The story so far
The story so far
As of Palm Sunday:
Backchannel-gate: The Rs hated HRC, so when Thump became the presumed nominee, they tried to curry favor with his organization by offering to share “dirt”. His organization initially claimed the purpose of the meeting was to work on issues with adopting R children. There were also suspected meetings between campaign operatives and persons linked to the Rs. This included an apparent effort to set up back-channels during the transition (flouting the rule that there is only one Prez at a time). This appears to have ensnared Michael Flynn and lead to his downfall.
Manafort-gate: The former campaign manager (along with his associate) did (and directed) covert lobbying on behalf of pro-R Ukrainian politicians, without registering as a lobbyist for foreign interests or informing the IRS about the related income. He then laundered that income through various offshore entities (including Cyprus) to fund and improve property in Arlington, Long Island, NYC, and elsewhere. His associate did some money-laundering too.
(A note: Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, also had dealings with at least one Cyprus bank.)
Faceplant-gate: Facebook let an academic access (both directly and “unknowingly” via links to about 50 million FB users) the personal data of FB users. CA obtained this data. A BBC Channel 4 undercover investigation showed a CA exec bragging about CA’s ability to use any means necessary to boost or derail a campaign. It is thought that CA used the FB data to target selected groups of US adults with messages promoting Thump and denigrating HRC. It is not clear yet if this effort was also supported by the Rs. This effort had to be financed somehow…
And the old:
Moscow-gate: Thump may have obtained funding from R sources to bankroll has own business efforts after most American banks judged him to be a poor credit risk. He made efforts to get a Thump Tower built in Moscow. He did hold the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013. There are rumors (some of them via the Steele dossier) of what he did there.
The three questions are:
Was this all pushed by R and the R supporters?
What did Thump’s circle know about R efforts and when did it know it?
Did anyone in the circle collude with the Rs/R supporters?
Remember that a DoJ investigation typically takes one to three years until indictments are made. By comparison, Mueller’s efforts so far have quickly yielded some results. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the investigation(s) (unless stopped by executive action) dragged on into 2019.
On the side:
Kushner-gate: First there was the “minor” affair of Kushner’s sister trying to lure some Chinese to invest in exchange for investor visas, and invoking Kushner’s job during the process. Now, it has emerged that after executives from two organizations met with Kushner at the White House, his in-trouble real estate firm received over $500 million in loans.
It is believed that the Qataris decided to not invest with that firm, whereupon Kushner made efforts to get Qatar to be declared a state sponsor of terrorism.
Bimbo-gate: “Stormy Daniels” and others have accused Thump of having extramarital sex. There are claims that some were paid to sign non-disclosure agreements, while another accuser sold her story to a tabloid but the Thump-friendly editor spiked it.