Friday, August 4, 2017

Yeah, It Really Is Starting to Look Like a Witch Hunt.


Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigate is suppose to get to the bottom of the fantastical media hyped Russian collusion scandal and the resulting chaos brought on by removal of uncouth creatures from the swamp. Mueller's appointment was specific: "authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the special counsel's investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses".

But after a year of rumors, false media reports, phony dossiers and not a shred of credible evidence, Mueller and company have turned to Trump's past financial dealing. Unable to find any evidence of collusion by Trump or the campaign, like rats they scurry about looking for Russians. Any Russians. 

According to the NYDaily News, they've combed through the list of shell companies and buyers of Trump-branded real estate properties and scrutinized the roster of tenants at Trump Tower reaching back more than a half-dozen years. They've looked at the backgrounds of Russian business associates connected to Trump surrounding the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. 

The FBI had a court-sanctioned warrant from 2011 to 2013 to monitor a Russian crime organization masterminded by Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov working out of a unit three floors below President Trump’s penthouse, according to a past ABC News reports.  Months after the 2013 raid Tokhtakhunov was in the VIP section of Miss Universe Moscow not far from President Trump. The President had also previously sold the rights to the Russian incarnation of the show to a billionaire developer based in the country. 

ABC has also reported just a few floors below Trump’s penthouse, prosecutors said there was an “international money laundering, sports gambling and extortion ring” run by Vadim Trincher, a Russian businessman and power player with his wife in a 63rd-floor unit. He was sentenced to five years in jail for his illegal activity at the tower.

And just what does this have to do with the 2016 election? Nothing. It's phishing. The web of financial ties could offer a more concrete path toward potential prosecution than the broader and murkier questions of collusion in the 2016 campaign. They didn't think he could win. So it's an attempt at a take-down plain and simple.