Mueller Wrapping Up the Final Report: Ribbon and Bow Waiting to be Placed on the Package

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More on “the hunt for Trump” – his long history and his ties to Russia are worth remembering and all the connections that the Mueller probe is tying together and which is heating up outlined here from Slate and also related to this same subject my previous post here:

The highlights:

1.  Trump has long wanted to do business in Russia.

2.  Trump has a long history of traveling to Russia as a high-profile American businessman.

3.  Trump-connected people including family members are also linked to Russia and to their intelligence services and Mafia, who in turn have brought real estate properties and have worked with Trump and his family members.

4.  It can be difficult to separate high-level Russian business dealings from the Russian government ties – a well-known fact.

5. Trump and many of his associates have either made, or tried to make, money in Russia and other former Soviet countries. There is almost always an unofficial price to making significant money in Russia, often in the form of favors that the Kremlin will seek to advance its political agenda.

(Recently discovered example: Trump offered in return for building Trump Tower in Moscow that he would give a $50 million penthouse to Putin as a return favor and show, I guess, good faith in the final building deal).

Trump appears to have struggled for years to secure a major deal in Russia, possibly for lack of a political patron, or krysha (literally in Russian means “roof” but in Russian slang has come to mean: 

“Protection money that is money paid to a powerful person or organization for protection from their enemies or business rivals.”)

But, by mid-2016 he looked like an increasingly viable candidate for victory in the presidential election.

The Kremlin may have begun to eye Trump not only as a candidate who could hurt Hillary Clinton simply by campaigning against her but as a potential president who could be enticed into doing the Kremlin favors by the prospect of lucrative business deals in the former Soviet Union. 

This has always been the major question hanging over Trump as potentially winning the White House, and now all evidence points to that angle that Mueller is building a case for and may be poised to get to the bottom of this whole mess via that route.

My 2 cents: Thus my honest prediction at the end of day: Mueller will present such compelling evidence of: (1) obstruction of justice, (2) illegal money laundering with Russian agents via Trump properties, etc., (3) emoluments clause violations, (4) bribery (e.g., offering Putin a $50 million Penthouse as recently as late June 2016 after Trump became the GOP presidential candidate), (5) and other high crimes and misdemeanor charges (e.g., perjury, abuse of power, unfit for the office).

It will be so compelling that no Republican would dare look the other way and not vote to impeach (in the House, or to remove in the Senate)...

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