You want to turn some record-keeping errors and reporting failures at one of those entities into “strong evidence that Trump laundered dirty Rubles”. I’m unconvinced. Most large organizations are going to have paperwork errors and code violations. It happens, and it’s usually not taken as evidence of some criminal conspiracy on the part of the owners, most of whom aren’t involved at the day-to-day operations level where they’re even aware of these sort of things usually. But of course, in this case, the owner is President Trump, and so partisan hatred demands that “orange man bad” must press on and insist that he personally did the dirty deed. shrug
I never said I don’t consider it evidence of wrongdoing. I said I don’t think record-keeping errors and reporting failures are “strong evidence that Trump laundered dirty Rubles”, and that I don’t think all the mistakes of an organization that employs many thousands of people can be laid at the feet of its owner as if the owner personally committed them.
This is exactly why the Constitution has an emoluments clause. He is not only using his properties to receive bribes, he also has US agencies spend money at his properties.
It was the largest fine in the history of FinCEN at the time it was issued. Pointless nitpick.
The fine was not issued for record-keeping errors. It was issued for, “significant and long standing anti-money laundering violations,” and things that last for over a decade and result in ten million dollar fines can absolutely be laid at the feet of the owner. There’s no blaming Rick Perry for this one.
My second quote (and the others as well) are accurate. The links I read, and the one I gave here, didn’t mention Trump’s motivation. I made no claims about knowing better than Engle. Seriously, WTF?
Agreed, I have been given reasons and that’s all good. But even assuming his actions are like someone who is being blackmailed doesn’t mean he is actually being blackmailed. Would you agree with that? ETA: I ask because your use of the word “indistinguishable” suggests, only suggests so please correct me if I’m wrong, that you are fairly sure this is happening.
I’m going to say this is a distinction without a difference. If he is behaving as if he’s being blackmailed, then he needs to be investigated as if he’s being blackmailed.
It doesn’t matter if there’s an explicit written blackmail contract. He’s acting as if he is being coerced by foreign powers. That’s enough to use blackmail as an operating assumption and figure out the details in a congressional or criminal investigation.
Regarding the FinCEN link: It is clearly evidence of money laundering crimes/violations. It is not evidence of the laundering of rubles. Rubles aren’t even mentioned. The CNN link says
This suggests (weakly, IMO) that rubles may have been laundered. But let’s just say if this were presented in a court of law, I’m not sure the judge would allow it.
I generally agree with this. I’m not exactly sure what your standard of “behaving as if he’s being blackmailed” entails, but that is for the person charged with doing the investigating to decide.
Which is how mobsters operate. Instinctively they understand that everything they do is prosecutable unless they have plausible deniability of intent. That’s why they hide everything they do, and communicate via jokes, hints, insinuations, vague meanings, and symbolic gestures, even for stuff that doesn’t really need concealing.
That’s why we’re unlikely to see any explicit “quid pro quo”. That’s why we need transparency and professional investigators to discover the facts of the case and construct intent.
I already stated I see no significant difference between these situations, but it’s not just a binary choice either. Suppose Putin is not blackmailing Trump but Trump is afraid that Putin will because he is compromised. It’s tacit blackmail, unspoken in the mob style that Trump uses, and I’m sure Putin understands and uses outside of Russia where he can get away with anything.
You don’t need to commit a crime to be guilty of a conspiracy, nothing need change hands to establish a quid pro quo, and you may care about intentions at an emotional level but when it comes to national security and what we should do to protect it then there is no difference between malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance, we need to put an end to it and then the talking heads can spend the rest of their lives arguing about which it is.