukovych, who was then the Putin supported president of Ukraine and Manafort and Gate’s most lucrative and possibly most despicable client, which says a lot because Manafort’s client base primarily consisted of nasty despots.  Van der Zwaan had worked on that assignment and the conversations that he lied about related to the Tymoshenko report, its dubious conclusion and the source of its financing.  Although the Skadden law firm has fired van der Zwaan and is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation, its reputation has also been tarnished by the affair since from the start its involvement and the amount and source of payment for the Ukraine assignment was sketchy.  Anyway, van der Zwaan’s legal career is now over and he faces the possibility of spending a few months in a US prison after which he will be deported back to either London, Holland or Russia.  Though it’s likely that Mueller prosecuted van der Zwaan primarily to put additional pressure on Manafort to induce him to start spilling his guts about what he knows about any Trump team shenanigans, Mueller also may be sending a not so veiled message to others in the White House, reminding them that lying to the FBI has fairly severe consequences.  At the same time, by forcefully going after the son in law of a Putin oligarch, Mueller may be sending a message to Trump that his Russian financial entanglements, to the extent that he has any, are fair game.  

The Kushner Problem:  Last week while all eyes were focused on the Parkland tragedy, White House Chief of Staff Kelly attempted to dig himself out of his Porter spouse abuse imbroglio by issuing a memo announcing that interim security clearances would no longer be valid after this Friday, a declaration that could affect the continued employment of the dozens of the people in the White House who still lack their permanent security clearances.  One of those people is Jared Kushner.  When asked about Kushner during yesterday’s White House press conference, Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to comment on the status of Kushner’s security clearance but did reaffirm the value of his contributions, highlighting his role solving Middle East peace. Her comments, like almost everything else she said during the particularly combative news conference, were odd, possibly mendacious and confusing given Kelly’s new policy.  Last night Kelly released a statement expressing his “full confidence that Kushner’s foreign policy work will not be impacted as a result of the decision to cut access to classified information for staffers with interim security clearances.” Adding “As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico.” The NY Times reports that despite his kind words, Kelly is working hard to limit Kushner’s access to top secret information and that Kushner, no fan of Kelly, is fighting back forcefully, desperately trying to stay in the top secret loop. In the end nepotism may well win out over national security.

          

Guns:  While a bus carrying the teen age survivors of the Parkland massacre was traveling to Tallahassee to lobby for gun restrictions the Republican dominated Florida state house moved quickly, rejecting a ban on many semiautomatic guns and large capacity magazines. They probably figured that it would be a lot easier to resist the sympathetic students and their impassioned arguments if the gun debate was already banished from the legislative schedule.  After months of “study,” Trump announced that he is directing the Justice Department to issue regulations banning bump stocks, the add on that turns semi-automatic killing machines into even more powerful automatic killing machines. It’s not clear how long it will take to write and implement those “complicated” rules.  Before moving forward with anything else on the gun front Trump plans to engage in a series of meetings, starting with today’s sit down with a group of those who’ve been affected by gun violence.  In all likelihood, his “study” tour will go on for as long as possible, part of an effort to appear productive while doing as little as possible because any additional actions would enrage the NRA and Don Jr, who has advised his father to remain firmly in the pro-gun camp.  As to Don Jr, he’s been busy.  He’s in India marketing Trump branded properties, making foreign policy speeches and retweeting conspiracy theories that attempt to discredit students from Parkland, calling them out as paid actors or worse.    

That Women Stuff:  One of Trump’s accusers, Rachel Crooks is now running for political office in Ohio.  Yesterday, after the Washington Post ran a story about her, Trump took to twitter to attack her accusations, claiming once again that her assertion that he had forcefully kissed her back when she worked as a receptionist in Trump Tower was false primarily because he would never do that in public in front of the Trump Tower cameras, an odd denial that implies that he would have accosted her if there were no cameras present.  Crook who had contemporaneously told several people about his actions shortly after she’d been accosted, responded by calling for Trump to dig up those old tapes.  She provided the date, time and location to help him with his search.  She also said that “he should be afraid of the truth,” however, he’s Trump, his base doesn’t really care so despite his frenetic tweeting he probably doesn’t need to be all that concerned. Also on the election front, another local seat, this one in Kentucky, went to a Democratic candidate in a district that previously went all in for Trump. Though the Kentucky House will remain in Republican hands, the number of Democratic victories in local elections is starting to look more like a trend than an aberration. As to that trend, Republicans are getting increasingly concerned.  They plan to take their objections about the new Pennsylvania redistricting map, the one that could lead to four or more Pennsylvania Congressional seats going from red to blue in the November midterms, to the US Supreme Court.  However, since the Supreme Court already declined to review their earlier suit, it’s expected that the Justices will also refuse to consider the case.  It’s still winter, but fall is just around the corner.