On Wednesday, Donald Trump had an interview with the New York Times in which he said … everything. He threw attorney general and early Trump supporter Jefferson Sessions under the bus. Then drove the bus himself. He followed this up by accusing former FBI Director James Comey of attempted blackmail. And he put the cherry on top of the jaw-dropping hubris-a-thon by providing his own special red line for Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Mueller was running an office rife with conflicts of interest and warned investigators against delving into matters too far afield from Russia. Mr. Trump never said he would order the Justice Department to fire Mr. Mueller, nor would he outline circumstances under which he might do so. But he left open the possibility as he expressed deep grievance over an investigation that has taken a political toll in the six months since he took office.
Asked if Mr. Mueller’s investigation would cross a red line if it expanded to look at his family’s finances beyond any relationship to Russia, Mr. Trump said, “I would say yes.” He would not say what he would do about it. “I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia.”
Mueller’s writ as Special Counsel actually has a broad degree of discretion. Not only is he empowered to address the Russian matter directly, but …
As special counsel, Mueller is "authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters," according to the Justice Department order Rosenstein signed.
That includes looking into how Trump’s business converted money from secret accounts at Cypriot held by Russian mobsters and into money laundering by the Trump Organization. After all, Trump was previously fined for covering up bank transactions with suspicion that money laundering was involved. And Trump’s real estate business is absolutely at the center of the conspiracy connected to the meeting at Trump Tower.
Trump’s red line around his personal and family finances is another reminder of why Donald Trump never released his tax returns—because there’s something in there. Because, as Donald Trump Jr memorably said:
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
And as Eric Trump said:
“Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”
Trump’s business over the last decade has been all about two things—pretending to be a successful real estate developer on TV, and moving lots of very shady money into the country by converting it to real estate at premium prices and pocketing big fees for this service.
The “eighth man” in the room at that Trump Tower meeting was Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze. Not only was Kaveladze a representative of the fourth large international real estate company involved in this same sort of scheme present at that meeting, his own story tells a lot about Trump’s story.
Two decades ago, Kaveladze was involved in a massive money laundering case, a case that involved a simple scheme to create shell companies in the United States, and then pass money into them through foreign banks. More than $1.4 billion dollars came into the country that way, and in the process Kaveladze created more than 2,000 shell companies.
But the whole theme of the congressional hearings held at that time was that money laundering in this way was so simple anyone could do it.
A Congressional inquiry has found that it is ''relatively easy'' for foreigners to hide their identities and form shell companies here that can launder money through American banks.
After these hearings, regulations were toughed. Between 2000 and 2011, enforcement against financial institutions using the Banking Secrecy Act was sharply increased. It became much more difficult to carry out money laundering through casinos—as Donald Trump had done, or by creating an empty shell company like those generated by Irakly Kaveladze.
But oligarchs in former Soviet territories continued to pile up billions as they benefited from state-mandated monopolies and massive amounts of lifted land, resources, and infrastructure. They needed a way to move that money.
They found that way in the lax regulations around real estate. Donald Trump didn’t sell Florida mansions to Russian oligarchs for more than twice their value because he was the world’s best salesman. He did it because the money was red hot, and Trump offered a way to cool it down … for a price.
The staffing at Robert Mueller’s office doesn’t suggest he’s filling the ranks with people out to get Trump in a political sense, but the staffing does include experts in money laundering and financial crimes. Those are the people Trump is really worried about.
And the reason he’s increasingly likely to find that Mueller can’t be allowed to stay.