Senator Lindsey Graham expressed interest in investigating Donald Trump’s finances as part of his subcommittee’s probe into Russian election interference following the hearing with Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper yesterday. He later walked back the severity of his comments by saying he was not prepared to subpoena documents out of concern that it could interfere with the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between Trump campaign persons and Russian operatives.
However, it appears that even when actions fall painfully short, powerful people at least saying the right things can have good outcomes. CNN is reporting that the Senate Intelligence Committee has requested information on the Trump campaign’s finances from the Treasury Department today.
Specifically, they requested information from FinCEN, the division responsible for preventing and investigating money-laundering. This should remind us of Senator Amy Klobuchar’s pointed line of questioning for FBI Director James Comey during the Intelligence Committee hearing regarding the use of real estate to launder money by foreign agents. It is known that both Chinese and Russian buyers have purchased Trump real estate for higher than the market value in the past; the Senate seems to finally be interested in finding out the details of these transactions.